SGI Compares Linux & System V Source Code

mrgoatCEO writes "It seems SGI has finished up their test comparing SCO's Unix System V code and that of the Linux Kernel, according to ITWorld. SGI found that any similarities between the systems (amounting to only about 200 lines of code) have been removed in Linux Kernel 2.4.22, and added that the similarities were 'trivial in amount.'" This follows moves by SCO to terminate SGI's Unix license.

Comments

Re:Kernel Changelog (fix)

[Bigby]

"sgi" Changelog information from the 2.4.22 kernel.

jbarnes@sgi.com[helgaas]:
o ia64: ACPI fix for no PCI

jh@sgi.com[helgaas]:
o ia64: SGI SN update
o ia64: SN2 update 030528
o ia64: SN2 update 030630

kaos@sgi.com[helgaas]:
o ia64: fix scratch-regs handling in kernel unwinder
o ia64: unwind.c - allow unw_access_gr(r0)
o ia64: Trivial stack-size correction in mca.c
o ia64: mca rendezvous fix
o ia64: Hold modlist_lock while searching exception tables
o ia64: Handle SAL rejection of MCA rendezvous timeout value

Re:Good to be kept honest, anyway.

[Bruce Perens]

I don't think they'll get to the GPL issue. It will be like the old ATT case, where the court determined that the plaintiff did not have a valid copyright interest in the code in question, and the case ended there.

Bruce

Re:Hmmm, 200 lines out of millions

[jdcook]

"Copyright law allows for reasonable copying, e.g., a few pages from a book. So surely 200 lines of code out of millions would simply be laughed out of court?

This is profoundly wrong. Copyright law does not allow you to copy a few pages out of a book. It allows you to make Fair Use of copyrighted material. It may be fair use for you to copy an entire book. It may not be fair use for you to copy a single paragraph. There is no "use X many free" formula. People get in trouble believing this.

Re:reminder about shares

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

"Monninkhof tried to reason with SCO, but didn't succeed. At first SCO agreed to talk, so Monninkhof flew to SCO's headquarters in Utah, but learned that there was no-one to meet him and that visitors were not allowed in the building. Security then escorted Monninkhof off the premises. He was also given a letter indicating that his company was no longer welcome at SCO Forum."

If there was any doubt about the kind of people running SCO these days, this should clinch it. Damn cold..

Re:reminder about shares

[Ark42]

For the lazy, since June 20 it looks like they have sold shares for a total amount of $2,747,819

Shifting names

[mcc]

Originally SCO stood for "Santa Cruz Operation".

Eventually, SCO sold off its OS division, the one that made SCO UNIX and coincidentally happened at the time to own the original Unix copyrights (having bought them from Novell in 1995), to Caldera, a linux company. The remainder of what used to be SCO, the part Caldera didn't buy, is still operating under the name Tarantella.

Caldera, after buying SCO UNIX, changed its name to "The SCO Group." SCO doesn't stand for anything here. It's just "The SCO Group". Shortly after this the company's co-founder, Ransom Love, was replaced as CEO by Darl McBride, and SCO began to serve the Wyrm.

"The SCO Group" is owned by and has since Caldera's inception basically been under the auspices of an umbrella corporation called the Canopy Group. It has been repeatedly theorized that somewhere about the time McBride came in, the Canopy Group gave up on ever making any money ever again on Caldera's projects. Now, goes the theory, the Canopy Group is using the SCO group for no purpose other than as a front/shell company, so that the Canopy Group can engage in illegal but profitable enterprises such as slander, barratry, and fraud, and then when all hell breaks loose as a result and the countersuits start rolling in, "the SCO Group" gets all the blame and takes all the damage and quietly goes bankrupt, and the Canopy Group walks away scot-free.

Re:Speedy McGuire

[cens0r]

Right to a speedy trial only applies to criminal cases. This is a civil case.

Re:*gasp*

[Zathrus]

In Darl's contract, it states that he is in for a big payday if there are four consecutive quarters of profitability.

Not really. If you want the skinny on the stock options and incentives in Darl's contract, go read this.

In short -- Darl got 100,000 options after one year with SCO (which should have been on or about June 27, 2003). There are another 300,000 options that are vesting at a rate of 8333/month for 3 years. If SCO has 4 profitable quarters then Darl gets another 50,000 shared immediately, followed by 150,000 a year later.

By those numbers, he'd be well advised to keep the company around for at least a year after securing the 4 quarter deal -- he'd nearly double the shares.

On top of that, executives can't just call their broker and issue a sell order. Any insider must register for the purchase or sale of shares with the SEC. If you look at the execs of any large, successful company you'll see many have share sale orders out months or years in advance -- because they have to rebalance their portfolios.

I'm not saying this isn't pump 'n' dump or a variation thereof, but it's not as simple as some of the more ignorant /.ers would have you believe.

Re:Good to be kept honest, anyway.

[DaveAtFraud]

That's not going to happen; at least, not with a sane defendent.

We're talking SCO here; so what's your point?

On a more serious note, a poster to GROKLAW ran across this SCO product brochure from 2002 which points out that the very features that SCO says infringe on their intellectual property (XFS, JFS, NUMA, etc.) are selling points in SCO's version of Linux. This makes it kind of hard for SCO to claim that they didn't know these features had been included in Linux and their release of the code under the GPL doesn't constitute GPLing the code.

I could be wrong but this only leaves SCO with three choices:

1. They can't complain about the features, just individual code fragments. They have just told SGI that fixing the individual code fragments isn't sufficient.
2. They challenge the GPL.
3. Drop the suits against IBM and SGI and watch their stock tank.

Re:SCO license issue

[ebbomega]

First, where did you get a copy of Linux 9? That's some pretty interesting insider work you got going and I'm sure even Linus would be surprised that you got a copy of that.

First of all, Linux is open source and SCO is not. So how can Linus developers see SCO's code besides using backing tools like decompilers?

Glad to see you've been paying attention.

IBM and SGI have access to SCO's code. What SCO's allegations are is that IBM (and if/when they sue SGI they'll say them too) has put SCO's code into linux. So there's a quite plausible way for the code to get into the kernel. Whether or not this involves malicious intent, who knows. Only IBM can really know it and if they are at fault, then so be it. However, SGI, who also has access to SCO's code, has stated that these allegations are shaky at best, and given SCO's consistent counterproductivity in getting this whole issue resolved already and their contradicting arguments and sound bytes upon sound bytes saying they never made the previous sound bytes (Darl McBride is doing an excellent job at munching on his foot) it looks like if they ever did have a leg to stand on, they've since lost it and can bloody well cope.