Trying to wrap my mind around this

Message ID: 105026
Posted By: spamsux99
Posted On: 2004-03-05 22:22:00
Subject: Trying to wrap my mind around this

Before I say anything I would just like to say I am not trolling! I have been a die hard linux advocate and user since slackware 3.0. I currently make a living with linux. Linux pays my house/car note, puts food on my table, supports 3 cats, 1 dog, and a wife. I thank God for linux every day. I say this just to let you know that I am not trolling - I am trying to wrap my mind around some of the legalities around the SCO/IBM case. Can someone attempt to give me some explanations in layman's terms of what I am asking?

IBM had a contract with AT&T (SCO, whoever) to develop and sell AIX, which is derived from SysV. According to what SCO is saying, IBM can sell AIX, but not license source code to third parties and allow them to develop derivatives. Meanwhile IBM decides they like linux, so they start their AIX programmers who have had access to SysV source code, methods, etc... working on linux.

I know the main argument I have seen around here is that none of the SysV code made it into linux. But isn't SCO saying that the knowledge that those AIX coders brought over to linux is what should not have happened? And that any derivative work known as Sequent/Dynix/AIX is also not necessarily "owned" by SCO, but subject to contract/copyright/IP restrictions? Do they have a leg to stand on with this argument?

Was it not a little short sighted of IBM to realize that SCO would see the writing on the wall when IBM started pouring billions into selling linux and ridding themselves of paying anything to SCO?

On another note - pretend we are in bizarro world and SCO wins. How does the "enterprise" (SMP,RCU,NUMA,etc..) capabilities of the net/open/freebsd's compare to linux? Could the offending functions be replaced with BSD code?

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