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Did SCO 'Borrow' Linux Code?
An Anonymous Reader writes "Apparently someone inside SCO has stated that SCO(actually Caldera) copied Linux code into System V. They did it to build what they now market as Linux Kernel Personality - the ability to run Linux software on their Unix. Now, the open source community(of course they don't mention who) is jumping on this, because they didn't return the changes to the OS community or give the community credit. Of course, SCO says it's a misunderstanding and, get this 'SCO also never used any of the Linux kernel code.'"
I would really like to see documentation on this "offending code" to prove that it was theirs.
... no answers.
Otherwise, how do we really know who added it and when? What if it was pre Sys V code? What if the code came from Linux in the first place?
I have heard that the comments were the same, but who made the comments? Is there a name? Does he/she work for SCO?
Lot's of questions
This is the last gurgle of a dying corperation. SCO produces, for all purposes, nothing. Why didn't they pursue these claims when they manufactured Caladra, a form of Linux? because they know they're groundless. There's no way that the Linux kernel isn't in public domain. To try to prevent distribution based on 80 lines of code of a program with thousands of lines is ridiculous. Not only that, but any 80 lines of code could be easily removed, thus SCO can't reveal it. When this goes to trial and they're forced to reveal the lines of code and the lines are promptly removed, no one will care and SCO will fade into obscurity. Good Riddance.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Exactly .... I was wondering the other day ... if the code examples Sco are showing are identical ... how do they prove who had it first... or even which is which.
If you belive the merits of this claim....If you belive them, now's your chance to cash out from the pot those greedy bastards at SCO have on the table...it's something like $9.50 / share now! ....grab it... .....SELL SHORT.....first thing when the market opens....
Take all of that money before the greedy bastards grab it off the table!!!!....Monetary damages are the only thing the SCO mgmt. and the speculators funding this operation respect. Take their money before they figure out that the knife cuts both ways...
It's also interesting to note just how easily SCO found their code in Linux; you'd think it'd be too difficult to find such things unless you were looking...or if you already knew they were there...
SCO sues IBM because they use Linux code that SCO says has SCO code in it. Novell says Unix isn't SCO's. SCO says Unix is theirs to exploit. Linux geeks angered by SCO says SCO copied Linux code into its products, ... etc etc ...
:
...
When I was, oh what?, five years old, I remember that kind of talk in the courtyard at school during recess
- Hey, Johnny stole my yellow marble
- No I DID NOT !
- YES YOU DID !
- It's not your marble anyway, it was mine, I just told you to borrow it, I didn't give it to you
- I'll tell my Mom Bruce stole Robert's marble, and you'll be GROUNDED !
- I DID NOT !
- YES YOU DID !
Replace one of these kids by SCO, another by Novell, a third by IBM, a fourth by the Linux community, the one who tells Mom by Microsoft, the courtyard by the computer industry and Mom by the DOJ and there you have it.
*sigh*
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
No duh. How many people have been saying this? AND how many people are ignoring the fact that SCO group themselves released the "offending" code under Caldera? Everyone but IBM it seems, since they think this lawsuit is frivolous.
The moderator who modded you "insightful" was on crack, because you completely failed to read the article. Timothy is suggesting that SCO may have copied (presumably GPLed) code from Linux into their proprietary Unix[tm]. If true, the repurcussions could be, erm, quite interesting.
As lore would have it, the original USL suit against BSD and Berkely University broke up on the rocks for a similar reason.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Here's what I've been wondering: if linux has code that's the same as code in SCO unix, why assume that linux copied it from SCO and not vice-versa? You can't just point to code that's the same and say "Aha! linux copied!".
It's not about seeing the same code in both places, it's about establishing which was developed first. You can't look at just the current version of either linux or SCO - you have to look at the change history of the common code. In one version, the code should show some evolution over time - across RCS versions, or across versions of kernel releases. In the copied version, a whole bunch of code will have appeared "Poof!" all at once. You can't just look at the surface - you have to look beneath the surface, into the code's history.
Of course, there is the possibility - I consider it unlikely - that large chunks of code appeared in both places all at once. This will mean that the code was developed over time external to whichever version of linux or SCO unix had it first, then copied in as part of a major rev... but somebody, some developer somewhere, will have interim versions, notes, design docs. Code doesn't just spring from the head of Zeus - it evolves, and whoever developed it will have to be found to prove its origin.
Except you're wrong. SCO has evidence. This is a rumor.
To be precise, SCO is spreading rumours that they have evidence.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
"Did SCO Violate the GPL?"
No. If they had published Linux code as proprietary software, they have violated the copyright law.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
However, I'd be very surprised if Microsoft used anything from Linux, considering it's actually legal and therefore far more tempting to use something from the BSDs, and there are not many features Linux has but the BSDs lack.
No, they had to reimplement it because while you can make BSD code GPL you can't take it the other way, at least without copyright holders permission. They were free, of course, to look at the linux code while doing it, making it a relatively easy task. Probably if you looked there are sizeable chunks of identical code and comments there too. I bet the header files are a real treasure trove for those.
Identical chunks of code and comments do not prove copying or copyright infringement. It takes more, in a case like this, because there are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons for it to occur. To determine if something illegal happened, whether we're talking about Caldera copying from Linux or vice versa, you've got to do a much more fine-grained analysis than just counting lines that match.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Maybe someone else has standing as well (were those intimidation letters legal?) but I suspect the interesting stuff won't happen until IBM's lawyers start speaking up. They're suspiciously quiet at the moment.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Challenging the GPL in court is on a hiding to nothing.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
I think you are underestimating IBM's interest in Linux. IBM is doing well largely due to Linux. What do customers want? Freedom from lockin. The only way to give that to them is by selling services around non-proprietary software. I don't think IBM would settle this for a dollar and let SCO take control of Linux. It doesn't make sense.
Besides, I have never heard of any public domain, BSD, or GPL copyright being slurped up into a propriety product because of the proprietary product's "overriding interest", or what have you.
...and...
So... when they distributed their UNIX with the LKPM included (their "work") and that contained GPLed code, they accepted the terms of the GPL. But they have not distributed, or offered to distributed, the source to their (now GPLed, since the accepted the terms) "work".
This means that either they violated the GPL after agreeing to it. The owners of the copied code will band together and sue them for $2G, I hope, and settle for costs plus distribution of the full source of UnixWare 7 distributed as per the licence agreement SCO acceded to. Just to labour the point, they have already distributed derivative code, so halting distribution does not undo their requirement to distribute full source.
Do I need to make it simpler for you?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
So they claim, but install the sources from an old Cladera linux distro. Grep for Caldera and see the code they contributed. Infact they even say it's GPLed in there comments. Is it cut and pasted from Unix? I don't know I don't have the source to Unix (I don't know anyone who does? do you?). Is it the same lines that they're claiming people stole from them? I don't know that either, IANAA
Fast forward to the present and you have SCO suing IBM about getting chocolate in their peanut butter. SCO would have a much better chance of winning if they sued themselves.
Nope. All this means is that SCO is guilty of a license violation.
IANAL - but I'm betting that you would have to take them to court and convince a judge that the violation was intentional ("Hey, let's use this GPL code!"), willful ("Yah. We can just ignore the license."), and pervasive ("Sure, why not - the VP of development and legal already said that's fine.") Otherwise, SCO can just claim that the inclusion of the GPL'd code was a "misunderstanding" between a long-gone developer and a long-gone manager, neither of whom had the authority to make this kind of decision on behalf of the company.
Even if you got past that hurdle, I expect that you'd have to explicitly request that the code for the past versions be placed under the GPL as part of the settlement, and SCO would probably value the code so highly ("One billion dollars, your honor!") that any order to GPL the code would give SCO a good chance to get that aspect of the ruling either thrown out or reduced on appeal.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Another possibility, at least for some of the code in question, is that someone at Caldera authored code that was contributed to Linux under GPL and was placed into Unixware to be released under Unixware's more restrictive licensing.
Dual licensing is legal as long as the copyright holder agrees to it. If the code in question originiated with Caldera/SCO (and thus Caldera/SCO own the copyright) and was provided to Linux as GPL code and inserted into Unixware as non-free code, there's no lawsuit in either direction. So, if we find that the code came into Linux from Caldera and/or SCO, it means we're in the clear, and so are they.
Another possibility is that a third party (eg. IBM) authored the code and effectively dual-licensed it--licensed it to SCO for proprietary use, and licensed it to Linux under GPL. Again, that's most likely fine.
The only way SCO might have a lawsuit is if the code originated in UNIX/Unixware, and was contributed into Linux by someone other than the copyright holder.
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
The GPL doesn't count because violating it essentially voids it leaving you with copyright law for distributing terms. (You can't, but if you do, you have to pay thousands per copy.)
If SCO had not been trying to screw over the Linux community, this would probably be, small cash settlement, an apology and stop using the code, as it is the copyright holders are probably not going to want to be nice.
Work bio at MMWD
Apparently someone on the inside knows a lot
and really hates the way SCO is trampling on
the community.
Isn't it nice how they can look out our hard work
and no one is allowed to look over their shoulders?
Kudos to this brave soul who took a stand but I suggest
watching your back.
To mod you down somehow each and every time I can.
We're not children, and most of us know that crashing SCO's site intentionally does nothing but demonstrate that we too can be cocks.
I am not saying this is what has happened but it is at least a possibility. Big companies can be incredibly incompetent at times.
"...[SCO] basically re-implemented the Linux kernel with functions available in the Unix kernel to build what is now known as the Linux Kernel Personality (LKP) in SCO Unix."
and
"The LKP is a feature that allows users to run standard Linux applications along with standard Unix applications on a single system using the UnixWare kernel."
and you said
"so I think it is safe to say that these functions were in UnixWare first"
So you are saying UnixWare was compatable with Linux binaries before Linux came to being? Just asking.