SCOsource and Linux [LWN.net]

Rumors have been circulating for a few weeks: SCO, it is said, has hired a fancy law firm and will be pursuing intellectual property claims against Linux users and distributors. The level of concern has dropped somewhat as the company has announced its short-term plans, which are relatively uncontroversial. The full picture remains cloudy at best, however; SCO's intellectual property push could yet present the Linux community with its first serious legal difficulties.

For the moment, SCO's plans can be seen in this press release from LinuxWorld. A new division (called "SCOsource") has been created for the express purpose of expanding the licensing of the company's intellectual property, "including the core UNIX source code." For now, SCOsource only has one offering: the company's System V libraries for Linux. These libraries allow users to run SCO Unix applications under Linux; nobody has ever really confused them with free software. SCO's desire to realize some revenue from use of this proprietary product is not likely to upset that many people.

SCO seemingly does not intend to stop there, however; the company clearly believes that Linux (and other systems) may contain code or techniques which infringe upon its intellectual property. We asked Chris Sontag, Vice President of SCO's Operating Systems division, about this investigation and the uncertainty it creates in the Linux community; he responded:

The only way that SCO will be able to reduce that uncertainty is to research and investigate whether any of our intellectual property currently resides within Linux, which is what the law firm of Boies, Schiller and Flexner are currently doing. We are actively taking steps to try and reduce that uncertainty and we hope to announce the results of their findings in the coming months.

So SCO thinks that the possibility of its intellectual property "residing" with Linux is enough, at least, to justify the hiring of an expensive law firm to check it out.

What sort of SCO property might be found within Linux? One possible issue, of course, is software patents; it is essentially impossible to know which patents might be infringed by any given body of code. Any patents that SCO might have picked up with its ownership of Unix are likely to be expired by now, but the SCO could have other patents up its sleeve. The patent threat is not new, of course, and SCO is far from the only company which could conceivably create patent problems for Linux.

The other possible source of trouble is SCO's ownership of the Unix System V code. That SCO takes a broad view of what it owns can be seen in the impressive "SCO Intellectual Property Pedigree" that it has posted; it is a complicated set of diagrams with lots of arrows showing how just about everything (including Linux, QNX, Mach, Minix, and more) derives from the initial Unix system. A tiny piece of this diagram appears on the right side of this page.

Linux, one would think, should not have copyright problems with regard to SCO's Unix code; it was, after all, reimplemented from the beginning. That should be true, as long as nobody who has contributed to any Linux application has borrowed from the Unix code base. Given the number of people and vast amount of code involved, it would not be entirely surprising if a bit of borrowed code showed up somewhere.

What will SCO do if it finds something? As might be expected, the company is not willing to say much:

If we found unlicensed use of our intellectual property in a product like Linux, any action we would take would have to be based on the scope, source and impact of the violation. We do not feel we can rule out any particular response without impairing our fiduciary responsibility to our stockholders to protect their property. Certainly our first choice in helping to resolve this issue would not to be heavy handed in our response.

In other words, anything could happen, though SCO would try to not upset too many people. But if SCO turns up something that, it thinks, could be turned into licensing revenue, the company is likely to pursue that path. SCO is not in the strongest financial position, currently, and could use a new revenue stream. Of course, most other Linux companies are not going to be a great source of cash for SCO at the moment. It might well be that SCO's real target - if there is a target in the end - could be somebody with deeper pockets. Apple or Sun, say.

Sooner or later, Linux is going to face a big intellectual property challenge. If it doesn't come from SCO, somebody else is certain to pick up the slack. Even if Linux and the companies working with it emerge victorious, this sort of challenge can only serve to create uncertainty and doubt around Linux and free software in general. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

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SCOsource and Linux

Posted Feb 4, 2003 23:43 UTC (Tue) by yem (guest, #1138) [Link]

"everyone upgrades"
- I assume you mean the distro makers, because the users sure wont.

Also, I assume SCO could still go after the vendors for the revenue they made while the older "infringing" code was being distributed.

I don't know SCO and I don't remember UNIX. But the fact that they seem to be spending serious money/effort to investigate the linux (and other unix like) code is worrying.

SCOsource and Linux

Posted Jan 29, 2003 17:39 UTC (Wed) by rknop (guest, #66) [Link]

I'm worried.

All it takes is one fairly high-profile SCO announcment to give the MS FUD brigades all they need to discouarage business adoption of Linux. "We can assure you that we have fully licenced all the intellectual property in Windows," they will say. "With Linux, there is no vendor, and *you* might find yourself sued if there are IP violations in it. The risk is just not worth it."

A powerful argument. Yeah, this isn't *too* likely to create problems for the home hacker and hobby user like most of us, but it can put a serious crimp in Linux's road towards becoming more mainstream and widespread.

(Indeed, I wouldn't put it past MS to buy SCO and then start suing schools who use Linux. Schools going to Linux have to be a *major* fly in MS's soup.)

In broader terms, our country needs to get over its hangups on intellectual property. Yeah, lots of highly paid patent and copyright lawers will have to find new jobs, but I'm not going to weep over that. Right now, we're so concerned about protecting "intellectual property" that we've lost a lot of perspective. Want a perscription drug benefit in Medicare? I bet it's a whole lot cheaper if you elimiate all pharmceutical patents (thereby allowing rapid production of "generic" drugs)--- even when you factor in the fact that the government will have to sponsor research currently sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. Plus, you aren't in the morally treacherous situation of having to argue that you need to protect your patents to protect your companies while meanwhile millions of people are dying of AIDS in third world countries.

Copyrights and patents have a purpose, but they've been elevated to ends unto themselves in our country, and we're all going to suffer for that. Linux users are just the tip (or even just a little piece on the side) of the iceburg.

-Rob

SCOsource and Linux

Posted Jan 30, 2003 9:22 UTC (Thu) by pointwood (guest, #2814) [Link]

I'm certainly worried about this too. I don't think SCO will get much out of this though, all the negative press they have already got, will certainly not give them many new customers.

In regards to MS, I actually think their license says that they aren't responsible for that.

SCOsource and Linux - very bad for SCO.

Posted Feb 2, 2003 2:49 UTC (Sun) by wolfrider (guest, #3105) [Link]

>> The only way that SCO will be able to reduce that uncertainty is to research and investigate whether any of our intellectual property currently resides within Linux, which is what the law firm of Boies, Schiller and Flexner are currently doing.

>> We do not feel we can rule out any particular response without impairing our fiduciary responsibility to our stockholders to protect their property. Certainly our first choice in helping to resolve this issue would not to be heavy handed in our response.

--Fiduciary responsibility, my donkey... They're just trying to get some publicity, and it looks like it will backfire on them. The sensible thing to do would be to audit the code FIRST, and QUIETLY, using CODERS (programmers)...

--Then, *if* they found something, go to the LKML and the distros. Involving lawyers before obtaining definitive proof puts them in a VERY bad light. The way they're doing things right now helps to spread FUD about Linux - even though with BOTD, that may not have been their *intention* when they thought up this press release.

--But my perception is that nobody really cares about SCO anymore, and this may turn out to be another nail in their coffin.

** LKML == Linux Kernel Mailing List
** FUD == Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
** BOTD == Benefit of the Doubt (they may not have had bad intentions)

M$ buying SCO

Posted Jan 31, 2003 11:42 UTC (Fri) by tres (guest, #352) [Link]

Skipping over the political with the single comment that the current administration (including Ashcroft's DOJ) has been bought and paid for by more than a few different industries -- I don't see anyway that Microshaft can take either Linux or Apple out of the picture without raising some serious anti-trust issues. Didn't Billy invest $100M in Apple when Jobs announced that the new Mac would be using Explorer as the default browser? In reality Macs are not really a threat to Windoze but they have to be kept around so that M$'s monopoloy is not so obvious.

Linux, on the other hand, is a different sort of beast! It is disruptive technology; it will revolutionise the way computers work; Gates commoditized the peripheral industry and Linux will commoditize the software industry. In short, it is a real threat to Micro$oft and M$ will deal with it. M$' .Net strategy, in my opinion, was a way to move the monopoly from the OS level to that of the middleware libraries. This was probably in case the antitrust issue went the wrong way but it would be handy for Linux too. If they can move the monopoly to a middle layer then they could even adopt Linux as the base OS in a similair way to Apple adopting BSD. Imagine a stable Winblows!

But to outright kill it by buying SCO would raise the ire of too many congressmen. Mr. Hatch, from Novell territory, has been hearing about M$' exploits for quite some time now. The congressmen that represent Silicon Valley in CA, Silicon Alley in NY, Raleigh NC, and the many other little areas throughout the country that have sprung up are not exactly in M$' back pocket either. Even if M$ could get it by the FTC it would be extremely hard for the DOJ not to re-examine the monopoly issue yet again. Failing that there is always the EU. That purchase would be too hot even for the brazen MS to touch since such a purchase would not just threaten Linux.

M$ buying SCO would also threaten the ONLY OTHER VIABLE ALTERNATIVE to M$: UNIX. This would include Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, {Free,Open,Net}BSD, OS-X, Mach, etc. and all of the companies that have interests in those other operating systems. Those corporations have expensive lawyers and lobbyists that would be swung into action. Perhaps DEC (Compaq or HP or whoever they are this month) could dust off VMS as that would be just about the only thing that would be left. M$ needs to have a smaller profile in the battle than using nuclear weapons.

Their coming patent fights will be in many forms. For example they will try to protect their SMB protocols so as to regain their revenue from the file and print server markets. They may come from acquiring other companies as well but SCO would still be too hot. They will attack it from as many different angles as well causing as much damage as possible but they will not destroy it in one fell swoop. That would cause too much attention.

The biggest advantage that Free Software has, besides the obvious legions of devoted developers, is its standing within the rest of the world besides the US and EU. The fact that it can be trusted by governments to run their intelligence communities will force its adoption in many areas of foreign government starting with their defense departments. At the same time its licensing costs will make it attractive to a large public audience that can't spend six month's of salary for a computer. Schools need to teach theory more than application and since the OS that is best for this is also free the economic pressure will eventually silence the political pressure. And don't forget that the easiest way to fix the software piracy issue is to use Free Software.

On a different note, isn't there something in the GPL that states that if you pursue a patent claim against a piece of GPLed software that you forfeit all your rights regarding that piece of software? If that is the case then wouldn't SCO (Caldera) loose the right to market a Linux distribution if they pursue a patent claim against it?

Pedigree chart wishful thinking

Posted Jan 29, 2003 18:49 UTC (Wed) by nas (subscriber, #17) [Link]

Not only is the link between Minux and Linux dubious, I think the link between Minux and the original Unix code is also questionable. AFAIK, Minux was a reimplementation of a Unix-like system and was not derived from an existing system. Andrew Tanenbaum used it for teaching students. Any old-timers out there to confirm?

Hmm, I wonder if SCO got permission to use Éric Lévénez's chart? It looks like they took it and highlighted the branches that lead to Unix. Nice research work boys. If they didn't get permission, I think they have their own copyright problems. :-)

Pedigree chart wishful thinking

Posted Jan 29, 2003 21:00 UTC (Wed) by emkey (guest, #144) [Link]

Thats certainly my recollection. The only reason its distribution was restricted was because of the agreement Tanenbaum had signed with... Prentice Hall I believe who distributed the book. Even then you could give copies to other under some circumstances. If he'd release Minix to the public domain back then we likely wouldn't ever have heard of Linus.

Pedigree chart wishful thinking

Posted Feb 5, 2003 11:14 UTC (Wed) by Soruk (guest, #2722) [Link]

AST now has - since he got permission from Prentice-Hall to do so, Minix has been relicensed under a BSD-like licence.

I haven't used it in a number of years, but it's still the only freely-available UNIX-like OS thast actually works for sub-386 systems.

Pedigree chart wishful thinking

Posted Jan 29, 2003 23:41 UTC (Wed) by da4089 (subscriber, #1195) [Link]

i imagine the issue is patents, not copyright, in which case it is the design of features (and possibly their expresion via system calls) that might at issue? for instance, i think DMR has a patent on the setuid mechanism.

as i recall, AndyT's stated goal was to make Minix AT&T 7th Ed compatible at the programming level.

as an aside, i would have thought that Minix was least likely to have IP problems, being implemented as a set of cooperating servers, rather than a monolithic kernel.

Orginal Unix patents should have expired

Posted Jan 29, 2003 23:59 UTC (Wed) by nas (subscriber, #17) [Link]

It looks like the setuid patent has expired. I still think SCO is silly to imply that IP flowed from Unix to Minux to Linux.

Pedigree chart wishful thinking

Posted Jan 30, 2003 7:57 UTC (Thu) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

> AFAIK, Minux was a reimplementation of a Unix-like system and was not
> derived from an existing system.

Minix is not just a re-implementation, but internally a very different
design: the kernel consists of a set of processes that pass messages
between them. By contrast, Linux uses the same monolithic kernel approach
as the original Unix. The only thing that Minix shares with Unix is the
API. The original Minix version implemented only the old features
that 7. Edition Unix had already in the 1970's.

> Andrew Tanenbaum used it for teaching students. Any old-timers out there
> to confirm?

Yes, and he published a text book on operating systems, using Minix as
his concrete example. The book actually lists the entire Minix kernel.
It ran on a PC XT or compatible: even a hard disk was not necessary
in the original version. I installed it on mine soon after it came out.
A great learning experience.