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.'"

Comments

It is only a matter of time...

[appleLaserWriter]

At Microsoft, Windows NT (XP) source code is only available to general employees through a web based search engine. It would be very interesting if segments of open source code were found inside Windows itself.

At the policy level, Microsoft is extremely paranoid of Open Source. At the individual developer level, the quality and depth of code reviews varries substantially from group to group. As a result, Microsoft is highly unlikely to be aware, as a company, if Open Source has penetrated its products. This presents a significant risk to shareholders.

Apple, on the other hand, has done an excellent job of integrating Open Source into their commercial product(s). They are certainly aware at the marketing level that there is a combination of Open Source and Apple code in OS X, so I assume they have a very good handle on the situation at an engineering level.

Now SCO is in the worst position. Not only do they have the same tech-industry turnover rate as companies like Apple and Microsoft to deal with, but they've changed hands repeatedly in the last decade, further randomizing the org structure. While the SCO legal team may be able to construct threatening arguments aimed at IBM, Linux and friends, they are really exposing their vulnerability to counter suit. Again, significant shareholder risk exists in SCO.

SCO's goal

[Anonymous Coward]

I think nearly everybody is missing what SCO's real goal is. Of course they would like it IBM gives them a truckload of money, or SCO's own product sales pick up, but they do NOT really expect either to happen.

What they actual want: Defacto or Actual CONTROL OVER LINUX.

Chris Sonntag made it completely clear when he publcly said 'we hope to get our arms around all the Linux out there' and 'there is no legal use of Linux'?

Defacto control can be achieved by establishing (at least in business people's minds) that Linux infringes their IP, but never revealing exactly how. They will simply say: Look MS settled (and yes they really were threatened with a SCO lawsuit), Look IBM settled (they might, I bet they would if SCO offered to settle for a undisclosed ($1) amount), Gartner, Aberdeen, Yankee Consulting say Linux may infringe, etc.

Full control (SCO owns Linux copyright) may be established by asserting Linux is a combination of public domain work (GPL stuff) and copyrighted SCO stuff. In other words, they want the courts to assign them OVERALL COPYRIGHT FOR LINUX. Their Legal complaint makes this 100% clear that this is their position:

Paragraphs 77 to 81 of SCO's complaint describe their view of "General Public License" [sic]. In Paragraph 80, read their claims on GPL copyrights (they say there aren't any). Paragraph 77 (and their general claims overall) seek to thus establish Linux is a combination of public domain and nefariously obtained proprietary SCO IP. If the court accepts this line of reasoning, we are left with the situation, where SCO will be able to claim exclusive copyright on the overall work of Linux.

Re:In two weeks no one will care.

[innosent]

Another interesting point. I was reading a story on Yahoo about converting to Linux from Windows. Ernie Ball (a company that primarily makes music hardware/parts/guitar strings) was ordered to pay $90,000 to Microsoft within 120 days to be compliant (not enough licenses). The company used the court ordered 120 day compliance period to evaluate and install Linux, and from the article, never paid a dime.
The same thing could easily happen in this case. IF there is SCO IP in Linux, whatever code it is can be changed in minutes or hours, and even IF SCO was right, they might not get anything! Of course the other good example is USL vs. BSDI, but SCO apparently never paid attention in their history or business law classes...

much better chance of being true

[frovingslosh]

From what I can see right now, these allegations have about as much chance of being true as SCO's claims.

Perhaps a lot more. Anyone stealing code from SCO would likely at least change the comments, as they know the source code is going to be public. On the other hand, anyone doing code for SCO knows that the code is not open source, and likely never expects anyone who could match it to Linux code to see it. Might have even been done by a coder who wanted a quick fix without the knowledge of the management of SCO (or Caldera or whatever name the software was done under at the time). Then later someone at SCO finds the matching code. What is their first impulse? To say "Oh, we may be stealing code"? Or to say "Our code matches code in Linux so IBM must have stolen our code".

I still like Cringley's explination best, that SCO did exactly what they openly said they were doing and merged Linux with Unix. But assuming they didn't make this up completely and indeed there is some code in Unix that matchs code in Linux down to the comments, it seems much more likely that some of the widely available open source Linux code was improperly put into Unix than some of the closely protected source code for Unix was put into Linux.