Halloween IV

Scene: Morning, Sherwood forest

Linus Hood, his trusty lieutenant Alan-a-Cox, Friar Eric, Maid Tove,

and sundry merry men enter, stage right.

Linus:

Hey, my merry men! What entertainment shall we seek in

the greenwood this day?

Alan-a-Cox:

Let us betake ourselves to the Information

Superhighway passing through this noble wood, and waylay some corporate IT managers.

Friar Eric:

Shall I go to the town of Nottingham,

Linus, and

with smooth words recruit the gossips and trade press to our cause?

Maid Tove:

And I, sweetheart, should practice my karate lest the

Sheriff’s dastards seek to lay hands on thee.

Maid Tove sidekicks a nearby tree by way of demonstration. The tree

falls down.

Linus:

And I have a new kernel release ready, the which to

dazzle our enemies with. These plans seem good. Let us away!

Merry men:

Hurrah! Hurray for Linus!

All exit, stage left .

Scene: Later that

day, Nottingham castle

Present are Ed Muth, the Sheriff of Nottingham, and his nervous

henchman Vinod.

Sheriff:

My master, King Billy, is displeased. Reports have

reached even to his palace in Seattle that Linus and his ruffians purloined another

Fortune 500 account today.

Vinod:

That’s terrible, master! If this goes on, hardware

vendors will begin to defect soon. Then how will you collect the Microsoft tax?

Sheriff:

And those jackals in the trade press have been writing

this-is-the-year-of-Linux stories again.

Vinod:

It’s dreadful, master! Dreadful!

The Sheriff rounds on

Vinod, cuffing him soundly.

Sheriff:

You fool! This is all your fault. If you hadn’t

let those damned memoranda leak, the peasants would still think we are invincible.

Vinod cringes elaborately.

Sheriff:

We need a cunning plan. Some way to trap and crush

those outlaws. Hmmm...

Vinod: Master, I have an idea. Why

don’t we write software so complicated and protocols so obscure and undocumented that

only we can figure them out?

Sheriff:

Yes. Then we will use our superior marketing forces to

cram them down everyone’s throat, and neither Linus’s outlaws nor any other

competition will be able to get a toehold in any IT shop anywhere, ever again.

Vinod:

Exactly, master. I call it "de-commoditizing".

Sheriff:

Brilliant idea, Vinod! I’m glad I thought of it.

The two put their heads

together, whispering...

Scene: Sherwood forest, That

evening

Linus, Alan-a-Cox, Maid

Tove, Friar Eric, and the merry men confer deep in the Greenwood...

Friar Eric:

I like not the rumors I have been hearing–of

some vast and complex engine the Sheriff’s men are constructing, with which to crush

us utterly.

Alan-a-Cox:

Indeed. ’Tis said it is called "Windows

2000". But the beta rollouts have been greatly delayed, and performance has been

unimpressive. I fear it not.

Linus:

We shall see, lads. On the morrow, there will be a great

benchmarking contest in the town of Nottingham, with OS developers from across the land

competing for the gold.

Maid Tove:

Linus! This smells of a trap laid for thee!

Friar Eric:

Verily. I like it not. Mayhap they will rig the

results, and seek to discredit your work.

Linus:

Nonetheless, I must attempt it. For surely they will

display their fearsome engine, and I must take its measure with my own eyes.

Merry men:

Huzzah! Hurray for Linus!

Scene: Next morning, Nottingham

Town Square

Festive crowds mill around

a number of PCs set on trestles in the square. Banners proclaim Solaris, Novell, SCO, and

names of other competing teams. On a castle balcony overlooking the crowd, the Sheriff

confers with sundry marketroids and press shills.

Sheriff:

That arrant knave could never resist a challenge to his

prowess. Mark me, he will be among the contestants somewhere.

Vinod:

Yes, master. And then?

Sheriff (smirking):

When we discover his disguise, we shall FUD

him without mercy!

Vinod:

Yes, master. I go to watch the packet

sniffers.

Linus, Alan-a-Cox, Tove,

and Friar Eric enter the square disguised as peasants.

Friar Eric:

Look! There it is! He points.

At dead-center of the town

square there looms a vast, complex and glittering device. A huge monitor stares forth from

it like a lidless eye. Below the monitor Gothic letters proclaim: Windows 2000. MCSEs

scurry about its base.

Maid Tove:

But...it’s huge!

Alan-a-Cox:

It has to be. Haven’t you seen the minimum

hardware requirements for their last couple of releases?

Friar Eric:

I’ve registered our handle with the heralds.

You’re "Robin of Helsinki", Linus. But...are you sure you want to go

through with this? I can see dozens of flacks and marketroids from here. They’re

waiting to pounce if they figureout who you are.

Linus:

Stout heart, lads! He reaches into his quiver and

withdraws a golden CD-ROM. On it is the fateful sigil "2.2".

A herald calls out: Let the

throughput trials begin!

Linus inserts the golden

CD-ROM into a nearby PC and boots it up. A vast Microsoft logo appears on the monitor in

mid-square. Other teams finish their preparations. The heralds begin simulating a typical

intranet job load on all servers. The load gradually rises.

Alan-a-Cox:

So far, so good...uh oh! We’re being

port-scanned.

Around the square, machines

are crashing. Meanwhile, on the balcony...

Vinod:

Master! Master! I think I’ve found them!

Sheriff:

Oh? Which ones?

Vinod:

Yes. They’re over there–the only contestants I

couldn’t crash with the latest CERT exploit.

Sheriff:

Curses. How do they do that? That alert has only been

on the Net for three hours!

Vinod:

Well, master, I’ve told you before that the ability

of the OSS process to collect and harness the collective IQ of thousands of individuals

across the Internet is simply amazing.

The Sheriff cuffs Vinod. Vinod cringes.

Sheriff:

Never mind that now, you idiot. We’ve got them

where we want them. Calls out: Unleash the dogs of FUD!

Various press shills and

Microsoft lackeys, alerted, begin pointing fingers at Linus and his little band.

Shill #1:

Linux has no support!

Shill #2:

It’s not a mature product!

Lackey #3:

It’s not a safe choice, like Microsoft!

Lackey #4:

Yeah, those hippies will never build anything really

complicated or difficult!

The crowd turns ugly.

Rotten vegetables appear and are waved threateningly at our heroes.

Linus:

Steady, lads, steady. Linux is still running. All we have

to do is wait...

Suddenly there is a

commotion from mid-square. Heads turn towards the giant monitor. The crowd gasps.

Tove’s soft voice is clearly audible in the ensuing silence.

Tove:

Look! Look! It’s the Blue Screen of Death!

Alan-a-Cox:

Indeed it is. They’re wedged solid.

Linus:

And Linux is still running. Nobody beats our

continuous-uptime figures!

Friar Eric:

Time for me to do my bit.

The band quickly makes its

way to the wedged Windows 2000 engine. A few MCSEs try to lay hands on them. Tove

side-kicks the luckless minions. They fall down.

Friar Eric climbs atop the

inert hulk and begins haranguing the crowd:

Friar Eric:

What you’ve seen is the power of peer review

unleashed. Yes, my friend, we’ve found a way to build truly reliable

software–publish the sources...

The Sheriff interrupts him,

screaming from the balcony...

Sheriff:

No! Noooo! Windows 2000 will be perfect when it comes

out of beta. Honest!

Linus:

Sure it will be. Just like Windows 98 was.

The crowd begins to laugh,

louder and louder. The MCSEs, lackeys, and press shills flee in confusion. Pieces begin

falling off the great engine with loud clanging noises. Vegetables pelt the Sheriff.

Sheriff:

Aaaarrgggh! My stock options! Vinod, think of

something! Vinod?

Vinod:

Down here, boss. He has slipped out the castle door at

street level.

Sheriff:

Well? Deal with them!

Vinod:

I believe I will. He walks over to Linus’s band.

Boss? I quit. I always hated the Windows API anyway, and these guys are smarter in their

sleep than you are awake.

The crowd cheers: Hurrah!

Hurray for Linus!

Exeunt omnes, laughing.

Vinod Valloppillil was the

principal author of Halloween I and Halloween II.

Ed Muth was the person

Vinod V referred reporters’ inquiries to when the Halloween Documents came out.

Tove Torvalds, Linus’s

wife, was six-times karate champion of Finland.

Eric S Raymond