Open Source Community Approaches SCO

An anonymous reader writes "eWeek has an article about the open source community approaching SCO. SCO now says there are over a million lines of offending code in Linux and they still won't show them to anybody."

Comments

Hmmmmph

[HiQ]

...in which Raymond said that if there was infringing code in the Linux kernel, "our community wants no part of it and will remove it.

I don't think that SCO wants those lines removed, because their whole business plan now seems based on those lines being in there.

Re:Hmmmmph

[jez_f]

if SCO is willing to take the honest, cooperative path forward, so are we.

This is the point of the whole press release. From here on in, the OSS community can point out that they are willing to work with SCO to remove the offending code. Refusing to do this will make SCOs 'licence fees' much more like extortion.
This move could be very important later on.

Not much new there

[cspenn]

Not much new there, except to say that SCO must be using the RIAA's supply of calculators to determine how many lines of code are infringing. There are approximately 30 million lines of code in the kernel:

http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc/

And SCO is claiming that 3.3% of the Linux kernel is theirs? From a company that did nothing with Linux until it acquired a GPL distribution? Right.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Chris
Ever wonder how APR works? Stop on by!

Who?

[JohnGrahamCumming]

Who exactly is this story talking about? The "Open Source Community" is being represented in the article by someone called Jeff Gerhardt. Familiar name? Not to me... seems to be the host of a radio show about Linux.

The fact that he has an email from Eric Raymond hardly qualifies him as a representative of the entire Open Source community. If you read the quotes from the email it is not an approach to SCO either.

If this article said that OSI, FSF, OSDL, Linus, etc. had approached SCO it might have been worth posting. In its current form it would be better titled "Some guy with radio show hands out copies of email from Eric Raymond".

John.

Re:Over 1,000

[FJ]

Perhaps a more informative estimate would be to take the difference in the number of lines in the 2.2 kernel vs the 2.4 kernel, since SCO claims 2.2 is fine but 2.4 has copied code.

3,377,902 (2.4) - 1,800,847 (2.2) = 1,577,055

In other words, SCO claims that 2/3 of the improvements in the 2.4 series kernel belong to them. That is a rather unrealistic statement since a lot of those enhancements didn't come from IBM.

Re:Over 1,000,000

[linuxtelephony]

Every time there's a press release the number grows. Just last week didn't they say something like 168,000 lines of code?

Now it's millionS -- not just 1, but plural, aka many. My guess, based on their claim of derivative work, is that they are saying that 5,100,081 (2.5.37, per previous post) lines are infringing. This doesn't mean they are direct copies, just infringing.

At first, SCO's action surprised and stunned me. Then it became funny to watch them "foaming at the mouth" in the various press releases. Now things are just getting annoying. I'll be glad when they're squashed and this is all over. I'll be even more glad if the SEC finally gets involved and wins a guilty verdict. Perhaps we should change the SCO logo to a crooked SCO, kind of like that crooked E from Enron?

Huh?

[carldot67]

First it was 186,000 then 892,000 now "over a million". Hmm, conflicts. There are other conflicts. For example, SCO wont show the code for fear that the OSS community will write round it, then we hear that it is so intertwined that rewriting would not be practical. Then there's the claim that "rocket scientists using advanced [data mining] tools" are credited with finding the in-doubt code.
Hmm. Students of data mining will be aware that given the right circumstances, "advanced [data mining] tools" will find evidence of Space Invaders code in MySQL and carrot DNA in the human genome - buts thats another story; after all there are only so many ways to implement an insertion sort or a tyrosine kinase.
It all backs up my suspicion that this SCO thing is all pretty dubious stuff.
As an aside: I have a simple technique to see if my kids have been naughty. I ask them what happened a couple of times and if the stories change or differ then I know theyve been up to no good. It never fails.
Messrs McBride and Sontag will therefore go to bed early tonight without a story.

McBride == McCarthy

[CryBaby]

Press responding to SCO allegations: "Mr. McBride, exactly how many lines of linux kernel code did you say belong to SCO Unix?"

Reporters questioning Sen. John Iselin in "The Manchurian Candidate" (Iselin is a thinly veiled McCarthy for those who haven't seen the movie): "Senator Iselin, exactly how many U.S. Senators did you say belong to the communist party?"

It's laughable, but apparently this old PR trick still works. Let's please keep the focus on the existence / nonexistence of IP infringements in linux rather than backing up SCO's baseless claims by discussing the quantity of IP infringements.

Copyright violation

[nuggz]

So their logic is.

Distribute GPL software.
Prove the GPL is invalid because copyright law does not allow you to let others make copies.
Continue to distribute GPL software since copyright law no longer applies when a license is ruled invalid.

This does not seem like a strong strategy.
I think a good strategy to fight this would be for the Samba team to get an injunction on their new products pending SCOs acceptance of the GPL.

They then have 2 choices, ditch Samba, agree to the GPL, or fight against willfull copyright violation.

Corporate Death Penalty

[Ron Harwood]

I can't believe they're even seriously trying any more, what with this and their blatant misreading of copyright law claiming that licenses allowing multiple copies to be made are invalid.

The problem is this: there is no downside for SCO... they can say and do anything without fear - and there's the very remote chance that they might win something. It's like buying lottery tickets.

There needs to be a downside for crap like this - once it's proven to be a complete fabrication. Imprision the CEO for his company's wilfull purjury... seize their assets... stop all business functions. Basically - a lethal injection for the company.

You can bet shareholders will have something to say about overly litigious companies then!