What about NUMA? That's Sequent-related, too. [LWN.net]

What about NUMA? That's Sequent-related, too.

Posted Jun 13, 2003 17:15 UTC (Fri) by emk (subscriber, #1128)
Parent article: Does SCO own read-copy-update?

SCO has complained several times about SCO-owned NUMA code winding up in Unix. This claim has always struck me as odd, because SCO doesn't even support NUMA (link, link).

On the other hand, Sequent had deep expertise in NUMA. And Sequent was also the source of the Linux RCU implementation.

Since Sequent participated in Project Monetery (along with SCO and IBM), and appears to have been bought by IBM, it looks like Sequent may be a major focus of this case.

Perhaps SCO is suggesting that since Sequent's Dynix was a version of Unix, any technology developed by Sequent--no matter how far advanced beyond the ancient SVR4 code SCO owns--is therefore inevitably contaiminated with SCO's copyrighted code? Or are they suggesting that no Project Monterey-related technologies--even if they were largely developed by Sequent or IBM--can be included in Linux?

Either claim would be pretty aggressive. Any advanced techniques developed internally at Sequent would probably contain only miniscule traces of SVR4 code, if they contained anything at all. (Similar things could be said about IBM's OS/2 version of JFS, also mentioned in the SCO complaint.)

Of course, SCO started seriously looking at the GPL very recently--despite the enormous implications of the GPL for this case--so we have to assume that their lawyers aren't necessarily on the ball. And their initial complaint included lots of dumb errors, too. So maybe SCO is a bit confused, here. It's hard to say.

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Bingo

Posted Jun 24, 2003 17:10 UTC (Tue) by booch (subscriber, #1416) [Link]

Perhaps SCO is suggesting that since Sequent's Dynix was a version of Unix, any technology developed by Sequent--no matter how far advanced beyond the ancient SVR4 code SCO owns--is therefore inevitably contaiminated with SCO's copyrighted code?

Give that man a cigar. SCO's amended complaint seems to make it clear that this is what SCO is basing pretty much their whole case on. As Cringely and a few other have pointed out, it's a pretty hard argument to win. The UNIX license does say that added code becomes part of UNIX. But if the code existed before it became a part of UNIX, then the author obviously must have a right to create unencumbered derivative works from the original source.

Let's assume IBM agreed not to release such code that later got added to UNIX. And assume that they lose the case on the grounds that they divulged information that by contract SCO did not allow. (The language in the contract is a little vague, so it's theoretically possible.) That still doesn't effect Linux. Because even though IBM contributed the code in violation of their contract, they did own the copyright. So after they pay for the violation of their contract, there's no more dispute.

Linux users/distributors are not a party to the contract, so they can't be held liable for anything to do with the contract (with the exception of intentionally disrupting a contract). There's no copyright infringement, since the code was contributed by the copyright owner. There's no patent infringement, since IBM owns the patents. SCO doesn't own the trademark to the word UNIX. So the only thing left they could use against Linux users is trade secret law. That's typically only used against the person who leaked the info, not everyone who distributes it. (The DeCSS case being a good counter-example.) And since IBM intentionnally gave away their copyrighted code, I think the copyright would override the trade secret in such a case. Especially if IBM has already paid for releasing such info to the public.