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From: Edmund Cramp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Mat Branyon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: SCO amusments.
Date: 13 Jun 2003 14:50:26 -0500
Mat,
I thought you might find this interesting ... I'd post it to BRLUG but
I've lost my posting address.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030612.html
<snip> ...
Now back to SCO, which this week is offering to show journalists,
including me, the Unix System V code the company claims IBM installed in
Linux. Seeing this demonstration, however, requires signing a
nondisclosure agreement, so I won't do it. Someone else will, I'm sure,
and we'll all hear about it soon.
In the meantime, another furor has erupted concerning SCO Unix's ability
to run Linux binaries. Other people have written about this, and I have
talked to some of their sources, and it comes down to the idea that SCO
didn't reverse-engineer Unix to run those binaries; they claim to have
copied code directly from Linux to Unix. To those who think this isn't
a problem, take a look at the Linux General Public License and you'll
see it very much is a problem since SCO doesn't release Unix source code
to regular customers and the GPL requires open source.
So at the same time SCO is blaming IBM for putting Unix System V code
into Linux, Linus Torvalds (as the Linux copyright holder) may have a
claim against SCO for putting Linux source code into SCO Unix.
But wait, there's more! Going back to the original problem of finding
common code in Linux and Unix theres that side-by-side demonstration
SCO is offering to do this week. If IBM didn't put it there, who did?
An emerging theory suggests that both Linux and SCO Unix have code taken
from BSD Unix, which would explain how they could be identical without
one having stolen it from the other. Both code samples may have a
common antecedent.
At this point, I need to say that what follows is not my idea, but a
logical train of thought that was presented to me. I'll take someone
else's good ideas anytime.
Don't tell SCO this, but if you are trying to figure out how to do Unix
reasonably well, almost the last place you want to look is the System V
code. Most Unix vendors had to spend several years fixing it before it
was production strength.
There is at least one other possible source for Unix source code, one
with an excellent reputation for quality and performance -- BSD Unix,
so-called Berkeley Unix. You might remember that back in 1992, AT&T's
Unix Systems Laboratories (USL) sued UC Berkeley for giving away Unix
source code. Once they got to court, USL (which was by then owned by
Novell, not AT&T) ended up setting very quietly, paying UC Berkeley's
legal expenses in the process. Not many people seem to know why that
happened.
One of SVR4's biggest features was that it combined traditional System V
with a lot of popular BSD features. To do this some significant amounts
of BSD code were pulled into System V. This would not normally be a
problem because the BSD license allows it if the code is properly
attributed. I have been told, however, that AT&T removed UC Berkeley
copyrights and replaced them with AT&T copyrights. This reportedly came
out during the lawsuit. So rather than Berkeley having stolen AT&T
code, it was the other way around!
Unlike System V, the BSD source code is very widely available and has
been since the NET2 release that triggered the AT&T lawsuit -- long
enough ago to have possibly been influential to Linux developers.
Did the Linux kernel developers look at BSD? At least some of them did.
In fact, people who are far smarter than I am about these things report
there was at least one case where BSD developers noticed that
significant amounts of Linux kernel code was stolen verbatim from BSD
with attributions removed and GPL copyrights added.
So it is probable that both System V and Linux developers ripped off BSD
code. Since some BSD copyrights were obliterated by AT&T, SCO would not
necessarily notice that code in question was really from BSD. And since
there are probably few, if any, SCO developers who were involved with
the creation of System V back when it was AT&T property they would have
no institutional memory of this. It would appear to them that Linux
developers stole their code, and not apparent that their code was itself
stolen.
If true, this taints both Linux and Unix, which is sad, but hey, life
goes on. It should be very interesting to see how it all plays out.
What I STILL can't figure how SCO blames this all on IBM.
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