In a message dated 8/5/03 11:15:20 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< If, by some long stretch of the imagination some small amount of SCO code shows up in the Linux kernel it will be quickly removed and rewritten *AS SOON AS SCO IDENTIFIES IT*! SCO realizes this which is why they haven't shown the code to anyone without an NDA. >> Out of curiosity, and for the sake of discussion, does any part of the code in question date from the BSD era? There is a lot of code of mixed lineage, from that era, when noone really could attribute where it really came from (read AT&T or Berkeley). It would not be uncommon for such things to make their way, one way or another into Linux or DOS or even CP/M, if you are old enough to remember that. Consider the case of something like BSD code, which, in the settlement cannot now be called "UNIX", could actually have been derived from say V7 code. SCO originally generated V7 stuff as did Microsoft, and others. It would be very easy for some of that code, traced from say V7 though 32V through BSD to Linux to look very much like code traced from V7 through SysIII through SysV to SCO, or even V7 to minix to Linux. I am not saying that this did happen, but, if something like that did occur, then at one point in time the BSD tree declared that code open-source and not UNIX, while the other side of the tree still declared it encumbered.... both by legal agreement. The possibility that something like that might have occurred might make it opportune to diff the trees of 4.4Lite vs Linux vs SCO and really see what tidbits are in common. Another possiblity is that someone inside salted the code, just for the purposes of monetary gain through litigation. Stranger things have happened, for the sake of discussion. The honest way to handle it would be for SCO to openly publish the files in question, and the sections of the files in question, for the entire open source and closed source community to check, then allow time to remove any questionable files, if, in fact, they do exist. I personally don't think SCO has the balls to do this, IMHO, as is said in the vernacular. It does not seem to be about the code, but about money..... sad.....very sad. SCO will be ultimate loser, in the end, and go bankrupt, and the real UNIX code might wind up in opensource hands.....after all. Wouldn't that be a trip! I can see the headline, now...."UNIX source code bought by opensource community!" News at 11..... am I dreaming.....? Time will tell.... Bob Keys -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ TriLUG PGP Keyring : http://trilug.org/~chrish/trilug.asc
