Given The New York Times' poor record with stories like the Iraq story (which they have acknowledged) maybe I shouldn't be upset over a single snarky headline. (Although one good snark deserves another -- I found this illustration at the Long Hair Care Group.)

I will also stipulate that journalist Steve Lohr isn't responsible for this: R.I.P.: The Counterculture Aura of Linux. And the rest of the story is fairly responsible.

But since thousands of top executives won't get past the headline, and are bound to conclude from this that Linux is about 35-year old hippie stereotypes, it burns me up nonetheless.

The story here is that Linux creator Linus Torvalds has offered a solution to the problems that arose from the research used in fighting SCO's abusive lawsuit. That is, contributors to the Linux kernel need to sign their work so it can be traced.

That's it. That's a good idea. That will make it simple to track any future efforts at highjacking the codebase on claims of copyright.

There's no pot involved, no acid, nothing that is "cool, man" about it. And there never was. Also there's nothing about idealism that is to be sneered at by self-righteous, ignorant editors whose experience of the world is limited (most days) to the area around their computer screens.

Jeebus.