You can code, but you cannot hide
DOUBTS have arisen over lines of code an anonymous submitter sent to the Linux kernel mailing list on August 6th,
here. The programmer is hiding behind a pseudonym, Shem Multinymous. Fellow Kernel programmers are divided over accepting the code or not.
The anonymous code improves a driver for an embedded controller in IBM Thinkpads. Linux users with such laptops use it to protect their hard disks from sudden shocks, for example when dropping them from their laps.
The use of this chip has been a default for years on Thinkpads running Microsoft Windows. IBM and Lenovo refuse to port the so-called 'active protection system' to Linux, claiming that patents prevent it from divulging details, so last summer, Linux programmers started to reverse-engineer the driver.
Novell programmer Robert Love, who developed a previous version of the driver, glanced over Multinymous' code: "I am glad someone has apparently better access to hardware specs than I did."
This worried one of the lead Linux maintainers, Andrew Morton. "From where did this additional register information come?" Intel's Arjan van der Ven, who sits on the Technical Advisory Board of the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), that employs Linus Torvalds, called on Multinymous to reveal himself: "Refusing to say who you are gives a strong appearance that something really fishy is going on."
Kernel programmer Pavel Machek said there is nothing mysterious going on. According to him, the driver just uses newly available public specifications. Machek went as far as to co-sign for Multinymous' code. Asked whether he knows the identity or the motive, he said: "I'd prefer not to make the situation any more complex."
To SuSE's core Linux developer Greg Kroah-Hartman, Machek's co-signing is not enough. "I'm not going to be handling these patches. If the original developer does not want to work in the open like the rest of us, I can respect that, but unfortunately I can't accept the risk of accepting their code."
Multinymous is pained by questions over his identity. He says he is contacting both Linus Torvalds and Andrew Morton to unveil himself. "I am not perpetrating some great evil, but merely submitting code for the benefit of all. I hope the community's technical journals don't stoop to probing the private lives of junior contributors." As an aside, one enterprising IBM programmer,
last month used the reverse-engineered driver to train his Thinkpad to react to certain knocks. Literally rapping on the laptop case with his knuckles makes his Laptop run commands based on those knocks.
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