Why SCO won't show the code

I found it in V5 also.

The comment in that file is not the same and some whitespace differs but
it is the same code.

   
#   
/*   
 *      Copyright 1973 Bell Telephone Laboratories Inc   
 */   
   
struct map {   
        char *m_size;   
        char *m_addr;   
};   
   
malloc(mp, size)   
struct map *mp;   
{   
        register int a;   
        register struct map *bp;   
   
        for (bp = mp; bp->m_size; bp++) {   
                if (bp->m_size >= size) {   
                        a = bp->m_addr;   
                        bp->m_addr =+ size;   
                        if ((bp->m_size =- size) == 0)   
                                do {   
                                        bp++;   
                                        (bp-1)->m_addr = bp->m_addr;   
                                } while ((bp-1)->m_size = bp->m_size);   
                        return(a);   
                }   
        }   
        return(0);   
}   
   
mfree(mp, size, aa)   
struct map *mp;   
{   
        register struct map *bp;   
        register int t;   
        register int a;   
   
        a = aa;   
        for (bp = mp; bp->m_addr<=a && bp->m_size!=0; bp++);   
        if (bp>mp && (bp-1)->m_addr+(bp-1)->m_size == a) {   
                (bp-1)->m_size =+ size;   
                if (a+size == bp->m_addr) {   
                        (bp-1)->m_size =+ bp->m_size;   
                        while (bp->m_size) {   
                                bp++;   
                                (bp-1)->m_addr = bp->m_addr;   
                                (bp-1)->m_size = bp->m_size;   
                        }   
                }   
        } else {   
                if (a+size == bp->m_addr && bp->m_size) {   
                        bp->m_addr =- size;   
                        bp->m_size =+ size;   
                } else if (size) do {   
                        t = bp->m_addr;   
                        bp->m_addr = a;   
                        a = t;   
                        t = bp->m_size;   
                        bp->m_size = size;   
                        bp++;   
                } while (size = t);   
        }   
}   

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

(Note that it was a proprietary software company that did this, moreover, not the horrible hordes of hairy hackers. But, to be fair, I think that very few programmers are careful about this sort of thing.)

The code's being published in a book doesn't remove its copyrighted status or allow re-distribution, by the way, so that argument is a red herring (except regarding trade-secret claims).

http://unix-archive.pdp11.org.ru/PDP-11/Trees/2.11BSD/sys/sys/subr_rmap.c

These guys have officially killed the advertising clause in 1999 on all versions of BSD software:

ftp://ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/4bsd/README.Impt.License.Change

So, I'm guessing all the code is "off the hook", right?

Bojan

But wich ones ?

I dont belive that they will throw more fiascos as this, plently commented in this site.

Now that the super fast response of the Linux/OSS community seamed to have made a hole in the SCO FUD warchest, and mark a clear victory... you are telling that they could be back in business ?

Guess that there must be copies of "everything" UNIX related,... maybe OSI could hire a guy to google and copy everything Unix related,... how much days could it take ?

I won't say there's no worry here. Please someone archive this stuff on your personal machine. And don't tell anyone it's there. Just keep it until it's needed, or this mess is over.

I'd just say I've done that myself, as I've done in past cases (I have an untouched copy of 2.4 source from Caldera for instance,) but it's almost 2am in my timezone and I've done enough for the day. I know there are thousands of geeks who haven't, and I know a lot of us have a little hard drive space to spare. Grab this stuff. If only one of us has it, it means nothing, but if a couple hundred have byte-identical copies with the same time and date and the same story on how it was obtained, we have a legal chain of evidence that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. So please, just in case, do it now. Burn it to a CD or something, along with a description of exactly when and how you obtained it. You'll almost certainly be wasting a CD, but they're cheap, and if it does become an issue, you'll be glad you did.

I'm going to bed now, I leave it up to you.

: Also, it's Lions', not Lion's, since the author's name is John Lions rather than John Lion.

If you're gonna nitpick on spelling, get it right! The possessive form of "Lions" is "Lions's" because it's singular.

(singular) pro, James, Lions
(plural) pros, Jameses, Lionses
(possessive singular) pro's, James's, Lions's
(possessive plural) pros', Jameses', Lionses'

I have the two books from the class, which I treasure; one is A commentary on the UNIX Operating System, fourth printing, the other is UNIX Operating System Source Code Level Six.  There, on Sheet 25 is the code that matches the slide.

They are printed on the big old Computer Centre line printers in fixed width font on A4 paper, landscape orientation, bound in yellow (the commentary) and red (the code).  The commentary is printed justified in three columns, the code in two.

1) Eternal derivatives
Using the answer that since UNIX was taught in university Comp-Sci of course commonly known code and methods will show up in Linux, he'll argue that all the knowledge required to create a modern OS came from UNIX (it didn't) and therefore the eternal derivatives clause of the AT&T license prevails. This will be difficult to prove, but it must be preferable to him than just selling the office furniture and calling it quits.

2) GPL/BSD license nullification: targeting Caldera
He isn't trying to nullify the GPL to screw Linus, Alan, et al, but rather to screw Caldera, that is, to nullify Caldera's previous management's action of releasing Unix 1-7 to the public under the BSD-style and GPL-style licenses. Once he revokes that he'll use his Eternal derivatives theory to claim the entire Linux-base has his own. (This is also why they have no trouble dissing the GPL in the morning and announcing SVR6 with major features provided under GPL, MPL, APL, BSD, et al, licensing -- since it builds on UNIX, it's theirs, thanks for the free work now give-it-to-ME!).

3) Contractual breaches with UNIX licensees
They're going to nail SGI. We gave them that little nibblet through our research. But they will continue to hammer away on the contractual issues, which I don't believe but I have to admit not understanding the intracacies of contract law.

I'm not on McBride's side (in fact I'm TheOneToWhomMyRefers on Yahoo! Finance [Hi, Walter]). I don't think he will prevail. I also don't think he'll be working in technology once this is over -- IOWs, he's burnt the bridges, put up the walls, and peed in the pool. This is larger than SCOX vs IBM. This is the battle for the legitimacy of Open and Free software but also proprietary software built using common techniques and learned practices. If SCOX prevails then the most innovative technologies will belong to a company that gave up innovation for litigation to stave off corporate death. I expect even Microsoft to come around and oppose SCOX, at least on point #1.

Then it appears that Linux does have a problem that must be corrected. There is no Caldera copyright notice in the Linux copy of the code, and the license described in the letter includes the GPL-incompatible advertising clause.

Indeed. The wording on the web site is:

Use of all versions is strictly for educational use only, and is restricted by the license agreed upon by entering this site.

If the code was already released under the BSD-style license, the above statement is inaccurate and misleading. The BSD license-covered code is most certainly not limited to educational use only. Either SCO doen't realize this, or they're trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted!

However, unless the code in question was also released under some other BSD-license which does not include the Caldera advertising clause, any advertising materials mentioning features or use of the code must acklowledge Caldera to be in compliance with the license.

THE TWO SECOND CRYPTO LESSON:

It is not greek, just greek letters. Most word-editors allow you to switch fonts,
switch to AA-Symbol and you look like a learned man already ;)

* As part of the kernel evolution
toward modular naming, the
* functions malloc and mfree are being
renamed to rmalloc and rmfree.
Compatibility will be maintained by
the following assembler code:
* (also see mfree/rmfree below)
* /

Is this supposed to be the great mystery code SCOX is hiding?
So lame.

I'm curious if this is part of the code that SCO claims Linux "stole" and used to provide enterprise capabilities that it would otherwise not have. If so, it's interesting that a Caldera Product Manager and a Public Relations Manager referred to this code as "ancient."

If this is the best SCO has to show, then they're up to their armpits already.

the other:
Since Linux is open source, SCO could also used it, and it's hard for them to prove that Linux is the copy and not their UNIX parts.

3rd:
They could also show the copied parts in Linux's open source code, they don't have to show their one. This would make it possible to rewrite the problematical parts without signing secrecy agreements (it has another name, but I've forgotten it by now :) ).

4th:
I was thinking about copyright law, and..
It would be funny if - for instance - the A-bomb team (A. Einstein, Fermi, Neumann Janos, Wiegner Jeno, Szilard Leo and Teller Ede) announce sueing Russia breaking A-bomb copyright (or patent, I don't know which). Teller Ede is still living, so it could be happen!

again, excuse me for grammatical mistakes
Maguska

Trust us, we noticed. Our bandwidth is there, but our poor server is sweating under the load. I think there's people at Rackspace standing by with fire extinguishers.

That's why we should have released the article under subscription - it would have kept the load down.

Seriously, though, it's clear that a stronger server has got to be in our future plans at some point.

Thanks for crediting me. Just because of you, I made an account here.

I'm always late on these things. I've been posting to slashdot since just after they went live, but I have an embarrassingly high uid because I never bothered to register until it became necessary because of the trolls.

Enough about me, the case at hand, much as I'd like to agree with you I don't. It's my understanding that BSD before 4.4lite is not necessarily unencumbered. If someone can show that I'm wrong on that please do, I'd love to hear it.

However, the good news is that the comment does not prove copyright infringement, only the code could do that, (although the comment could be used as evidence to help convince a judge that this was a cut and paste rather than just a tight algorithm which any competent programmer would have hit on quickly) and that at worst what we have here is a failure of a contributor to include a legally required copyright notice, with actual damages being the statutory limit to the award against him.

So, IANAL but it looks to me like the best SCO can get out of this particular example is $1 from whoever originally contributed the code. No? Why not?

It would be pretty difficult to produce a tight version of this algorithm without a high degree of duplication.

Indeed, In his 1977 commentary, John Lions wrote about malloc and mfree:

The code for these two procedures has been written very tightly. There is little, if any, "fat" which could be removed to improve run time efficiency. However it would be possible write [sic] these procedures in a more transparent fashion.

The implication of what you are saying is that this section of code is not copyrightable under US law, regardless of whether a copyright notification is attached. First, algorithms themselves are not copyrightable because of a legal doctrine called the idea/expression merger. Ideas cannot be copyrighted. Only specific expressions of ideas can be. Further, if there are only a small number of ways to express an idea, then even the expression is not copyrightable. If there are only "4 meaningful permutations of this algorithm" then a developer could block anyone else from using this idea merely by writing the algorithm four different ways. This would be using copyright to attain patent-like protection which is not allowed.

So, just run it through 'ident' and recopyright it.