SCO Complaint Filed -- Including Code Samples

btempleton writes "The folks at Groklaw have posted a story including a preliminary copy of Caldera/SCO's amended complaint, including lines of code they allege were improperly included in Linux. The PDF can be found at this story The file lists unix filenames with line numbers and filenames and line numbers from the Linux 2.2 and 2.4 kernels, so folks can now go into real depth."

Comments

2.2 Kernel?

[Pharmboy]

I thought 2.2 was safe. Then again, we thought they were not going after copyright infringement. I'm guessing that is a typo.

Since SCO has still not actually complied with previous discovery motions, submitted millions of lines of code to IBM in paper form (real class act, they are) and keeps changing their case, my guess is we will see the end of this case, perhaps this year.

UNLESS, of course, the Novell vs. SCO suit sidetracks the IBM suit until we can figure out who actually owns Unix...

Re:2.2 Kernel?

[Pharmboy]

For your information, as groklaw.net points out, SCO dropped contract claim and added copyright claim to case

I have read quite a bit of the filing, and it appears contract claims are not fully disappearing.

Quoting Groklaw:

5. This case is not about the debate about the relative merits of proprietary versus open source software. Nor is this case about IBM's right to develop and promote open source software if it decides to do so in furtherance of its independent business objectives, so long as it does so without SCO's proprietary information. This case is, and is only, about the right os SCO not to have its proprietary software misappropriated and misused in violation of its written agreements and well-settled law.

And its not over until its over. I don't know if you live in America, but as someone who worked in a law office doing paralegal and investigation, I can promise you this COULD still last a while, as far as the courts are concerned.

The judge *CAN* decide to wait until it is decided who owns the code (to potentially dismiss with prejudice). The judge can also decide to address that issue in his own court first. This is yet another contract dispute.

I agree that it doesn't look good for SCO, but it never did. They were not trying to win, they were trying to pump and dump, to inflate the stock price, and fight their way toward the door so they can take the money and run. But with the quirkiness of the courts, it still ain't over. I was being optimistic when I said this year...

It's long, but interesting.

[YouHaveSnail]

Very interesting. According to SCO:

- Linux is derived from System V. (75)
- IBM has endeavored to control the open source community. (76)
- IBM plans to destroy UNIX. (77)
- Linus Torvalds can't say who contributed what to Linux. (78)
- A significant amount of UNIX source code is present in Linux 2.4-2.6 kernels. (79)
- Linux developers are incapable of developing enterprise-grade software without stealing from SCO. (80, 81)
- Only IBM's involvement in Linux made Linux viable for enterprise use, and because IBM had access to System V (82), if follows that
- if follows that Linux is a clone of UNIX. (83)

The claimed code

[Valar]

The claimed lines of code appear to be in jfs (which is from AIX, not Sconix), evms (once again from AIX), and RCU. Total number of lines is about 600, plus a few complete files claimed to have be contributed illegally by sequent. I fail to see how IBM is prevented by their contract from contributing their own enhancements (or hell, compatible implementations of their filesystems). The rest of the document seems to just be complaining that with IBM's help, linux is going to wipe a lot of proprietary unixes off of the map. Which I believe fails under the legal term "toughus-fucking-luckus."

heh. Check out #87

[the_Speed_Bump]

87. By making the Linux operating system free to end users, IBM could undermine and destroy the ability of any of its competitors to charge a fee for distribution of UNIX software in the enterprise market. Thus, IBM, with its army of Global Services integrators who earn money by selling services, would gain a tremendous advantage over all its competitors who earn money by selling UNIX licenses.

Seems like someone's sore because IBM has a better business model.

Connections..

[-tji]

I just noticed that the first lawyer listed on this SCO document is "Brent O. Hatch", the son of Utah Senator Orrin Hatch.

A damp squib, again

[bheading]

In this document SCO identify three groups of what they regard as "infringing" code. They readily admit that the number of examples they can provide is somewhat limited due to the fact that they don't possess themselves enough evidence to prove it. "Damn it, I know they stole it from us - if only I could get the evidence to prove it!".

The first set (Table A) is JVS code. As we all know JFS is an IBM/AIX creation, so with this SCO will be focussing on their "derived work" argument.

The second set (Table B) is EVMS code. Again, this is a less-mentioned contribution from IBM AIX into Linux. Again, this will be SCO's "derived work" according to their skewed worldview.

The third and fourth sets are the most interesting (Table C and D). They identify stuff allegedly lifted from Dynix (Sequent) code. I could not find the rclock.* or the kmemdef.* files in 2.4.18 or in 2.4.1 (the version they've named), I presume they were removed at some point - Torvalds or someone else could probably identify when.

In Table D, the code they've highlighted in the 2.4.1 apic.c file consists of #include lines, some comments, and a very basic "if" statement in the middle of some SMP related code for handling timer interrupts, it seems. It's the same in timer.c, they're also complaining about lines which refer to Alpha or IA64, rather odd since they never wrote code concerning those CPUs.

The entry.S reference they've made, going by the code comments, refers to code which switches an i386 back into user mode following a system call. (guess mode - the set of assembly mnemonics to put an i386 into user mode is likely to be very standard; the default code was probably provided free of charge by Intel years and years ago, and probably found it's way into every i386 memory-protected OS written!).
The same seems true of traps.c. The main.c lines are just some includes and some static declarations.

I also did some casual Google searches to see if any of the alleged infringing lines of code showed up anywhere. In all the cases I checked, the lines show only in Linux kernels, and not anywhere else. If this code did appear elsewhere then it isn't immediately obvious where it came from.

So I really don't think that SCO has much of a leg to stand on here ...

How it works...

[ackthpt]

IBM Develops some technology for OS/2

IBM adds it to AIX

SCO (claiming to own copyrights to Un*x) says anything derivative of Unix (AIX in this case) becomes their IP

SCO Sues IBM for copyright infringement

IBM demonstrates this technology existed prior and was given to both operatings systems as an add-on

SCO loses

What ever happened to David Boies?

[compactable]

Can someone explain why SCO sends people like Weiss & Dal's little brother to the plate when they're clinging to life? These people are wet farts. I would rather be defended by my grandmother in court, and she thinks she's a horse. Really. They just gave Boies millions & a stake in the company - where the uckfa is he?

And yes, I now this is not 100% on-topic. However I think the disappearance of a key figure is noteworthy (I would argue more so that SCO claiming ownership of IBMs work, as they are here).

Re:code references in case groklaw get /.ed

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't even think about looking for this code in linux-2.4.x. Not a single line of any of the mentionened patches has been merged into linux-2.4.
You can find the code in these patches provided by IBM:

EVMS evms_aix.h
JFS ref/jfs_inode.h
RCU-2.4.1-01

Something remotely similar to the rcu patch was eventually merged into 2.5.43 and into United Linux. The EVMS header is used by the compatibility module for AIX partitions and is also in United Linux but nowhere in an official linux. The jfs inode header is not used anywhere, because it is the OS/2 file and was provided only for reference.

Re:Oh... and no more "millions of lines" claims

[Citizen of Earth]

SCOX stock price, meet Mr Floor?

I dunno; SCOX buyers seem to have their heads in an invincible reality-distortion field. The next Slashdot poll should be "What will SCOX close at on Monday?":

* $31.89
* $13.75
* $10.00
* $5.00
* $1.00
* -$666.00

The commenter closest without going over wins 30 karma points.

You mean a Forbes "reporter" (e.g. Daniel Lyons)

[Xenographic]

You say that in jest, but Daniel Lyons of Forbes has been known to quote random people from blogs as sources for his stories.

Honestly, were I his editor, I would have fired him after that. Investigative journalism it was not. This gives me very serious misgivings about trusting anything Forbes says, because I cannot imagine how that story could have slipped past even the most minimal editorial review...

It seemed rather apropos, yet disturbing, that that article was meant to be an attack on the credibility of Groklaw, after PJ of Groklaw chided him for accepting SCO's statements without any apparent research, as he had not done even the most minimal fact-checking.

I would be willing to bet that he is glad that I am not his boss... To anyone from Forbes reading this: I value research more than oppinion. And yes, I do mention your failures to anyone I know who might even think of subscribing.

Worst reporter ever. (Maybe seeing his face on Google image search for that would make his day?)

Re:False claims to prop up stock price?

[Maserati]

That's why they retained David Boies. Not for the IBM suit, for the criminal and civil cases coming from the SEC and the stockholders. His specialty isn't IP law, it's securities fraud.

Re:Ah, at last!

[jeffasselin]

Don't I remember some company lending a multi-processor system to Alan Cox a few years back so that he could work on scaling SMP code?

Ah yes, I think it was a company called "Caldera" who did that (http://www.linux.org.uk/SMP/title.html). You know, they're called "SCO" now...