Seriously, if it's just isolated lines they're talking about, then even if the SCO code did it first, it's possible that it's a case of independent invention rather than copying. And independent creation is a complete defense in copyright law (IANAL, but IAAJD).
This argument would be strengthened (for Linux) if the variable names are conventional or different between the two kernels, and weakened if the names are unusual and alike.
Conspriacy theory in this case is not more fun, but it is plausible. Consider this addition...
7. DARPA gets bad publicity from cancellation, has to spin it. Bush admin people have already been on their case for supporting something non-commercial. Bush-ites reason, "Hey, if we associate OSS with terrorism, that's good for our buddies at MS. We gave them a free ride in the antitrust suit and they're now building a hardware-based spyware system intended for every computer, maybe some hidden backdoors, and that suits us just fine. Plus the proprietary model lbrings in $$$ from all over the world. And what do we owe those open-source freaks? They're just losing us tax money and not helping our corporate contributors at all..."
- And so DARPA gets a hint to take some sort of national-security line.
"The study, which examined 57 countries, also predicted that a 10-point reduction in the rate of piracy over four years could generate 1.5 million jobs and $64 billion taxes worldwide, and double the IT sector in countries such as Russia."
They make this sound like a net benefit. In fact, economically speaking, proprietary software is a net drain on an economy. The difference between that $64B and whatever it would cost to accomplish all the same things with OSS is economic waste, like pyramid-building. Do we really want to double the IT sector in a country, when it could expand only, say, to 1.5x and accomplish more innovation, information processing, etc., with more standards adherence, less duplication of code, etc.. Think of all the roads, schools, science & whatever else could be bought with the extra resources currently being spent on Microsoft licences! To the extent these things are more valuable to the society than enriching a few Redmond zillionaires, the BSA is glorifying parasitism.
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Seriously, if it's just isolated lines they're talking about, then even if the SCO code did it first, it's possible that it's a case of independent invention rather than copying. And independent creation is a complete defense in copyright law (IANAL, but IAAJD).
This argument would be strengthened (for Linux) if the variable names are conventional or different between the two kernels, and weakened if the names are unusual and alike.
Conspriacy theory in this case is not more fun, but it is plausible. Consider this addition...
7. DARPA gets bad publicity from cancellation, has to spin it. Bush admin people have already been on their case for supporting something non-commercial. Bush-ites reason, "Hey, if we associate OSS with terrorism, that's good for our buddies at MS. We gave them a free ride in the antitrust suit and they're now building a hardware-based spyware system intended for every computer, maybe some hidden backdoors, and that suits us just fine. Plus the proprietary model lbrings in $$$ from all over the world. And what do we owe those open-source freaks? They're just losing us tax money and not helping our corporate contributors at all..."
- And so DARPA gets a hint to take some sort of national-security line.
"The study, which examined 57 countries, also predicted that a 10-point reduction in the rate of piracy over four years could generate 1.5 million jobs and $64 billion taxes worldwide, and double the IT sector in countries such as Russia."
They make this sound like a net benefit. In fact, economically speaking, proprietary software is a net drain on an economy. The difference between that $64B and whatever it would cost to accomplish all the same things with OSS is economic waste, like pyramid-building. Do we really want to double the IT sector in a country, when it could expand only, say, to 1.5x and accomplish more innovation, information processing, etc., with more standards adherence, less duplication of code, etc.. Think of all the roads, schools, science & whatever else could be bought with the extra resources currently being spent on Microsoft licences! To the extent these things are more valuable to the society than enriching a few Redmond zillionaires, the BSA is glorifying parasitism.