Linux kernel mailing list

The Linux kernel mailing list (LKML) is a electronic mailing list focusing on the discussion of Linux kernel development. Many other mailing lists exist to discuss the different subsystems and ports of the linux kernel, but LKML provides the glue that holds the kernel development community together. It is a very high volume list, usually receiving between 200-300 messages a day.

Linux kernel mailing Controversies

Jeffrey Vernon Merkey, a controversial Linux Engineer, has participated in the Linux kernel mailing list for many years, and although some of his postings were controversial [1][2][3], they were not in the public eye. With the advent of the SCO Group's lawsuits against IBM and public claims over its alleged rights to Linux, some of Merkey's LKML postings drew increased attention and raised Merkey's public profile, which had declined since the initial prominence brought by the Timpanogas lawsuit. Many of these efforts were viewed negatively and as anti-competitive and as outright betrayal by the Linux Community and the ideals of the GPL.

"Buying Linux"

As part of a discussion regarding possible copyright infringement problems with the GPL code of the Linux kernel, as a legal thought experiment Alan Cox suggested each contributor could attach a price tag of $100,000 dollars for each of their contributions.[4] This would provide a baseline cost for infringers and for damages awarded in any legal action. The Linux kernel consists of thousands of files, and many will have been altered by multiple developers. This would set the value Linux at hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions.

In response to Alan Cox's suggestion, on October 7, 2004, Jeff V. Merkey made the following offer on the Linux kernel mailing list:

We offer to kernel.org the sum of $50,000.00 US for a one time license to the Linux Kernel Source for a single snapshot of a single Linux version by release number. This offer must be accepted by **ALL** copyright holders and this snapshot will subsequently convert the GPL license into a BSD style license for the code. [5]

Ingo Molnar estimated that the development effort to redevelop Linux kernel version 2.6 would be roughly $176M; David A. Wheeler later refined this estimate further and found the development effort would be about $612M (see "Linux Kernel 2.6: It's Worth More" in the references). In light of this, this offer perplexed many developers; even more so given the existence of several existing BSD-licensed operating systems. Many Linux developers argued that the offer was a publicity effort to insinuate the Linux kernel was a much smaller project than it is.

GaDuGi

Merkey claimed that his re-licensing offer was intended to support development of a "new and more powerful open source operating system developed and transferred to the Native American Community.", about three months after the initial LKML exchange Merkey lauched his Gadugi project. [6] This move was consistent with views expressed by Merkey such as "Linux companies have cost investors billions of dollars and resulted in the dot.com IPO scams which caused the technology stock market crash of 2002" and Merkey's characterization of Linux as a "socialist movement that has destroyed the commercial software market in America."' The project's public life was short lived with the website disappearing a few weeks later. [7] It is not known if Merkey has continued the project privately.

SCO mediation attempt

Shortly after the Linux buyout offer, Merkey posted a series of messages in which he claimed to have been in contact with the SCO Group executives regarding SCO-Linux controversies.[8] Merkey reported having seen concrete evidence of infringement in Linux, and urged Linux developers to remove XFS, JFS and NUMA code from the kernel.[9] He later offered to handle the controversy "as an advocate of the Linux Community."[10] Merkey also relayed an offer from Darl McBride that the SCO Group would certify as non-infringing any Linux system from which RCU, NUMA, JFS, XFS, SMP, and all code written by IBM employees are removed.[11] Later, Merkey announced that after conducting an off-line review with Linus Torvalds, it was clear to him that the SCO Group's claims were false.[12]

With the offer to buy Linux, other parties grew suspicious that Merkey might be acting on behalf of or in concert with the SCO Group, who were being accused of copyright infringement for their continued distribution of Linux, and to whom a BSD licensed version of Linux would be advantageous. Merkey vigorously denied this charge. The suspicion led to the Groklaw site investigating Merkey and uncovering the preliminary ruling in the aforementioned litigation between Novell and Timpanogas[13]. That lawsuit was settled with no final ruling ever issued. The preliminary ruling has subsequently been widely quoted by Merkey's detractors as it contains statements highly critical of Merkey:

... this statement is another example of Merkey's penchant for self-serving, separate reality, dishonesty ... While it is human nature for each of us to put our own spin on events which we observe ... Merkey nonetheless regularly exaggerates or lies in his comments to others about events happening around him. It is as though he is creating his own separate reality.

The "peyote offer"

As a result of his offer to buy Linux, Merkey's raised public profile brought other LKML postings to prominence. In this post [14], originating from Merkey's email address, the author announced that he had shipped a large amount of peyote for use by New York residents to help them cope with the after-effects of the September 11, 2001 attacks. (There are no other reports of such a shipment actually occurring.)

In a 2005 post to LKML, Merkey denied authorship of the "peyote offer" email following interest from news agencies, claiming that the email had been written by an unknown impersonator with access to his office computer. However, Merkey has not disclaimed authorship of numerous other posts referencing Peyote use. As with the "peyote offer" these appear to come from an email address of someone purporting to be Merkey, although they did not receive the same level of media interest. e.g. [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]. Conversely, Merkey has tried to take a stance against abusive peyote consumption in general. He has emphasized that he is not a customary peyote user, and has written an editorial for the Provo Daily Herald discouraging peyote use by Native Americans who do not use peyote as part of their traditional practice. Merkey says he is not a member of a tribe that traditionally uses peyote.

Lawsuits and threats

Threats

Merkey is well known for getting involved in disputes with others. He is also well known for attempting to resolve these disputes by threatening to escalate to a higher authority. This is often in the form of threats of legal action and, in some cases, legal action on behalf of another party. [20] [21][22][23]

A well-known example of such a threat was made after Groklaw published the Timpanogas preliminary ruling: Merkey threatened legal action "authorized" by Novell. Merkey also threatened Al Petrofsky, stating that Novell was "coming after" him. Novell has denied both.[24]

In September 2005 Merkey made threats against Wikimedia and individual editors of Wikipedia, characterizing some Wikipedia editing as "cyber-stalking". [25][26].

Lawsuits

Despite the threats, there are few examples of Merkey actually pursuing legal action. As previously noted, some of his LKML postings raised his public profile, led to speculation concerning his relationship with the SCO Group, and drew increased attention to the preliminary ruling from the Novell v. Timpanogas lawsuit. On 21 June 2005 Merkey filed a lawsuit, naming numerous defendants on a very broad range of charges, including but not limited to an allegation of libel relating to the defendant's comments regarding Merkey in relation to the SCO group [27]. Merkey created http://merkeylaw.com (since erased) to track the lawsuit.

The most notable of the defendants were

• Slashdot
• Bruce Perens - in an attempt to play down Merkey's postings to the LKML, Perens had stated that Merkey was someone to be put in people's email killfile[28]. Merkey characterised this in his lawsuit as a "file of people to kill" and therefore a death threat.[29]
• Pamela Jones of Groklaw - believed by many to be the primary target of the lawsuit, since she had previously made public the preliminary ruling regarding Timpanogas.
• John Does 1-200 - The SCOX financial message board hosted by Yahoo[30] is used by a number of vociferous individuals who had been critical of Merkey's involvement to date. Many assumed some of these individuals ranked amongst the John Does, and so ridiculed Merkey further. [31][32]

As an exhibit to his lawsuit Merkey attached the sealed settlement agreement from the Timpanogas action. Owing to a filing error, this document was publicly available for a short time. During this time Al Petrofsky, amongst others, gained access to it and made it available from his website [33], removing it a few days later. Merkey added Petrofsky to the lawsuit, with the additional charge of treason.

The initial complaint listed 208 defendants, to whom three were later added. During the course of the lawsuit five defendants were dropped after reaching agreement with Merkey.[34][35] Merkey claims to have reached agreement with Slashdot, but this has not been verified. The other 205 defendants were all dropped from the lawsuit without reaching agreement with Merkey. The final two parties were dropped on 27 September 2005 with the lawsuit being finally dismissed by Merkey.

Merkey subsequently requested the reopening of the case in order to show cause, on the basis that Petrofky's disribution of the aforementioned sealed exhibit was contemptuous. Judge Dale Kimball permitted reopening of the court noting that the order sealing the document wasn't binding on third parties, but would listen to argument. In December of 2005, Federal Magistrate Judge Samuel Alba ordered Merkey to re-serve Al Petrofsky. Petrofsky had previously written to the court listing technical issues with his original service, thereby questioning its validity.

New accusations

After he dropped his lawsuit, in December 2005 Merkey restarted his website, merkeylaw.com, and began a list of so-called "Internet Stalkers, Intellectual Property Thieves, and Internet Libelers", including some of his former lawsuit defendants, members of Wikipedia who have edited the Wikipedia article about him, and several other individuals who have attracted his attention. The page made various vague and unsourced allegations, ranging from copyright violations to pedophilia to advocacy of murder, which some of the people involved have vehemently denied, and others have ignored. Merkey had copied and distributed on his website copies of an email he allegedly sent to Jimbo Wales stating Merkey's intent to seek damages from Wikimedia Foundation for libel and invasion of privacy, although this email is currently unavailable.

Merkey petitions the U.S. Congress

As of January 30, 2006, Merkey's site was changed again, this time to a petition to the United States Congress urging them to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields Internet access and hosting providers from liability; he wants this repealed so that Wikipedia can be sued. Ironically, Merkey has himself invoked this section on his site in the past in an apparent attempt to shield himself from liability, though this mention has now been removed.

External links

• http://www.tux.org/lkml/ - Official FAQ of the Linux Kernel Mailing List.
• http://www.kerneltraffic.org/ - Periodic newsletters summarizing discussions on LKML and other open source mailing lists.
• LWN.net, a lkml news digest
• Jeff Merkey's site - The content of the site sometimes changes drastically, thus the current contents of this site may differ greatly from the former contents described above.
• Partial mirror of merkeylaw.com
• Template:News reference
• "Linux Kernel 2.6: It's Worth More!". 2006-01-09.