Alleged Infringing Code (was Re: [TriLUG] SCO Conference Call)

[Tanner Lovelace]

On Wed, 2003-08-06 at 01:33, Robertdkeys at aol.com wrote:

> Out of curiosity, and for the sake of discussion, does any part of the
> code in question date from the BSD era?  There is a lot of code of
> mixed lineage, from that era, when noone really could attribute where
> it really came from (read AT&T or Berkeley).  It would not be uncommon
> for such things to make their way, one way or another into Linux or DOS
> or even CP/M, if you are old enough to remember that.  Consider the case
> of something like BSD code, which, in the settlement cannot now be called
> "UNIX", could actually have been derived from say V7 code.  SCO originally
> generated V7 stuff as did Microsoft, and others.  It would be very easy for
> some of that code, traced from say V7 though 32V through BSD to Linux
> to look very much like code traced from V7 through SysIII through SysV
> to SCO, or even V7 to minix to Linux.  I am not saying that this did happen,
> but, if something like that did occur, then at one point in time the BSD tree
> declared that code open-source and not UNIX, while the other side of the
> tree still declared it encumbered.... both by legal agreement.  The 
> possibility
> that something like that might have occurred might make it opportune to
> diff the trees of 4.4Lite vs Linux vs SCO and really see what tidbits are in
> common.
> 
> Another possiblity is that someone inside salted the code,  just for
> the purposes of monetary gain through litigation.  Stranger things have
> happened, for the sake of discussion.
> 
> The honest way to handle it would be for SCO to openly publish the files
> in question, and the sections of the files in question, for the entire open
> source and closed source community to check, then allow time to remove
> any questionable files, if, in fact, they do exist.  I personally don't think 
> SCO
> has the balls to do this, IMHO, as is said in the vernacular.  It does not 
> seem
> to be about the code, but about money..... sad.....very sad.  SCO will be
> ultimate loser, in the end, and go bankrupt, and the real UNIX code might
> wind up in opensource hands.....after all.  Wouldn't that be a trip!
> 
> I can see the headline, now...."UNIX source code bought by opensource
> community!"  News at 11.....
> 
> am I dreaming.....?  Time will tell....
> 
> Bob Keys

Hi Bob,

There has been much speculation about what the alleged infringing code
is.  SCO has actually come out, however, and named it.  They claim
to own Read Copy Update (RCU, developed by Sequent which is now
owned by IBM), Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP, development partly
funded by Caldera), Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA, early development
partly done by SGI), and the JFS filesystem (Done by IBM originally 
for AIX, then completely reimplmented from scratch for OS/2 then ported
from OS/2 to Linux).  SCO has publicly stated that no, they don't own
any of the copyrights to said code but because of their UNIX contracts,
and because all the things were developed originally on UNIX derivative
OS's (AIX, etc...) that SCO has the right to control them.  IBM, 
however, says that their contracts with AT&T (the original owner of
UNIX) give IBM the rights to all the code they developed in house.
So, basically, it boils down to a contract dispute.  I'm not even sure
where the stuff about linux users comes from besides a deranged mind.
They want people to pay but won't prove to them they should?  In any
other place they would be laughed out the door.

For some very good commentary on the entire SCO situation, I highly
recommend Linux Weekly News.  Specifically, here are a couple of
good commentaries:

"Does SCO own Read-Copy Update" - http://lwn.net/Articles/36164/
"SCO's New Offensive" (scroll down) - http://lwn.net/Articles/40201/

They keep coming up with excellent commentary and analysis but if you
want to read it in real-time you'll have to subscribe.  If you don't
want to or can't subscribe, you can still read what they have only
you'll have to wait a week. (Note that I have no affiliation with them.
I have, however, been reading them every week since they started in 1997
or 1998).

Cheers,
Tanner
-- 
Tanner Lovelace | lovelace(at)wayfarer.org | http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
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