All examples given are true and it's apparent that I over spoke (wrote?).
Show me an open source app that does not imitate an existing commercial application. We are not talking about filling the same market space, I'm talking feature for feature match.
I thought about BEOS after I posted that statement and thought... "oops, went too far there."
The core issue has not changed.
Linux is dependent on code that came from System V.
There can be no argument about that even if all we examine is the SMP processes. There are only so many ways to coordinate instructions through multiple processors and AT&T has a patent on that section of the Un*x code and the underlying process. All other SMP patents mention the underlying AT&T patent.
All SCO has to prove is that any part of their patented process/technology was exposed by IBM and offered for inclusion in the GPL by IBM and IBM is in breech of their contract.
Not all of the licensed technology. Not most of the licensed technology.
If any part of the licensed technology was included in a submittal to the GPL.
That is one low bar SCO has to get over.
The issue swirls around the definition of "derivitive", how that "derivitive" code got into the linux kernal and did the people who put that "derivitive" code into the linux kernal have the legal right to submit it for inclusion in the GPL.
Those issues will decided by lawyers and judges with precious little contribution from anyone who really understands the technology. No matter where you stood on the MS antitrust case ( I wanted MS split ), during those deliberations it became obvious that the courts do not understand the impact of their decisions on technology.
I wish SCO hadn't filed this suit. I wish this issue had never come up. I wish this didn't matter for us, as engineers and developers.
Wishful thinking is a dangerous indulgence for engineers. It results in collapsed bridges and buildings in piles of rubble and under that rubble there are bodies. We are lucky in that no one dies when we screw up (usually, air control and medical applications aside).
SCO did file the suit, it is an issue and we had better take it into account when we do our jobs, for our own good as well as to protect our customers.
If we ignore this issue and make recommendations to use linux, then the courts decide that SCO is entitled to some part of our customer's income to compensate for our using their intellectual property, are we (as the persons who specified it's use)liable to pay that cost?
Are you willing to take that risk? I am and will, but I am pressing for indemnification from any vendor offering linux solutions.
My conversations with these vendors goes something like this...
Me - "So, it only runs on linux. What about the SCO issue?"
Salesman - "That case will be thrown out of court."
Me - "So, will you take all the liability and protect us from any lawsuit?"
Salesman - "Uh... well... uh... we can't do that... uh... like I said, it's not an issue."
Me - "So, if it's not an issue, your company will indemnify us for all claims based on the SCO thing, right."
Salesman - "No."
Me - "It was nice meeting you and I will have someone show you your way out."
Rita has started a pissing match over at Res Ipsa...
I've been wondering if this SCO lawsuit isn't an attempt to kill the open source movement.
Most of my system engineering has been with MS products but I lurve almost all flavors of Un*x ( Die NCR, DIE!!! ) and most of the stuff I've implemented includes communication to and from various Un*x systems as well as mainframes.
Scrape a CICS screen with a DCOM object, add some data from an Informix database running on HP-UX and present it with a shared-nothing cluster of NT web servers... well,you get the idea.
So, for me there is no OS conflict.
Just like you don't haul sand in a Corvette or drag race a 2 ton flatbed, you don't try to run a web server on MVS or slice-and-dice an 8 terabyte database with MS SQL on Windows.
System Engineers are supposed to find the appropriate solution for the business need. Cost/Benefit. How much data will I be sorting, how fast do I have to sort it and how much is it worth to the company to have it sorted. Cold stuff there... facts, figures and calculations.
There is no place in that equation for my PERSONAL preferences or comfort... or my OS orientation...
This is a conflict between flower-power hippies and buttoned-down businessmen.
The Open Source community really believes that they can produce a better OS through cooperative coding than businesses can with directed coding.
If they had got there first that might be true, but they didn't get there first. How can you truthfully claim that you are not copying code and concepts that mimic proprietary code without a "clean-room" design setup.
All the licensing agreements bar reverse engineering from either source code or decompiled executables, so, if you have worked with (or even seen) System V source code, it make sense that you could not take part (in any way) in an open source development effort.
So, Linus never saw the System V code?
None of the developers at IBM ever worked with System V source code?
It looks to me that the open source movement is behaving just like all socialist movements that have come before... communism could not produce the innovative ideas and products required to keep up in the world so they stole them... it wasn't just military secrets that the Russians and Chinese were (and still are) after.
Show me an open source app that does not imitate an existing commercial application. We are not talking about filling the same market space, I'm talking feature for feature match.
At least SCO hasn't taken to shooting the claim jumpers... yet...