Getting a glimpse at SCO's evidence

CNET news.com ^ | August 19, 2003 | Lisa M. Bowman

[N3WBI3]

On a side note that is what I think is going on here, the code is BSD or GPL that sco put into its UNIX. Probably BSD because I doubt anyone would be dumb enough to put GPL code into their system hide the source and then sue. That or things like

for (x=0; x<10; x++) ....

Are in their code.

[justlurking]

It's going to take a while for this to shake out, but from what I've seen, SCO has made a monumental mistake. I suspected that the "infringing" code was actually from a common source like BSD, and this appears to establish that.

There's enough evidence for someone to put together a comprehensive article debunking SCO's claims, at least in this particular instance. When I see one, I'll post it.

[HamiltonJay]

Reality is that software biz people "borrow" code all the time, as my professor once said, "WE STAND ON THE TOES OF PEOPLE CAME BEFORE US IN THIS INDUSTRY, WE NEVER HAVE BEEN ABLE TO REACH THEIR SHOULDERS"... which means basically we borrow heavily from those before us, rarely having large eureka moments that revolutionize everything, at most we contribute small progressions on top of others hard work.

SCO's just playing blackmail and intimidation... I GUARANDAMNTEE if you get full SCO source, you will find so much free or prepublished code in their software it won't be funny, AND not only that, but I will also put money on the fact some of the code they claim LINUX is using that is theirs, is the exact same public code that was around before SCO! Its all nonsense.

[Nick Danger]

V7/usr/sys/sys/malloc.c

		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);
			}

The code on SCO's 1st slide is at least as old as V7, which predates System V by some years.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Clearly SCO didn't do its due diligence before presenting this particular allegation. Do McBride and Boies have a corporate death wish?

[justlurking]

More interesting claims coming in. Dunno which ones are correct (yet)

1. First code was released under the BSD license by Caldera (previous incarnation of SCO) in 2000.

2. Second page of code was from ate_utils.c, which has already been removed from kernel (because it was deemed to be "ugly"). Code was originally contributed by Hewlett-Packard for the ia64, although copyright on file names SGI.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

The SCO NDA has been posted here before. It is worded in such a way that a person who signs it would be precluded from ever "disclosing" to anyone the basic procedures and implementations that they see regardless of whether the code is actually infringing or not. So if SCO shows you a module dealing with multi-processor support, you wouldn't be allowed to "disclose" anything involving multi-processing code to anyone, meaning you couldn't write your own code to do the same thing (multi-processor support), even if multi-processing is an industry standard accomplished by multiple vendors in multiple ways. So basically, it restricts what code you can ever work on in the future...

[HiTech RedNeck]

The code on SCO's 1st slide is at least as old as V7

If so, isn't it a bit late for SCO to dash into court hollering "I'm just shocked, I tell you -- shocked!!"

[Liberal Classic]

Source: Allocate 'size' units from the given map.

 /*
  * Allocate 'size' units from the given
  * map. Return the base of the allocated space.
  * In a map, the addresses are increasing and the
  * list is terminated by a 0 size.
  *
  * Algorithm is first-fit.
  *

[HiTech RedNeck]

In net.bugs.4bsd, in 1984.

[HamiltonJay]

If this is true, then its patently unenforceable. An NDA may no restrict an individuals ability to ply their trade, unless the said individual is compensated to not ply it elsewhere... so SCO's NDA is just another unenforceable intimidation tactic.

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

1984???????

LOL!

SCO is soooooooooo toast....

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

Actually, HiTechRedneck did a better job explaining it in his post in #29. Basically, Any knowledge you already have about a code or process is not exempted from the NDA. So as soon as you look, you can't use that code or process in the future, even if you knew about it beforehand. I don't know that the breadth of this kind of NDA has ever been tested. Some people are claiming that it would even affect different implementations of the viewed process. In any case, this was purposely done to keep people in the know from agreeing to view the "evidence."

[Nick Danger]

/*
 * Copyright (c) 1986 Regents of the University of California.
 * All rights reserved.  The Berkeley software License Agreement
 * specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
 *
 *	@(#)subr_rmap.c	1.2 (2.11BSD GTE) 12/24/92
 - snip - 
/*
 * Allocate 'size' units from the given map.  Return the base of the
 * allocated space.  In a map, the addresses are increasing and the
 * list is terminated by a 0 size.
 *
 * Algorithm is first-fit.
 */

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

I wonder where the "little tin bird" is on this thread? Anybody think we'll see him here? Hehehehehe....

[HiTech RedNeck]

This is another fruit of the "Florida recount moonshine tree" (Boies)

[HiTech RedNeck]

tweet?

[zeugma]

Did I miss something? I'm afraid I don't know what a 'little tin bird' is. (mostly posting right now to bump and for future reference.)

[justlurking]

He and his pair of sycophants will appear at some point, and attempt to misdirect the discussion into politics.

Everyone should be aware that their real problem is not with Linux or the GPL, or support for SCO/Microsoft. It's a personal vendetta against some of the prominent people in the open-source development community. As is typical for a large group of people, their politics range from leftist to libertarian.

Anything else is a smokescreen to mask a political agenda. Don't consider it to be rational thought.

[martianagent]

Hope you're right, and that's the way I'd bet it. Moving to FreeBSD would be a last resort, but I'd do that before paying SCO anything.