Meet Linux's New Public Enemy No. 1 (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

ZDNet is carrying an interview with Darl McBride, CEO of SCO Group, in which McBride comments: "IBM took the same team that had been working on a Unix code project with us and moved them over to work on Linux code. If you look at the code we believe has been copied in, it's not just a line or two, it's an entire section -- and in some cases, an entire program."

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Meet Linux's New Public Enemy No. 1 (ZDNet)

Posted May 26, 2003 21:06 UTC (Mon) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link]

To put this in context, consider another quote from the same article. It seems that either IBM's contractual relationship with SCO was unusually restrictive, or McBride has an interesting idea of what constitutes proof of infringement.

The tipping point for us was at Linux World this year, when an IBM executive stood up in front of a large crowd and essentially said, "We're moving our AIX expertise into Linux, and we're going to destroy the value of Unix."
Those comments alone would have been a direct violation of our AIX contract with IBM, under which they license our Unix intellectual property.

(Emphasis added.) Recall that SCO's court filing also relied heavily on statements by IBM executives to demonstrate IBM's "improper use of confidential and proprietary information learned from Project Monterey."

Meet Linux's New Public Enemy No. 1 (ZDNet)

Posted May 26, 2003 22:25 UTC (Mon) by daniele (guest, #11462) [Link] (1 responses)

If SCO has anything serious - which I doubt - they'd better show it fast, otherwise they will have to pay enormous amount of damages worldwide - Germany starts the dance:

LinuxTag has given notice to SCO Group GmbH to desist from unfair competitive practices

Lawyers representing the LinuxTag association have given notice to SCO Group GmbH to desist from unfair competitive practiices. The notice, dated Friday, May 23, maintains that SCO Group is sowing uncertainty among the community of GNU/Linux users, developers and suppliers. "SCO needs to stop claiming that the standard Linux kernel violates its copyrights, or they need to lay the evidence for their claim on the table," said LinuxTag's Michael Kleinhenz.

The association demanded that the German SCO subsidiary retract its claims regarding ownership of Linux kernel code by this Friday, May 30, or make its evidence public. "SCO must not be allowed to damage its competitors by unsubstantiated claims, to intimidate their customers, and to inflict lasting damage on the reputation of GNU/Linux as an open platform," Kleinhenz added.

Until a few weeks ago, SCO itself distributed the Linux kernel GNU General Public License (GPL) as a member of the UnitedLinux alliance. Thus even if SCO owns parts of the Linux kernel, it has made them into Free Software by distributing them under the GPL.

"This situation illustrates the superiority of the Free Software licensing model: If a software manufacturer withdraws from the development of GPL software, its contributions that were published under the the GPL up to that time remain available to users," said Jürgen Siepmann, attorney and founding member of LinuxTag. Till Jaeger, Director of the Institute for Legal Aspects of Free and Open Source Software, agrees: "Companies see this as an important pillar of investment security."

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS5727598800.html

Meet Linux's New Public Enemy No. 1 (ZDNet)

Posted May 27, 2003 3:33 UTC (Tue) by microlhk (guest, #7619) [Link]

Grossartig - excellent

This is a good time for Linux vendors _outside_ the US to follow suit

Meet Linux's New Public Enemy No. 1 (ZDNet)

Posted May 27, 2003 3:51 UTC (Tue) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link] (2 responses)

"And IBM took the same team that had been working on a Unix code project with us and moved them over to work on Linux code. If you look at the code we believe has been copied in, it's not just a line or two, it's an entire section -- and in some cases, an entire program."

An entire program? This is a place where the FSF's insistance on clarity about Linux vs. GNU/Linux might be helpful. It seems pretty obvious that they're not talking about the Linux kernel at all. Assuming for the moment (and I admit, this may be giving too much credit) that they're actually talking about anything real at all, maybe it's something in the EVMS tools? Or in some of their clustering work?

Or, more likely, their executives have only a very hazy idea about how operating systems work, and don't even really know what a program is.

Meet Linux's New Public Enemy No. 1 (ZDNet)

Posted May 27, 2003 8:12 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Or maybe IBM wrote the program and gave it to SCO?

Cheers,
Wol

Yes, it's the operating system Linux, not the kernel Linux

Posted May 31, 2003 1:50 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]

Well of course they're using the more expansive "Linux" name -- meaning an entire operating system. The Linux kernel by itself isn't all that interesting. And they're comparing it to Unix and Monterey, which are not just kernels.

In the old days, I chafed at people using the name Linux to refer to anything but the kernel, but by now I admit that hardly anybody has a need to refer to the kernel, and consequently it's pretty unambiguous when someone says Linux. He doesn't mean the kernel.

Meet Linux's New Public Enemy No. 1 (ZDNet)

Posted May 27, 2003 10:54 UTC (Tue) by elektroschock (guest, #8277) [Link] (2 responses)

That is: No Linux violates SCO copyright, but IBM donated code from SCO to Linux. As far as I know private law if it was true IBM will have to pay, not Linux users. The source code could remain.

However very obscure claims.

Meet Linux's New Public Enemy No. 1 (ZDNet)

Posted May 27, 2003 16:47 UTC (Tue) by vladmx (guest, #11478) [Link]

OK, for sure SCO doesn't have the elements to hold their sayings. Also for sure Microsoft is supporting them. Maybe at the end it will only be against IBM, but meanwhile they've sent letters to many users urging them to stop using linux, making them think linux will give them problems.

Now they're not saying they are against Linux, not against the Kernel, not against this and that ... but if they are not against us (the Linux community), why are they defaming us? The damage to Linux from SCO is done. We must correct that and let the world know we are alive and we are the best option, or they can believe SCO and stop using linux just for not having problems

Meet Linux's New Public Enemy No. 1 (ZDNet)

Posted May 29, 2003 18:21 UTC (Thu) by gleef (guest, #1004) [Link]

If IBM contributed code to the Linux kernel that SCO (or Novell) owned the copyright for, and SCO (or Novell) didn't want it there, then that code almost certainly would legally have to be removed. However, if that were the case Linus Torvalds would almost certainly have been listed as a party of the lawsuit, for distributing code in violation of copyright law.

If, as seems more likely to me, IBM wrote and contributed code that they legitimately held copyright on, but was contributed in violation of some term in IBM's contract with SCO, then it would probably be very hard for SCO to get that code removed from the Linux codebase. SCO could prossibly make for some confusion by getting a court order preventing IBM from distributing that code again, which would mean that IBM couldn't redistribute Linux without removing its own contribution first. IMHO, that's the worst case likely scenario, it would suck to be IBM, but the rest of the world needn't worry.

(Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the above is not legal advice)

Kernel or Userspace?

Posted May 27, 2003 19:44 UTC (Tue) by Ross (guest, #4065) [Link]

Again they seem to have changed their mind about what has been copied.
At first it sounded like ABI compatability libraries, then they said
it was in the kernel proper. Now it sounds like one or more usespace
programs. I'd really like to see some real evidence rather than this
FUD-raking.