Thing is, nobody really believes SCO could be right---they don't have anything worth stealing, and they've been running a campaign designed more to scare everybody into staying away from Linux than to win in court, which doesn't breed confidence in their ability to win in court.
If the contract said that if IBM walked away, they also walked away from the code, then that's what happens. (Although I doubt IBM's lawyers would have signed that.)
Exactly. If SCO has a legitimate claim based on the contract, it must be that IBM took code that SCO contributed to project Monterey---which I find highly unlikely---I very much doubt SCO would have much to contribute (i.e., much AIX didn't already have) that Linux didn't already have.
although it'll probably resurface at some point in the years ahead. (Yes, I said years.)
Assuming SCO survives that long. What happens if a company dies in the middle of a lawsuit:) ?
It's not necessarily copy and paste to get the same 15 lines identical. There are many areas in programming where the space of possible (reasonable) lines is very small; a collision of that length is practically guaranteed between two sufficiently large code bases.
How can IBM sign a contract (or, for that matter, why would they) that says they can't use their own code that they wrote however they damn well please?
In any case, if IBM is contributing their code that they wrote, it's not an IP issue, and SCO should stop claiming it is.
No, he was a (IIRC socialist) revolutionary (or more precisely said revolutionary's assistant) (OK, that's a tyrant---you win there) dreaming up the `ideal' world (if only it would work).
Well, the contents---architecture---algorithms---engineering knowledge of the proprietary Un*ces (especially SysV/UnixWare), naturally. That's what SCO is claiming IBM ripped off for Linux.
No. The request is `tell me something I know everybody knows, and you know everybody knows, but SCO thinks is a secret.' The goal is to prove that everyone knows it.
No. If their trade secret `rights' have been violated enough, and they've done little enough about it, they lose those rights. They want to argue this is basically a unique occurance, that their rights are still watertight, because they've always been enforced until now.
Re:Back in the day, you had to avoid the source
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Do You Know UNIX Secrets?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
And contamination is a feature of trade secret law. So, if ESR can show they've lost their trade secret protection, that takes away the contamination argument. Not sure if you've gotten this, but I thought I'd let you know.
No, he's not asking for where you've copied the source---he's asking for where you've read the source---without either signing or violating any NDAs.
Re:Will it help IBM if they have shown somebody AI
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Do You Know UNIX Secrets?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
No. Read ESR's page on the legal issues. Trade secret law is like trademark law; if AT&T, Novell, and SCO have been sufficiently lax for sufficiently long about enforcing the NDAs, then it's too late to start now---they've already given up their trade secrets.
I think you've got it here---the less Microsoft software running on a computer, the more stable it is.
Re:About as viral as accidentally giving away secr
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What if SCO is Right?
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I know. But if they say Linux is Unix based, they lose their case (what there is of it). And they can't say they just figured out that Linux is Unix based (to whatever extent they claim it is), either.
If history will repeat itself, look for something similar to happen with Linux, now that its legality has been brought into question. Which alternative *nix based system will take its place?
I take it now would be a good time to lobby Lucent to fix the Plan 9 license?
Re:About as viral as accidentally giving away secr
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What if SCO is Right?
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But SCO's argument is (or was) that Un*x itself is their `IP'. They can't really argue they didn't know Linux was Un*x-based.
Heck no, you CAN go straight from arithmatic to basic algebra with no problem.
I think you mean `basic calculus'. Of course you can go from arithmetic to algebra; people do it every day in our schools.
Stay steeped in your mindset if you like, but the quickest way to velocity is the first derivative, not eight lines of algebra.
True. I never said we should teach calc results before calculus. I said you have to learn the ideas of algebra to get very far in calculus, and imho it's easier to get those using field algebra than calculus. And, if you're trying to do anything serious with calculus (i.e., outside of a textbook problem), you're going to need a good background in algebra.
Slashdot Mirror
Look, something has occured to me: how do we know what SCO is putting forth as `evidence' is really SCO code?
Thing is, nobody really believes SCO could be right---they don't have anything worth stealing, and they've been running a campaign designed more to scare everybody into staying away from Linux than to win in court, which doesn't breed confidence in their ability to win in court.
Exactly. If SCO has a legitimate claim based on the contract, it must be that IBM took code that SCO contributed to project Monterey---which I find highly unlikely---I very much doubt SCO would have much to contribute (i.e., much AIX didn't already have) that Linux didn't already have.
Assuming SCO survives that long. What happens if a company dies in the middle of a lawsuit
Oh and, btw., this is C code. How many pieces of C code that small can you come up with that are complete enough to even talk about memory leaks?
It's not necessarily copy and paste to get the same 15 lines identical. There are many areas in programming where the space of possible (reasonable) lines is very small; a collision of that length is practically guaranteed between two sufficiently large code bases.
I think you mean ```$<0', which of course means `$<0 is less than zero'''. Otherwise, it's not recursive
How can IBM sign a contract (or, for that matter, why would they) that says they can't use their own code that they wrote however they damn well please?
In any case, if IBM is contributing their code that they wrote, it's not an IP issue, and SCO should stop claiming it is.
No, he was a (IIRC socialist) revolutionary (or more precisely said revolutionary's assistant) (OK, that's a tyrant---you win there) dreaming up the `ideal' world (if only it would work).
You're talking about Munich. He's talking about M$. Even if TCO of M$ were less (which it's not), M$ would still lose money when Munich goes Linux.
He's not replying to you. He's replying to the troll who replied to you.
Well, the contents---architecture---algorithms---engineering knowledge of the proprietary Un*ces (especially SysV/UnixWare), naturally. That's what SCO is claiming IBM ripped off for Linux.
We know SCO thinks it's a secret because they're suing IBM on the basis that it's a secret.
(It here is, on the basis of SCO's complaint, proprietary Un*x source code).
Apparently, you're missing stars.
*ducks*
No. The request is `tell me something I know everybody knows, and you know everybody knows, but SCO thinks is a secret.' The goal is to prove that everyone knows it.
No. If their trade secret `rights' have been violated enough, and they've done little enough about it, they lose those rights. They want to argue this is basically a unique occurance, that their rights are still watertight, because they've always been enforced until now.
And contamination is a feature of trade secret law. So, if ESR can show they've lost their trade secret protection, that takes away the contamination argument. Not sure if you've gotten this, but I thought I'd let you know.
No, he's not asking for where you've copied the source---he's asking for where you've read the source---without either signing or violating any NDAs.
No. Read ESR's page on the legal issues. Trade secret law is like trademark law; if AT&T, Novell, and SCO have been sufficiently lax for sufficiently long about enforcing the NDAs, then it's too late to start now---they've already given up their trade secrets.
I think you've got it here---the less Microsoft software running on a computer, the more stable it is.
I know. But if they say Linux is Unix based, they lose their case (what there is of it). And they can't say they just figured out that Linux is Unix based (to whatever extent they claim it is), either.
Untrue. The rest of the world has plenty of problems with Windows. They just haven't realised the problems are Windows-specific yet.
I take it now would be a good time to lobby Lucent to fix the Plan 9 license?
But SCO's argument is (or was) that Un*x itself is their `IP'. They can't really argue they didn't know Linux was Un*x-based.
I think you mean `basic calculus'. Of course you can go from arithmetic to algebra; people do it every day in our schools.
True. I never said we should teach calc results before calculus. I said you have to learn the ideas of algebra to get very far in calculus, and imho it's easier to get those using field algebra than calculus. And, if you're trying to do anything serious with calculus (i.e., outside of a textbook problem), you're going to need a good background in algebra.
What? I suppose next you're going to complain about the ``problematic law of the excluded middle''. Go away, troll.