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How SCO Helped Linux Go Enterprise
An anonymous reader submits: "SCO may now have filed for UNIX copyrights and made various allegations about code-copying, but the actual complaint against IBM still seems to be focused around allegations UNIX-based enterprise technologies (such as RCU, JFS and SMP) being improperly added to Linux. Yet, reviewing the Linux kernel archives reveals some interesting and surprising background on just who helped put these technologies into Linux. PJ's GROKLAW blog has uncovered that 'Caldera Employee Was Key Linux Kernel Contributor,' including what looks like
a lot of work on the early stages of JFS.
The same employee's name also crops up when we look at RCU. When
IBM posts RCU improvements, did he complain? No, he requests further improvements even helpfully providing a link to inspire the IBMer!"
"Lastly, definitely worth reading, Alan Cox on Linux SMP. He says that got he ideas from a book (which presumably can't be somebody's trade secret), invented his own implementation, and did this using hardware provided by Caldera (SCO themselves do acknowledge providing hardware to the Linux SMP team)." The article points out of Christof Hellwig (the Caldera-employed kernel contributor) that "He's likely a great guy, and he's undoubtedly been a trusted Linux contributor, so this is nothing against him. It's about SCO and their position in the lawsuit, and it's about IBM's affirmative defenses."
There is no reason Linux users and developers should worry about having to pay one penny to SCO. Consider that after years of battling Sears in court, the patent holder for the adjustable wrench got a huge settlement from Sears for the theft of his patented invention, but the many owners of Sears Craftsman wrenches never had to pay him royalties. Even though many of the owners of wrenches may have been businesses that used the wrenches to make their own products. Sort of the way you are using Linux to develop a project.
Think about how Paramount had to pay the copyright holder, Art Buchwald, for the copyrighted material they took and put in the Eddy Murphy movie 'Coming to America', but movie goers didn't have to each send Mr. Buchwald a check. None of the theater companies that made money showing the film paid Mr. Buchwald, even though they 'trafficked' in tainted goods!
Now, before they even prove they own it. Before they even show anyone what they own. The SCO group want Linux users to pay up front. This is totally unprecedented.
Overturning years of precedent and setting a new example like SCO wants to do would have a chilling effect on the software industry in America. The software giants in the industry will not let this become standard operating procedure.
IBM is very good at the IP law end of the software business. I am sure they did 'due diligence', and made sure the code they put in Linux was their code and not stolen. I think it is highly unlikely that the SCO group will be able to prove otherwise, especially because SysV UNIX is so tainted with other open source code.
But even if SCO wins a settlement from IBM, just like Sears and Paramount, the users of the 'tainted' product will not have to pay a single penny.
It is easy for us geeks to poke holes in SCO's arguments about code origin. Don't any of these Wall street analysts have enough business sense, and experience in past cases to call SCO's bluff?
I now that all these costs eventually get passed down to the consumer level, so software users will pay for the extra legal work needed in the future to develop software. But this just adds to the cost of developing software within the USA. SCO is bad for the economy. Free market oriented software development like Linux and Apache are much better for helping to create a robust competitive economy.
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