Groklaw Starts Unix/Linux History Project

An anonymous reader writes "Over on GrokLaw, PJ and others have decided to create a 'timeline' for Unix and Linux development. The plan is to recreate, as completely as possible, the history of these two operating systems '...from the perspective of tracing the code by copyright, patents, trade secret, and trademark. The idea is that the final timeline will be a publicly-available resource, released under a Creative Commons license, that will assist the community in defending against - or better yet in deterring - future lawsuits against GNU/Linux code.'"

Comments

Don't do it.

[Quasar1999]

Sco will find a way to use this history to further 'prove' that source code was acquired from commercial software at specific times from specific companies, using nothing more than the fact that some feature was added to linux on a specific date. This aids insane companies like SCO who want to find relationships and infringement where there really was none... go back far enough, and no one from the time/company/developer will be able to defend their IP...

Re:Don't do it.

[Kalak]

While PJ is on the side that is generally against SCO and Linux, that is because she is on the side of finding the truth of the issues relating to SCO. The truth is against SCO because they are not looking at things with more than an eye for profit. If she (and the others at groklaw) were to find that there was a place for infringement in Linux, you can bet that she would be the first to e-mail a copy of it to LKML so that those that are interested in protecting Linux are able to insure it is clean, or becomes clean, and remains clean.

Linux will not come through this because it's better at hiding things than SCO, but because it is better at opening things up to be revealed to all than SCO. Such a history only reveals more truth to Linux and its development, and can only help Linux.

Image if they did find something. How long it would remain in the kernel? Everyone would switch to non-tainted kernels, and SCO would have no one left to sue.

Revealing the truth can only help Linux

No...

[debilo]

Fearing SCO is not really a reason not to do this.

go back far enough, and no one from the time/company/developer will be able to defend their IP...

I don't really understand this conclusion. Are you trying to say that documenting and publishing events of the past somehow aids criminals? If so, how?

Licensing of mass disruption/destruction

[segment]

Do you want to:

Let people distribute copies of your whole work for noncommercial purposes (for example, on a file-sharing network, or among friends)?

http://creativecommons.org/license/sampling

Sorry to say but this whole licensing scheme is getting out of hand. Not to troll about this but how many licenses are there? GPL, BSD, etc? Now another scheme? Now supposing I decided as an admin on one of the machines I -obviously ADMIN - I decide to go with the "non commercial" license. Say I run my own machine with 60 users. Friends, friends of friends, etc. Now I decide to host a domain for one of these friends, and he decides he's going to run something commercial then what? Am I breaking license standards here. Aside from that, what the hell difference would it honestly make these so called Licenses being they would have to be a worldwide universal license.

Just because you say it's law here, why should someone follow the laws of land A when they live in land B. Don't you think there is a huge window for abuse here. Not only by cheapskate corporations who can circumvent these laws, but by lawmakers who for one wouldn't understand computing as a whole, but would be quick to indict Average John for a quick hit in the paper on "How I cracked down on international program crackers who acted with disregard those terrorists."

Seriously, why is the community (Open Source) even waisting their time on another licensing scheme.

Re:Licensing of mass disruption/destruction

[lawpoop]

This whole licensing scheme has gotten out of hand? Please note that propreitary software has more licensing schemes than does any open-source software. Hell, each proprietary app has its own cockamamey convoluted license, while most of the open-source apps you run are covered by a few common licenses (GPL, BSD, Apache, etc.).

So, if you don't like open-source because there are 'too many licensing schemes', you had better stay away from propreitary software! Who knows what kind of violations you can wander into with that mess.

Re:Hrm...

[Dukael_Mikakis]

I agree. It seems like it's going to be a damn hard project. But I guess it depends on how they want to approach it. If they want to document the major events (i.e. Linus had an idea) then it might not be so daunting, but then it might not be so interesting either. If they want to go into any depth, it seems like it'd be impossible because so many people have had their hands on Linux, and there are so many different versions and branches and everything.

Sounds something like documenting the history of the English language. The "big picture" stuff might not be very interesting, but then it'd be impossible to document when every word was first used, and by whom.

I guess, obviously, the logical plan is sketch out major events then flush out the details.

Re:UNIX Timeline

[j-pimp]

Well I must be fucking new here cause I RTFA. Allow me to 'splain to you.

Groklaw is run by a paralegal. This is a legal history. All those diagrams of Unix, networking etc, are from a geek point of view. groklaw wants to make a history that concerns itself with patents and trademarks being declared, licensed, expired etc.

Awesome Idea

[pants1973]

I think this is an awesome idea. I have to give kudos to Pamela for doing a kick-ass job. She really deserves some kind of award or recognition for what she and the other folks over there do on a daily basis. Groklaw is truly a wonderful asset to the Linux and open source community.