Re: Linux v2.6.9 and GPL Buyout

From: Bill Davidsen
Date: Wed Oct 20 2004 - 14:52:00 EST


Dax Kelson wrote:
On Tue, 2004-10-19 at 11:38, Jeff V. Merkey wrote:

Although we do not work with them and are in fact on the the other side of Unixware from a
competing viewpoint, SCO has contacted us and identifed with precise detail and factual
documentation the code and intellectual property in Linux they claim was taken from Unix.
We have reviewed their claims and they appear to create enough uncertianty to warrant
removal of the infringing portions.

We have identified and removed the infringing portions of Linux for our products that
SCO claims was stolen from Unix. They are:

JFS, XFS, All SMP support in Linux, and RCU.



This isn't SCO code. This goes back to SCO's claims of "control rights"
over any source code that has been in the same room as UNIX code.

These "control rights" depend on SCOs interpretation of what a derivative work is. This is a contractual dispute, an attempt of SCO to
reframe what a derivative work is and a big up hill battle for SCO as
virtually all the parties of original contracts have in their
declarations not supported SCO claims of "control rights".

This "we gave you the idea" is dangerous ground, Honeywell bought the rights to MULTICS, from which UNIX was derivative at the acronym level, and LINUX is clearly derived from UNIX since it uses the same symbols, upper and lower case alpha, digits, and the smoking gun the underscore.

Maybe Honeywell should sue SCO?

--
bill davidsen <davidsen@xxxxxxx>
CTO TMR Associates, Inc
Doing interesting things with small computers since 1979
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