Yes - I agree that if chunks of code that they have copyright to were
inappropriately used in Linux, then they have a case.  The problem is that
they won't show people what chunks of code they supposedly found copied so
that it can be verified by a third party.  There have been two or three
small examples that they have leaked out, and those examples have been very
quickly disproved as having come from another source so there was no
copyright infringement.  There is another chunk of code where an SCO
employee was given specific permission to put some code under GPL in the
Linux kernel.

So - the SCO thing boils down to them spreading FUD and hoping that some
companies will pay out rather than fight.  Good thing for most of us that
SCO screwed up and chose to fight IBM first.  They have the army of lawyers
and the financial incentive to fight SCO on this mess.   Unfortunately with
the lawyers involved it will take years to get it sorted out.

Dan


>Not wanting to start a "religious" argument here, but I gained the
>impression, from the little I have read on the matter, that the SCO claims
>looked liable to have some merit. As I understand it, they are claiming that
>specific code fragments that are clearly their IP are found within the Linux
>kernel. This sounds like a readily provable claim in due course (or sooner)
>and it seems unlikely (to me) that they would make such claims if they had
>no merit whatsoever.
>
>I may well be missing something obvious here and would be happy to have it
>explained.
>

--
http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us!
email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body