Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] SCO vs. the world

[Tom Lord]

    > From: Miles Bader <address@hidden>

    > On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 08:19:17PM -0700, Tom Lord wrote:
    > > Am I the only one who thinks SCO might actually have a pretty good
    > > case here?

    > Pretty much.

Heh.

    > Anyway, you should be more specific when you say "case" -- SCO has been
    > spewing vague insinuations left and right in addition to their actual 
lawsuit
    > against IBM, many of which don't even seem to make sense.  

Well, so they say.  Execs and lawyers filtered through press and the
net and /. often sound pretty random -- whether you agree with what
they're _really_ saying or not.  I'm discounting 90% of "what you
read".

The latest I've heard that makes some sense (and I haven't fact
checked this) about the IBM suit goes like this:

1) Sequent had license to unix.   They could distribute modified
   versions only if their modifications were, in essense, contributed
   back to unix and controlled by the same license.

2) They wrote a lot of code that fell under those terms.

3) IBM bought Sequent.

4) Lots of that code showed up in the Linux kernel, in violation of
   the terms of the unix license.  I tend towards believing the large
   LOC counts.

IANAL but to my ears, it sounds like a serious breach and it does
sound like a decent percentage of kernel code isn't legitimately
GPL'ed, particularly in economically significant areas of
functionality.


    > Not to imply that
    > the lawsuit makes any sense (except in the narrow sense that IBM may have
    > done something wrong; SCO's interpretation of what will happen if this is
    > shown to be true is typically wacky).

Yeah, so, the "i didn't do it -- somebody just gave this to me"
defense for running pirated software doesn't have a long history of
success, as far as I know. 

-t