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Randall Davis: IBM Has No SCO Code

Posted by timothy on from the hey-they've-been-trying-to-tell-you-that dept.

Mick Ohrberg writes "As reported by Groklaw, Randall Davis, renowned professor of Computer Science at MIT has after an extensive search found no evidence of SCO's claims that IBM has incorporated parts of the Unix System V code. Davis says "Accordingly, the IBM Code cannot be said, in my opinion, to be a modification or a derivative work based on the Unix System V Code." Surprised, anyone?"

3 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. Counter example would have helped. by Godeke · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One thing was pointed out on Groklaw that I think was relevant. Although I think SCO has no case, I'm sure they will jump on the fact that the expert didn't provide an example of a true derivative work run through the same procedure.

    It surely wouldn't have been hard to take some, say, early and "in the clear" code that has been reused and modified over time to show both that it can be identified and to show how code that has evolved can still leave the fingerprint of the original code. Without that counter example the failure to find matches would seem underwhelming. (The closest the testimony came to this was showing a positive result that was generated and showing how it was a commonly repeated pattern in all software written in C, not something specific to these two programs).

    Perhaps elsewhere in IBMs testimony there was reference to this same procedure being successfully?

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    Sig under construction since 1998.
  2. Re:Thanks Professor Davis... and thanks ESR... by ESR · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yes, as a matter of fact, it *did* feel good to
    see my work used in this comparison. Extremely good.

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    >>esr>>
  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion