Have you ever noticed how many of the custom in house projects are built on top of commercial proprietary products? There's usually a database backend, some business logic middle tier, maybe a web front end. The customisations are wrapping the business process around those components.
My point exactly. Is there large difference building an application on AIX running WebSphere and DB2 versus Linux or *BSD running JBOSS and mySQL? I don't think there is, for most customers.
Commercial software as we know it is dieing. In the future, more and more software will be written by cooperative groups of commercial, in-house, and individual developers and will be available free to all. The commercial software business will involve consulting/support/training services while the rest will be doing in-house implementations.
If DRM fails, it will be because of consumer rejection, not for technical reasons.
Don't you remember having to keep a box next to each PC with the disks for that PC's copy of Lotus 1-2-3, since if the software needed to be updated, you couldn't use any copy, but the actual disk that was used to install it?
Please understand that I am not saying that I don't have compassion for that 80%, or that they don't matter to me on an moral/ethical level.
I don't have an direct interaction with those people, however, and so it does not matter to me whether or not they can speak English or I can speak their native language.
People are needlessly critical of others for not being multi-lingual. But the fact of the matter is that for most Americans multi-lingual doesn't do anything to aid them in their lives. Europe is different, of course, because of the large number of relatively small nations with their own languages. A Dane who works in Sweden and vacations frequently in Germany will derive worthwhile benefit form knowing Danish, Swedish, and German. A New Jersean who works in New York and vacations in Florida derives little benefit from knowing non-English languages.
The fundamental fact is that the international communities with whom I am likely to interact probably speak English already. It may not be fair that they learn 2+ languages and I only need to learn one, but life isn't fair.
Uber-Geek ESR already wrote an excellent tract on this subject - The Magic Cauldron.
One of the key points is that very few developers are involved in developing "commercial" software. The vast majority (maybe 95% or more) do implementation and custom development for in-house projects.
If OSS were to eliminate "commercial software" completely, these jobs would still need to be filled, and since less budget would be spent on licensing, more money would be available in corporate budgets to fund custom development.
The fact of the matter is that the US is the dominant commercial power in the world. They speak a language similiar to English in the UK (but we didn't fight a revolution so that we could ride the lift to go out a light a fag:). Add in Canada, Australia, and the up-and-coming heaveyweight India, and the critical mass gets much bigger. English literacy is very high in Europe. Japan has a failry high level of English literacy, and China does as well - at least amongst academia, r&d, and the international commerce communities.
The fundamental fact is that English is the dominant international language, the language that most people are going to choose to learn in addition to their native language.
Now if the rest of you would just start calling it soccer and drop that silly metric system the world would be even better.
Back to the grand-parent poster's point - since most of the world's technology development and commerce is happening in English already, there is little need for translation. On the other hand, cultural and literary works are still important - but likely cannot be translated mechanically. The middle ground for this technology is basic informational data - news reports, manuals, etc.
I've given a lot of thought to the balance of proprietary and open code.
I'd like to suggest a "mixed open" license. I envision this kind of interaction between open and proprietary code.
The origianl owner would release software (binary and source code) under the "mixed open" license.
Others would be free to run, modify, and redistribute the software. Distributors may not charge a fee for the software, except for costs associated with distribution. Binary distributors would be required to also offer for free or for distribution cost the source code. Distributors can sell support or value added services.
The original owner, or his proprietary licensees, can develop and sell proprietary versions of the code.
Proprietary distributors can integrate enhancements and big fixes made by the community royalty free, but must respect the following conditions in doing so...
Proprietary distributors must contribute further enhancements and bug fixes to community contributed code back to the community.
Proprietary distributors must provide integrated community code in source code form, such that the user can modify said code and relink it with proprietary code in object form. Users could not be prevented from linking in one program proprietary modules from multiple sources.
The goal here is to have the maximum number of developers, both open and proprietary, developing and enhancing the same codebase. Once a piece of code is open, it must remain open, but open code can be mixed with proprietary code.
Imagine that AT&T/USL had open-sourced SVR4 under this model many years ago.
First, it would have preempted the development of BSD and Linux, since the goals of those development communities could have been met within the framework of the AT&T code.
Second, hardware vendors could produce versions customized to their hardware by licensing SVR4 directly from USL. In attempting to maximize ROI, they are likely to keep in lock step with the community version except for those drivers needed for their specific hardware. They would not have to fear loss of the trade secrets in their hardware or drivers.
In the long term, there would be one common open code base, available free, designed to work with generic or common hardware. There would then be small subsets of code, perhaps available for a price, designed to take advantage of specific hardware or do very customized tasks.
So Intel would license a SVR4 distribution that was 99% open, but has a few custom modules designed to take advantage of special features in their Dual-XEON configuration. They would sell or more likely offer it free to their hardware customers. Meanwhile NVidia sells a distirbution customized for their video cards. The end user takes some modules from each and links them with his own customized kernel.
assuming the selection mechanism isn't horked over by a sixth-grader who votes for anything containing the word "boobies" no matter how poor the poetry.
So if I lend my car to a friend and he gets drunk and kills a pedestrian with it, do I get a manslaughter/DUI charge brought against me?? Hell no!
First, the RIAA is bringing a civil complaint, not a criminal complaint, so you are comparing apples to oranges.
Second, if you lend a car to a friend and he gets drunk and kills a pedestrian with it, you can be sued in civil court. In many states of the US, as well as many other places around the world, the property owner is liable in a tort action through the principle of "vicarious liability". Given your fact pattern, the driver and the owner will both be sued successfully, and if they don't have enough insurance, their houses may be foreclosed and their personal property sold at auction.
Sucks, but that is the way it is (at least in most places inhabited by/. readers). Ask a personal injury lawyer if you don't believe me.
If I lend my car to a friend and he gets into a lets say DUI accident... I will definitely be not liable.
In NY and many other states you would most definitely be liable. Read up on "Vicarious Liability" or "Vicarious Responsibility" sometime. Also look at "negligent entrustment". Property owners frequently are held liable in tort law for the acts of others who were using their property.
It seems strange that we, as a people, would allow laws to become so complex that even the attorneys (who have been specifically trained in the law) would have trouble giving a specific "bright line" definition...
This is a consequence of the "common law" system inherited by much of the world from England. In the common law, it is accepted that disputes will arise that fall outside the language of a statute. Therefore it is accepted that statutes passed by legislatures (Parliament or Congress) and executives (be they Kings or Presidents) can never on their own create a fully effective legal system.
In this vacuum, judges have been empowered to create law by applying the general principles of justice and interpretting the intent of the legislature. Other judges are encouraged not reinvent law a second time but to rely on the prior decisions when faced with similar cases. Because of this, the law is constantly being refined.
It is a great big open source project with thousands of developers constantly tweaking and enhancing it. In that light it is not odd that lawyers cannot give accurate "bright line" definitions. Can kernel developers tell us for sure what the source tree will look like tomorrow?
I spent a few minutes looking at your past posts, and so I'm pretty sure that you are trolling. Now I can meta-troll.
The phrase "tyranny of the mob" is not referring to mob as an organized crime syndicate, but mob as the people, especially when rioting.
Mobs have a tendancy to inflict their will upon a minority, usually with tragic consequences. Mobs do things like elect Hitler or lynch blacks. Please refer to a history of the French Revolution for more info.
The various election cycles of the US government were designed by the framers of the constitution to smooth over the passions of the moment. The House of Representatives can be replaced every 2 years - it is the most responsive body. The president can only be replaced every 4 years, and a Senators serve staggered 6 year terms, so they are less responsive to the whim of the moment. The Supreme Court is appointed for life, so it is the least responsive and frequently the most willing to make the unpopular but just choices.
The electoral college system also modifies the dynamics of a pure democracy. The system weighs smaller states (by population) more heavily than larger states. This rewards candidates with broader support over the candidate with very deep support in one region. In a direct popular election a candidate could tailor their campaign to the voters of CA, TX, NY, FL, and IL and win without giving a crap about Nebraska.
Also in a direct popular vote corrupt local and state political machines have a greater influence. Right now if the (Democratic) machine in NY City produced an additional fraudulent million votes, all it could do is cement NY's slate of electors (which likely would go Democratic anyway). In a direct popular vote, that fraud effects the national totals, so, for instance, the (Republican) machine in Texas would need to counter NY's fraud with their own. It is not a very positive situation.
To begin with it's all in Latin. Seeing as how Latin is not quite the popular language as it used to be, it is doubtful that a student would be understanding the nuances and meanings of the GB.
Also, it is simply not available to the general public. While this digitization of it goes a long way to providing easier access to the book, it remains largely inaccessible to those who live in foreign countries without easy access to Internet (those who would probably best be served by having Bible access).
I agree. This would be great if it was available to the people of Latin America.
Sorry, I couldn't resist:)
Serious bible study, analyzing literary choices and redactive choices, is very much aided by one or more biblical commentaries. I used to use two of them. One of which was the Jerome Bibilical Commentary, another set a modern transalation side by side by side with a literal translation of each the Vulgate, Septuagint, and Hebrew/Aramaic texts.
The Gutenberg Bible, BTW, is a copy of the Vulgate text. The Vulgate (from versio vulgata, or common translation) was commisioned by Pope Damascus in 382, and translated by St. Jerome. He worked from Septuagint and Hebrew/Aramaic sources. Others completed Jerome's work.
...hard drive manufacturers would do things like have multiple independent heads accessing the same platters, two would be easy, three could probably be done with current technology, and many more could be done with different mechanical linkages....
I always wondered why drives use discrete heads moved around on an arm.
If a "stationary bridge" was positioned radially over the platter, and a large number of discrete r/w unitswere placed on the underside of the bridge (1 per physical track) any sector could be read by electrically selecting the appropriate r/w unit and waiting until the data spun under it.
Seek time becomes purely a funtion of the RPM of the platter. Moving parts are reduced. Speed could even be further improved by arranging blocks of data to be stored as a single or small gorup of bits on each track, in the same radial location, and reading the entire block in parrallel.
I suppose that in order for this to be feasible, the r/w bridge would need to be fabricated by etching silicon.
Just to pick a nit, Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin led the anti-communist witch hunts of the early part of the cold war.
Douglas MacArthur was a US Army General who helped train the Philippine army prior to WWII. During the war, he was one of a handful of key leaders in the Allied effort against Imperial Japan (although most historians would probably consider Admirals Nimitz or Halsey to be more important). After the war, he was in charge of the occupation of Japan, where he laid the groundwork for democracy and a first class economy. When the Korean War broke out, he commanded the UN forces (led by the US). The dramatic landing at Inchon sent the North Korean forces into full retreat. When he pursued the fleeing North Korean forces too close to the Chinese border, however, China intervened. President Truman relieved him of command when he publicly criticized the President for not allowing him to use nuclear weapons against the Chinese. After an abortive bid for the Presidency, he faded from public life.
The system I'd like to see in general is a micropayment system based on the "MetroCards" used by the NYC subway and bus system.
These inexpensive plastic cards have a magnetic strip encoded with a declining balance. They can be purchased in a number of preset values - $10-$20 dollars, and can be thrown away when they are depleted.
If these cards could be used at the coffee shop and news-stand, you wouldn't need cash in and around NYC.
I live in the NYC area and have been using EZ-Pass for about 8 years (since it was installed on the Tappan-Zee Bridge, if you need to know). Most EZ-Pass users get two major benefits that more than compensate for the loss of interest.
First, the EZ-Pass system almost always reduces the time one spends waiting in line at a toll booth. This is substantial, usually in excess of five minutes, and often in excess of 20 minutes. For a regular commuter, this can easily add up to more than an hour of time saved every week.
Second, the EZ-Pass system frequently provides discounts over the "cash rate". The Triboro Bridge Authority charges $3.50 cash but only $3.00 in EZ-Pass money at most of their crossings. The Port Authority of NY and NJ charges $6.00 cash but as low as $4.00 for EZ-Pass.
These savings far outweigh the loss of interest on the $50 or so that is tied up in my EZ-Pass account. Not participating in EZ-Pass is a false economy.
Don't forget that the US MIL is already converting to IPv6. So the 8 or so class A blocks they have should be candidates for return to the pool.
Hmm, HP and DEC both have a class A. Surely the could do fine with just one...
May be this is an issue in 2010.
Honestly, more and more major organisations want to put their clients behind a firewall. NAT works fine for this, especially when VPN is used to pierce the firewall for appropriate usage. Virtually noone wants every device on their net available to the public.
"If a quarter is two bits, then a dollar's a byte." -R Deric Miller
That isn't an accident. In the early days on the USA, the dollar was pegged to the value of a Spanish gold coin. That Spanish coin could be broken into eight pieces to make smaller amounts - hence the term "pieces of eight". Each of the pieces was refered to as a "bit".
Eight bits made up a full coin, or a dollar. This wasn't lost of the people that coined the terminology of bit/byte.
...from their own FTP site (haven't checked in a couple of weeks but it was their very late June).
Timing is important here. If IBM did contribute SCO owned code, SCO would need to stop distributing versions containing infringing code as soon as practical after they identified the infringement. Anything that remains available on their sites after they've (internally) identified their claims is covered under GPL. Therefore the code in the 2.4.x kernel is all free from SCO claims.
Note that the versions available may be changing all the time, as their research uncovers other potential infringements.
Here is where it gets interesting. That kernel is probably a precompiled basic kernel. Are there any source modules for things like RCU and SMP that are not available from SCO's source trees but are available from other sites with the same patch level? That would tell us exactly what SCO believes is infringing.
Slashdot Mirror
My point exactly. Is there large difference building an application on AIX running WebSphere and DB2 versus Linux or *BSD running JBOSS and mySQL? I don't think there is, for most customers.
Commercial software as we know it is dieing. In the future, more and more software will be written by cooperative groups of commercial, in-house, and individual developers and will be available free to all. The commercial software business will involve consulting/support/training services while the rest will be doing in-house implementations.
Don't you remember having to keep a box next to each PC with the disks for that PC's copy of Lotus 1-2-3, since if the software needed to be updated, you couldn't use any copy, but the actual disk that was used to install it?
Consumers will reject excessively onerous DRM.
That usage has been deprecated. Use AssertTrue instead. :)
In short, yes.
Please understand that I am not saying that I don't have compassion for that 80%, or that they don't matter to me on an moral/ethical level.
I don't have an direct interaction with those people, however, and so it does not matter to me whether or not they can speak English or I can speak their native language.
People are needlessly critical of others for not being multi-lingual. But the fact of the matter is that for most Americans multi-lingual doesn't do anything to aid them in their lives. Europe is different, of course, because of the large number of relatively small nations with their own languages. A Dane who works in Sweden and vacations frequently in Germany will derive worthwhile benefit form knowing Danish, Swedish, and German. A New Jersean who works in New York and vacations in Florida derives little benefit from knowing non-English languages.
The fundamental fact is that the international communities with whom I am likely to interact probably speak English already. It may not be fair that they learn 2+ languages and I only need to learn one, but life isn't fair.
One of the key points is that very few developers are involved in developing "commercial" software. The vast majority (maybe 95% or more) do implementation and custom development for in-house projects.
If OSS were to eliminate "commercial software" completely, these jobs would still need to be filled, and since less budget would be spent on licensing, more money would be available in corporate budgets to fund custom development.
Most of the people that matter speak English :)
The fact of the matter is that the US is the dominant commercial power in the world. They speak a language similiar to English in the UK (but we didn't fight a revolution so that we could ride the lift to go out a light a fag :). Add in Canada, Australia, and the up-and-coming heaveyweight India, and the critical mass gets much bigger. English literacy is very high in Europe. Japan has a failry high level of English literacy, and China does as well - at least amongst academia, r&d, and the international commerce communities.
The fundamental fact is that English is the dominant international language, the language that most people are going to choose to learn in addition to their native language.
Now if the rest of you would just start calling it soccer and drop that silly metric system the world would be even better.
Back to the grand-parent poster's point - since most of the world's technology development and commerce is happening in English already, there is little need for translation. On the other hand, cultural and literary works are still important - but likely cannot be translated mechanically. The middle ground for this technology is basic informational data - news reports, manuals, etc.
I'd like to suggest a "mixed open" license. I envision this kind of interaction between open and proprietary code.
- The origianl owner would release software (binary and source code) under the "mixed open" license.
- Others would be free to run, modify, and redistribute the software. Distributors may not charge a fee for the software, except for costs associated with distribution. Binary distributors would be required to also offer for free or for distribution cost the source code. Distributors can sell support or value added services.
- The original owner, or his proprietary licensees, can develop and sell proprietary versions of the code.
- Proprietary distributors can integrate enhancements and big fixes made by the community royalty free, but must respect the following conditions in doing so...
- Proprietary distributors must contribute further enhancements and bug fixes to community contributed code back to the community.
- Proprietary distributors must provide integrated community code in source code form, such that the user can modify said code and relink it with proprietary code in object form. Users could not be prevented from linking in one program proprietary modules from multiple sources.
The goal here is to have the maximum number of developers, both open and proprietary, developing and enhancing the same codebase. Once a piece of code is open, it must remain open, but open code can be mixed with proprietary code.Imagine that AT&T/USL had open-sourced SVR4 under this model many years ago.
First, it would have preempted the development of BSD and Linux, since the goals of those development communities could have been met within the framework of the AT&T code.
Second, hardware vendors could produce versions customized to their hardware by licensing SVR4 directly from USL. In attempting to maximize ROI, they are likely to keep in lock step with the community version except for those drivers needed for their specific hardware. They would not have to fear loss of the trade secrets in their hardware or drivers.
In the long term, there would be one common open code base, available free, designed to work with generic or common hardware. There would then be small subsets of code, perhaps available for a price, designed to take advantage of specific hardware or do very customized tasks.
So Intel would license a SVR4 distribution that was 99% open, but has a few custom modules designed to take advantage of special features in their Dual-XEON configuration. They would sell or more likely offer it free to their hardware customers. Meanwhile NVidia sells a distirbution customized for their video cards. The end user takes some modules from each and links them with his own customized kernel.
That post said "boobies"! Mod it up!
Provided it wasn't stolen, or some specific statute didn't exclude them, propety owners always have a liability.
Go beef up you auto insurance.
First, the RIAA is bringing a civil complaint, not a criminal complaint, so you are comparing apples to oranges.
Second, if you lend a car to a friend and he gets drunk and kills a pedestrian with it, you can be sued in civil court. In many states of the US, as well as many other places around the world, the property owner is liable in a tort action through the principle of "vicarious liability". Given your fact pattern, the driver and the owner will both be sued successfully, and if they don't have enough insurance, their houses may be foreclosed and their personal property sold at auction.
Sucks, but that is the way it is (at least in most places inhabited by /. readers). Ask a personal injury lawyer if you don't believe me.
In NY and many other states you would most definitely be liable. Read up on "Vicarious Liability" or "Vicarious Responsibility" sometime. Also look at "negligent entrustment". Property owners frequently are held liable in tort law for the acts of others who were using their property.
This is a consequence of the "common law" system inherited by much of the world from England. In the common law, it is accepted that disputes will arise that fall outside the language of a statute. Therefore it is accepted that statutes passed by legislatures (Parliament or Congress) and executives (be they Kings or Presidents) can never on their own create a fully effective legal system.
In this vacuum, judges have been empowered to create law by applying the general principles of justice and interpretting the intent of the legislature. Other judges are encouraged not reinvent law a second time but to rely on the prior decisions when faced with similar cases. Because of this, the law is constantly being refined.
It is a great big open source project with thousands of developers constantly tweaking and enhancing it. In that light it is not odd that lawyers cannot give accurate "bright line" definitions. Can kernel developers tell us for sure what the source tree will look like tomorrow?
The phrase "tyranny of the mob" is not referring to mob as an organized crime syndicate, but mob as the people, especially when rioting.
Mobs have a tendancy to inflict their will upon a minority, usually with tragic consequences. Mobs do things like elect Hitler or lynch blacks. Please refer to a history of the French Revolution for more info.
The various election cycles of the US government were designed by the framers of the constitution to smooth over the passions of the moment. The House of Representatives can be replaced every 2 years - it is the most responsive body. The president can only be replaced every 4 years, and a Senators serve staggered 6 year terms, so they are less responsive to the whim of the moment. The Supreme Court is appointed for life, so it is the least responsive and frequently the most willing to make the unpopular but just choices.
The electoral college system also modifies the dynamics of a pure democracy. The system weighs smaller states (by population) more heavily than larger states. This rewards candidates with broader support over the candidate with very deep support in one region. In a direct popular election a candidate could tailor their campaign to the voters of CA, TX, NY, FL, and IL and win without giving a crap about Nebraska.
Also in a direct popular vote corrupt local and state political machines have a greater influence. Right now if the (Democratic) machine in NY City produced an additional fraudulent million votes, all it could do is cement NY's slate of electors (which likely would go Democratic anyway). In a direct popular vote, that fraud effects the national totals, so, for instance, the (Republican) machine in Texas would need to counter NY's fraud with their own. It is not a very positive situation.
Also, it is simply not available to the general public. While this digitization of it goes a long way to providing easier access to the book, it remains largely inaccessible to those who live in foreign countries without easy access to Internet (those who would probably best be served by having Bible access).
I agree. This would be great if it was available to the people of Latin America.
Sorry, I couldn't resist :)
Serious bible study, analyzing literary choices and redactive choices, is very much aided by one or more biblical commentaries. I used to use two of them. One of which was the Jerome Bibilical Commentary, another set a modern transalation side by side by side with a literal translation of each the Vulgate, Septuagint, and Hebrew/Aramaic texts.
The Gutenberg Bible, BTW, is a copy of the Vulgate text. The Vulgate (from versio vulgata, or common translation) was commisioned by Pope Damascus in 382, and translated by St. Jerome. He worked from Septuagint and Hebrew/Aramaic sources. Others completed Jerome's work.
Forty-Two
I always wondered why drives use discrete heads moved around on an arm.
If a "stationary bridge" was positioned radially over the platter, and a large number of discrete r/w unitswere placed on the underside of the bridge (1 per physical track) any sector could be read by electrically selecting the appropriate r/w unit and waiting until the data spun under it.
Seek time becomes purely a funtion of the RPM of the platter. Moving parts are reduced. Speed could even be further improved by arranging blocks of data to be stored as a single or small gorup of bits on each track, in the same radial location, and reading the entire block in parrallel.
I suppose that in order for this to be feasible, the r/w bridge would need to be fabricated by etching silicon.
Just to pick a nit, Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin led the anti-communist witch hunts of the early part of the cold war.
Douglas MacArthur was a US Army General who helped train the Philippine army prior to WWII. During the war, he was one of a handful of key leaders in the Allied effort against Imperial Japan (although most historians would probably consider Admirals Nimitz or Halsey to be more important). After the war, he was in charge of the occupation of Japan, where he laid the groundwork for democracy and a first class economy. When the Korean War broke out, he commanded the UN forces (led by the US). The dramatic landing at Inchon sent the North Korean forces into full retreat. When he pursued the fleeing North Korean forces too close to the Chinese border, however, China intervened. President Truman relieved him of command when he publicly criticized the President for not allowing him to use nuclear weapons against the Chinese. After an abortive bid for the Presidency, he faded from public life.
What about OpenBSD, I mean beside the fact that it is dying. :)
Sorry, couldn't resist.
These inexpensive plastic cards have a magnetic strip encoded with a declining balance. They can be purchased in a number of preset values - $10-$20 dollars, and can be thrown away when they are depleted.
If these cards could be used at the coffee shop and news-stand, you wouldn't need cash in and around NYC.
I live in the NYC area and have been using EZ-Pass for about 8 years (since it was installed on the Tappan-Zee Bridge, if you need to know). Most EZ-Pass users get two major benefits that more than compensate for the loss of interest.
First, the EZ-Pass system almost always reduces the time one spends waiting in line at a toll booth. This is substantial, usually in excess of five minutes, and often in excess of 20 minutes. For a regular commuter, this can easily add up to more than an hour of time saved every week.
Second, the EZ-Pass system frequently provides discounts over the "cash rate". The Triboro Bridge Authority charges $3.50 cash but only $3.00 in EZ-Pass money at most of their crossings. The Port Authority of NY and NJ charges $6.00 cash but as low as $4.00 for EZ-Pass.
These savings far outweigh the loss of interest on the $50 or so that is tied up in my EZ-Pass account. Not participating in EZ-Pass is a false economy.
Hmm, HP and DEC both have a class A. Surely the could do fine with just one...
May be this is an issue in 2010.
Honestly, more and more major organisations want to put their clients behind a firewall. NAT works fine for this, especially when VPN is used to pierce the firewall for appropriate usage. Virtually noone wants every device on their net available to the public.
That isn't an accident. In the early days on the USA, the dollar was pegged to the value of a Spanish gold coin. That Spanish coin could be broken into eight pieces to make smaller amounts - hence the term "pieces of eight". Each of the pieces was refered to as a "bit".
Eight bits made up a full coin, or a dollar. This wasn't lost of the people that coined the terminology of bit/byte.
Very interesting theory. Can someone provide a legally informed opinion? Is that a criminal offense or a tort?
Timing is important here. If IBM did contribute SCO owned code, SCO would need to stop distributing versions containing infringing code as soon as practical after they identified the infringement. Anything that remains available on their sites after they've (internally) identified their claims is covered under GPL. Therefore the code in the 2.4.x kernel is all free from SCO claims.
Note that the versions available may be changing all the time, as their research uncovers other potential infringements.
Here is where it gets interesting. That kernel is probably a precompiled basic kernel. Are there any source modules for things like RCU and SMP that are not available from SCO's source trees but are available from other sites with the same patch level? That would tell us exactly what SCO believes is infringing.
2. SCO turns around and says it owns the other 99% of Linux it had nothing to do with because of the 1% that it did
3. SCO is now trying to extort licensing fees from end users because it "owns" Linux
Acutally it runs more like this...
1. SCO helps out Linux development in a few small ways -- some hardware here, a few lines of code there
2. SCO enters into a contract with IBM to jointly develop proprietary UNIX code.
3. IBM contributes significant code to Linux 2.4 kernel.
4. SCO claims ownership on the IBM submissions, on the theory that they are derivative of the code they jointly developed.
4a. SCO makes wild PR claims that the own everything everywhere.
5. SCO attempts to collect license fees from users of the 2.4 kernel, consistent with their claim of owning the IBM submissions.