Let's Play "Name That Code!"
Fake News written by on Saturday, July 10, 2004
Announcer: Hello and welcome to "Name That Code!", the game show that challenges geeks to identify blocks of well-known source code. But first, here's a word from our sponsor, The SCO Group:
Barl McDride: At SCO, we strive to innovate new paradigms in protecting valuable intellectual property for our shareholders and Micros... er, our valued partners. Every dollar you spend at SCO is a dollar that will protect Capitalism from the onslaght of barbarian pinko-commie European code-fascists. Support SCO... Protecting The American Dream With Appropriate Litigation(tm).
Announcer: And now, let's meet our contestants. Up first is Linus Torvalds, the alleged inventor of the Linux kernel.
Torvalds: Alleged? What does...
Announcer (interrupting): And second is Greg Glepp, a programmer for The SCO Group.
Glepp: It's good to be here.
Announcer: And finally we have Ben Krown, the leading expert in intellectual property forensics, a published author, and the member of a well-known public-policy think tank, the Alexis de Some Guy Institute.
Krown: I'm happy to be here. This show provides the perfect demonstration of the value of free-market Capitalism, something the first contestant doesn't understand.
Torvalds: Hey, wait a minute, this is a set-up...
Announcer (interrupting again): Let's play "Name That Code!"
[A giant screen drops down, revealing the following code:]
volatile void panic(const char * s) { printk("Kernel panic: %s
",s); for(;;); }
Announcer: For $128, name that code!"
Torvalds (buzzes in): I wrote that... that's from kernel/panic.c in Linux kernel 0.01!
Announcer: Wrong. Anybody else?
Krown: That's from an early version of Minix.
Announcer: Closer, but not quite. Glepp, do you know it?
Glepp: Oh, that's from SCO Unix, and was stolen by both Minix and Linux, those thieving bastards!
Announcer: Correct, for $128!
Torvalds: This is an outr...
Announcer (interrupting): Now, for $256, where does this block of Perl code come from?
sub patented_sort { while( !is_sorted( @_ ) ) { random_shuffle( @_ ); } return @_; }
Torvalds: That looks like something Microsoft would write... maybe from Windows 95.
Announcer: Wrong.
Krown: Oh, that's definitely from an early version of Minix, and I can't believe Torvalds can't recognize the same crappy code he deliberately copied into Linux.
Torvalds (shouting at Krown): Hey!
Announcer: That's not correct either.
Glepp: I've seen that code before... it's from the sort command in recent versions of SCO Unix. Of course, that code is patented, and I wouldn't want Torvalds here to get any ideas about stealing it.
Announcer: Absolutely correct, you now have $384! Now look at this code:
#define EPERM 1 /* Operation not permitted */ #define ENOENT 2 /* No such file or directory */ #define ESRCH 3 /* No such process */ #define EINTR 4 /* Interrupted system call */ #define EIO 5 /* I/O error */ #define ENXIO 6 /* No such device or address */ #define E2BIG 7 /* Arg list too long */ #define ENOEXEC 8 /* Exec format error */ #define EBADF 9 /* Bad file number */ #define ECHILD 10 /* No child processes */
Torvalds: That's from the errno.h header file of just about every version of the Linux kernel.
Announcer: Nope. Anyone else?
Glepp: It's from the errno.h file in SCO Unix -- which was then stolen by every other Unix system, including Linux. Those bastards!
Torvalds: You know, my wife is a martial arts master, and if this keeps up...
Announcer (interrupting yet again): Correct again, Glepp. You've got a commanding lead of $896 as we go into the second round! But first, these messages from our sponsors...
Voiceover: At the Alexis de Some Guy Institute, we're working on many compelling projects in the public interest: finding a cure for cancer, developing a permanent Middle Eastern peace plan, and writing a complete history of computer operating systems proving once and for that many so-called programmers are actually bald-faced liars and thieves. With your donations, we can continue our good work. Donate today!
Second voice: When you've got commies breathing down your neck, then you need to write us a big fat check, otherwise our enemies will turn the industry into a wreck, and the American dream will go to heck. Buy stock in The SCO Group today!
Announcer: And we're back. This next question is worth $1,024.
Torvalds: Before that, can I just say one thing? This is the biggest [expletive] load of [expletive] [expletive] in the [expletive] history of [expletive] [expletive]!!! I wrote Linux completely from [expletive] scratch, dammit!
Richard M. Stallman (sitting in audience, yelling): That's GNU/Linux, buddy!
Torvalds: Oh, the humanity! Make it stop! I can't... can't... can't... take...
[Linus Torvalds wakes up in a cold sweat]
Torvalds: Now that was a terrible nightmare.
[His alarm radio turns on]
Radio announcer: ...And in other news, the US Congress today voted to require all software programmers to obtain $100,000,000 worth of liability insurance before releasing any programs whatsoever. The legislation, lobbied heavily by Microsoft as a way to stem the tide of recent software thefts, is seen as a show-stopper for Linux, which according to a recent book is a total rip-off of...
Torvalds: [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive] [expletive]!!!
