Did SCO Really Reveal the Code to IBM, as Darl Claims? (Groklaw) [LWN.net]

Did SCO Really Reveal the Code to IBM, as Darl Claims? (Groklaw)

Posted Nov 20, 2003 15:26 UTC (Thu) by rknop (guest, #66) [Link]

Yet another example of how SCO is merely trying to bully and intimidate the community into paying it money that it does not have a right to demand.

...or, more likely, that SCO is trying to make investors and the media believe that it has a hope of bullying the community into paying it money it doesn't deserve.

SCO today is what happens when the schoolyard bullies who beat up other kids for the lunch money, but never seem to get punished by the school, grow up. (Or, rather, grow older.)

-Rob

Did SCO Really Reveal the Code to IBM, as Darl Claims? (Groklaw)

Posted Nov 20, 2003 16:23 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link]

...and colder.

Did SCO Really Reveal the Code to IBM, as Darl Claims? (Groklaw)

Posted Nov 20, 2003 16:43 UTC (Thu) by zonker (subscriber, #7867) [Link]

SCO isn't even an effective bully. They're the kid who keeps saying "my big brother (in this case, the courts) will beat you up." The big brother never arrives, and after a while, the wanna-be bully is the one that gets beaten up...

Did SCO Really Reveal the Code to IBM, as Darl Claims? (Groklaw)

Posted Nov 20, 2003 21:50 UTC (Thu) by dbhost (guest, #3461) [Link]

"It seems like every time SCO releases a new story, their claims get more and more fantastic. I don't understand why anyone is still listening to them."

I remember in college, going to more than my share of parties where I did not partake in any adult beverage, but rather enjoyed watching the business majors (and others) get totally hammered, and then watch the fun as they try to pick up on the girls they would never have the cojones to talk to sober. Or even more fun, at homecoming bonfires, watching them stumble into the fire. I think it is that same sort of perverse fascination with watching others stupidity that makes the SCO case so interesting....

Did SCO Really Reveal the Code to IBM, as Darl Claims? (Groklaw)

Posted Nov 21, 2003 9:08 UTC (Fri) by rev (guest, #15082) [Link]

It seems like every time SCO releases a new story, their claims get more and more fantastic. I don't understand why anyone is still listening to them.

Because SCO exec's wear suits, sound confident and are persuasive. That's all for today's journalists to buy the nonsense. Checking the facts and asking difficult question is not in their system. Headlines must be produced, columns must be filled.

Stock market analysts may have additional reasons to fall for SCO. Firstly it is in their system to rely on business oriented sources of information (SCO executives). Secondly they see SCO stock on the rise, they sense $$$ so they want to believe SCO.

Did SCO Really Reveal the Code to IBM, as Darl Claims? (Groklaw)

Posted Nov 20, 2003 20:51 UTC (Thu) by stanmuffin (guest, #16955) [Link]

SCO searched for any reference in the Linux kernel source for SMP, JFS, RCU, and NUMA,

It bears noting that SCO searhed for the string literals "SMP", "JFS", "RCU", and "NUMA". What that's supposed to prove, I don't know. Certainly not that SCO has any copyright interest in said files.

Here's an example: /asm-arm/spinlock.h


#ifndef __ASM_SPINLOCK_H
#define __ASM_SPINLOCK_H

#error ARM architecture does not support SMP spin locks

#endif /* __ASM_SPINLOCK_H */

That's the whole file. Look at all them trade secrets! Har!

Did SCO Really Reveal the Code to IBM, as Darl Claims? (Groklaw)

Posted Nov 21, 2003 11:27 UTC (Fri) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

And of those 6 lines, 5 have no effect. 2 because they are empty, and 3 because the ifdef-magic to make sure the file is compiled only once doesn't actually matter in this case since the compilation blows up on the first attempt because of the #error directive anyways.

Thus the file in question reduces to:

#error ARM architecture does not support SMP spin locks

From which we can conclude that SCO seem to think it's "valuable IP" and a trade secret how to NOT do SMP on ARM. Hilarious.

Did SCO Really Reveal the Code to IBM, as Darl Claims? (Groklaw)

Posted Nov 21, 2003 18:26 UTC (Fri) by djabsolut (guest, #12799) [Link]

Here's an idea: insert comments everywhere into Linux 2.6.whatever with the words SMP, JFS, RCU, etc. (e.g. "this bit of code has nothing to do with RCU" or "this code works exactly the same in an SMP and non-SMP system"). Oops... you think i just broke the SCO intellectual property "detector" ?

Did SCO Really Reveal the Code to IBM, as Darl Claims? (Groklaw)

Posted Nov 21, 2003 18:58 UTC (Fri) by s_cargo (guest, #10473) [Link]

And of those 6 lines, 5 have no effect. 2 because they are empty...

Yeah, but where did Linux get the blanks line, eh? Proprietary Unix has blank lines. Obviously they were stolen from Unix.

Did SCO Really Reveal the Code to IBM, as Darl Claims? (Groklaw)

Posted Nov 20, 2003 21:18 UTC (Thu) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

Now there is a perfect time to release that 2.6.0 kernel, at least in a strategic sense...

As in Groklaw:
"# A list of "source code files identified by SCO thus far...which may...include information (including methods) that IBM was required to maintain as confidential or proprietary...and/or which constitute trade secrets misused by IBM..." It's a list of 591 files."

Wich may!??... WHAT KIND OF SCAM IS THIS!??...

I can only say, the hell with SCO, they are abusing the entanglements of the USA legal system. Lets give them a 260 just up their...