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Why Does SCO Focus On A Minix-to-Linux Link?
ansak writes "In the latest scoop from Groklaw, Groklaw user talks_to_birds pointed out an error in SCO's version of the famous Levenez Unix Timeline. The important error is the green dotted line which shows Minix to be a derivative of Unix. If this were accepted, and if Linux was shown to be a derivative of Minix, then SCO's lawsuits would be more likely to have merit. As it turned out, even MS called Samizdat unhelpful, but at least now there may be a plausible reason why someone would try to make the link between Minix and Linux in the first place."
Inform me if I'm wrong, but didn't Linus make Linux because he didn't like Minix?
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No, because the guy who made this link, Ken Brown, intentionally ignored multiple sources of information that Linux was *not* derived from Linux. It was totally untrue, and he knew it because:
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Tanenbaum, who wrote Minix, told him so.
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The guy Ken Brown hired to find where Linux took from Minix told him that it had not in fact happened, after analysing the code.
There never was *any* plausible support for Brown's case and he knew it *befire* making PR announcements, but he went ahead anyhow."that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
...a Microsoft-sponsored IDC telephone survey a couple of days ago did still ask me if "the SCO litigation" was one of the reasons I use Linux.
I said "Yes", of course, since I'd use Linux on principle if I hadn't been already when extortionists like TSG (The Sco Group) sued them. If they turn and sue someone like the NetBSD project, I'd find a place in my organisation for a NetBSD box as well.
For the curious, IDC called from Malaysia into Australia, and "Brian" (no idea if that's his real name) said that IDC were planning on setting up their main Asia-Pacific offices there.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
If you examine Eric's original chart, you will see that this relationship between Linux, Minix, and Unix exists even there. SCO has simply made it obvious to see, and called the chart a sort of "pedigree" to suggest that Linux contains actual Unix "genetic" material.
Of course, Eric states very clearly on his site that "an arrow indicates an inheritance like a compatibility, it is not only a matter of source code"
And anyway, Minix doesn't contain any AT&T source code by Tanenbaum's own admission. Linux doesn't contain Minix code. These are both original works, influenced by the Unix flavor of their time. That is what the Levenez chart shows, nothing more.
The chart is only useful to SCO in their campaign of dishonesty to suggest something that is clearly untrue, and that has been proved repeatedly to be untrue.
The Wayback Machine indicates that "Note 1" was added in the period 2nd August 2002 to 14th October 2002.
This is well before the start of the SCO affair (7th March 2003), so the note is not a belated attempt to bolster Linux's case. The diagram genuinely does not measure source code dependence.
No! The GPL places an independent burden on distributors to independently re-GPL anything they distribute. SCO was certainly aware of what they were distributing. The alternative is that they distributed a mix of other peoples GPL code and their own proprietary code, which is for-profit copyright infringement. Since these acts (occur and continue even now) after they proclaimed linux infringing, they can't plead ignorance anymore.
So they can choose between A) losing because they GPL'd everything in dispute regardless of whether it was proprietary or not before they distributed it, or B) losing because their entire linux business was based on willful, for-profit piracy.