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SCO's McBride Testifies "Linux Is a copy of UNIX"
eldavojohn writes "Here's a short update on the Novell Vs. SCO case we've been following. Our good friend Darl McBride made some interesting comments in court yesterday. He stated (under oath): 'Many Linux contributors were originally UNIX developers... We have evidence System V is in Linux... When you go to the bookstore and look in the UNIX section, there's books on "How to Program UNIX" but when you go to the Linux section and look for "How to Program Linux" you're not gonna find it, because it doesn't exist. Linux is a copy of UNIX, there is no difference [between them]." This flies directly in the face of what SCO found in extensive investigations in 2002 and contradicts what SCO Senior Vice President Chris Sontag had just finished testifying earlier that day (testimony that McBride did not hear)."
I have a copy of 'Beginning Linux Programming' from Wrox. Doesn't say UNIX anywhere. Hey guys, if you want me to testify I'd be happy to fly over. All expenses paid of course.
Well, I actually do have a book on how to program Linux: "Beginning Linux Programming" (Matthew and Stones), in all its red glory here on my shelf. Now I don't know whether the summary quoted McBride very well and I don't have much time to investigate right now, but if he did say what he said, that was pretty silly.
I also have the "Teach yourself Linux Programming in 24 hours, did not read it much, though. However, it exists, and more Linux programming literature exists, too.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Not exactly. It was more like "its in program X but we won't say which of the many modules of the program or which versions let alone where in the module the alleged violation is".
The fun part of that was when IBM pointed out that earlier in the case SCOG had objected to IBM doing the same by making non specific claims and the judge had ruled in favour of SCOG. Naturally the judge then ruled the same way when IBM made the same objection against SCOG and shot down SCOGs "evidence" as inadequate.
No jury.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
No worries! This is a bench trial, so there is no jury. Just judge Kimball.
Unix has moved from being an operating system, and in modern times is a set of standards, so basically he's right, linux is unix -- it complies to most of the standards people find relevant. There's no shared code with system v though, nor is it certified (it's unix, but not UNIX).
This does not mean that linux is based on sco or novell code, though. Not all UNIXes are; for example, OS X is also unix, although in the case of leopard it is actually certified as being so, but as in linux, does not share any code with system v (that i'm aware of, anyways).
So yes, he's right, linux is an implementation of unix. It's not a copy of the source, though. That's like saying glibc is a copy of microsoft's libc because they both conform to the ansi standard (ok bad example, because microsoft doesn't conform to the standard in various ways).
errno.h is part of the POSIX standard and is the property of the Open Group.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
> is that McBride really COULD go to prison over this for perjury
It's not perjury to be wrong. Even stubbornly and stupidly wrong in the face of all the evidence. If we took your definition of perjury, every loser of a civil trial would be in the clink.
There's a very specific definition for perjury, and IBM's well-paid lawyers who know it aren't alleging it here.
This monkey needs to get his sak out of the fire. I don't know how many people remember Unix before Linux. I do. And I think I can safely say that unix was on the way out before linux came along. Many unix shops where ether packing up or converting to windows nt at that time.
Then out of the fray come a penguin with a mission. Linux put unix in the hand of whole new generation of hackers and programmers. McBride and his monkeys need to be down on their knees sacrificing a goat to the penguin gods for saving their market. They should have adapted not fought. Everyone saw that writing on the wall. Hell, IBM embraced linux. That alone should be enough to tell you something.
So if it wasn't for linux, unix would just be a entry in the hacker jargon file, see VMS, or assigned to a few nitch shops and jobs.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
You're right. It isn't. It is, however, Unix-like. And intended to be POSIX compliant. And an awful lot of Unix utilities and abilities have found their way into Linux, starting with the System V-compatible init. X, BASH (and its variants)... you could go on for hours listing programs and commands that have found their way into Linux from the Unix world. Perhaps the most obvious example aside from BASH would be XFCE, which models its interface after the CDE.
<sigh/>
You expect Slashdot readers to be tech literate, but sadly they ain't. Not these days anyway.
'Linux' is a kernel. Both in fact and in the context of this court case, that's all 'Linux' is. Bash is not part of Linux. Init is not part of Linux. They are programs which can run on top of Linux (or any other POSIX compliant operating system, including UNIX).
Yes, I know we've all got lazy and refer to Ubuntu and Debian and Slackware and RedHat as 'Linux', but they aren't. They are software distributions which use the Linux kernel. The kernel - and only the kernel - is 'Linux'.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
You're the only one that said "good names". The GP said "doublespeak". There is a difference.
:)
Fair comment.
But that just underscores the whole issue that half the oss community explicitly disagrees with calling linux GNU/Linux. A FUD spreading cynic might even think it odd that half the community wants to lose the part about saying its 'not unix'. Hmmmm.
But actually, this gets even more deliciously ironic when you realize that "GNU/Linux" really represents the pairing of the 'gnu' userland, and the 'linux' kernel... so all we're claiming is that the GNU userland is 'not unix'... but what about linux?
To put it in the OP's words:
GNU stands for "gnu's not unix". Ergo, linux is not unix.
This is an elementary logical fallacy. Because GNU isn't Linux. And we're not claiming squat about Linux. And indeed, by calling it 'Linux' we are very deliberately associating it with Unix. We could have called it something else... linos, oslin, linKernel, LinK... but no we chose 'Linux'.
Talk about doublespeak. That's at least on par with OOXML if you ask me.
-cheers
From the description:
"When you go to the bookstore and look in the UNIX section, there's books on "How to Program UNIX" but when you go to the Linux section and look for "How to Program Linux" you're not gonna find it, because it doesn't exist"
Taking a quick look at my bookshelf, I see the titles "Beginning Linux Programming", "Professional Linux Programming", and "Linux Application Development". And that's not even counting the boxes and boxes of books I have stored on shelves in my basement.
Perjury charge?
In a perfect world they'd find McBride in contempt of court and throw him in jail, or they'd find him legally incompetent and insane and would have him committed to a wonderful place with padded walls where he'd be perfectly allowed to ramble on and on about whatever he thinks is true, but in reality they'll probably just strike his testimony from the record.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Perjury charge?
No. He's an idiot. You can't reasonably expect him to know that he was wrong when he made the statement, therefore, no matter what statements he makes, they're not perjury.
Code or be coded.
Nope. Canopy divested itself of SCO in 2005..