What SCO wants...

[peterman at eecs.tufts.edu (Charles Peterman)]

On Thu, 19 Jun 2003, John Chambers wrote:

> start,  while  most  companies'  code  is  kept secret, it's far more
> likely that any shared code was stolen from linux.

Having worked with kernels on *BSD, Linux,
and proprietary OS's, I see more code misappropriated (used, but with
copyright notice removed) from *BSD.  Specifically, the Linux ata driver
source code was lifted, verbatim, from FreeBSD.  The FreeBSD
contributor/author, Soren Schmidt, called this to light when he found his
code checked into the Linux kernel with the BSD copyright and his name
removed.

If you want to read about it:

http://bsd.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/24/1432223&mode=thread


Saying other OS's are more likely to steal from Linux is just silly when
there is easily accessible evidence to the contrary.

However, three goods things should come out of this SCO tripe:

 An IP review of the Linux kernel to establish pedigree.
 An _expunging_ of questionable proprietary IP.
 A legal precedent for either consent of transfer and/or failure to
 vigorously defend copyright which facilitates the incorporation of IP
 into the GPL'd projects.


And while you may not care for the third, unless that issue is resolved,
we are going to the SCO merry-go-round happen again and again as rabid
packs of lawyers buy up discarded IP and attempt to spin a nuisance
lawsuit out of it.