and the contractors (mercenaries) in Iraq

Brown flew over to Amsterdam to interview me on 23 March 2004. Apparently I was the only reason for his coming to Europe. The interview got off to a shaky start, roughly paraphrased as follows:

AST: "What's the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution?"
KB: We do public policy work
AST: A think tank, like the Rand Corporation?
KB: Sort of
AST: What does it do?
KB: Issue reports and books
AST: Who funds it?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is SCO one of them? Is this about the SCO lawsuit?
KB: We have multiple funding sources
AST: Is Microsoft one of them?
KB: We have multiple funding sources

He wanted to go on about the ownership issue, but he was also trying to avoid telling me what his real purpose was, so he didn't phrase his questions very well. Finally he asked me if I thought Linus wrote Linux. I said that to the best of my knowledge, Linus wrote the whole kernel himself, but after it was released, other people began improving the kernel, which was very primitive initially, and adding new software to the system--essentially the same development model as MINIX. Then he began to focus on this, with questions like: "Didn't he steal pieces of MINIX without permission." I told him that MINIX had clearly had a huge influence on Linux in many ways, from the layout of the file system to the names in the source tree, but I didn't think Linus had used any of my code. Linus also used MINIX as his development platform initially, but there was nothing wrong with that. He asked if I objected to that and I said no, I didn't, people were free to use it as they wished for noncommercial purposes.

Finally, Brown began to focus sharply. He kept asking, in different forms, how one person could write an operating system all by himself. He simply didn't believe that was possible. So I had to give him more history, sigh.

My conclusion is the Ken Brown doesn't have a clue what he is talking about. I also have grave questions about his methodology. After he talked to me, he prowled the university halls buttonholing random students and asking them questions. Not exactly primary sources.

"Opening the Open Source Debate," a white paper slated to be released Friday by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, indicates that open-source software is inherently less secure than proprietary software. The report warns governments against relying on open-source software for national security...

A Microsoft spokesman confirmed that Microsoft provides funding to the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution.

Recently, an obscure Washington think-tank, the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI), posted a press release promising a study which "outlines how open source might facilitate efforts to disrupt or sabotage electronic commerce, air traffic control or even sensitive surveillance systems." ...

... Who Funded the Report? ...

When I pressed further, Mr. Fossedal replied: "Lookit [sic]: I've told you our policy about discussing our donors; you may think it's appropriate or you may think it's wrong-headed, but that's it."

However, it is a matter of public record that Microsoft funds the AdTI. It's also a matter of public record that Microsoft strongly opposes the GPL, the license under which Linux is released.

The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (ADTI), a conservative Washington think tank, recently issued a paper outlining the reasons why Linux and other Open Source Software is more easily compromised by terrorists than proprietary alternatives...

...The paper further suggested that Microsoft operating systems are ideal candidates for running government computer networks...

...However, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is moving forward with open source solutions based on information in a report provided to it by Mitre, a nonprofit company that does research for the DoD, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Aviation Administration...

...When asked whether Microsoft offered the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution financial compensation for its research, a Microsoft representative later admitted that the company did in fact offer funding to the research company.

In considering both reports, then, one might wonder how one organization's results came to be in such contrast to the other's.