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The first example is a memory allocation routine from the somewhat obscure Itanic section of the Linux kernel, contributed by SGI...So at the very least, SGI has some explaining to do....
And the Linux community? You would think that they would be rushing to remove the incriminating code, so that the upcoming Linux 2.6 release could at least be free of this "living fossil" of the software world. But as it turns out it was already removed because a) the copyright situtation was unclear and b) it wasn't very good code, and Linux already had some code that did the same thing and was better.
Whether this is an indication that one of the people who signed the NDA indirectly tipped off the kernel developers, or whether this is an indication that the thousand eyeballs of Linux kernel development tend to spot problems like this automatically is hard to say.
The original algorythm's and standard were proposed by a Bell Labs programmer in the late sixties.
The UNIX version of the memory allocation unit was probably originally written by Dennis Ritchie circa 1973.
The current code (the code SCO is reffering to) comes from two sources not one. SGI was one source and had the AT&T copyright on it.
A second source was the University of California with a Berkeley copyright on it. Identical code (leaving some question as to who was the original copyright owner of the code).
The code in question is in BSD Unix which AT&T challenged in 1990. The court found that BSD Unix was NOT a derivative work and that there was no infringing code in the BSD release.
The actual "C" implimentation of the original published specification could just as easly have come from Berkeley as from Bell Labs. There was a great deal of co-operative developement between Bell Labs and Berkeley.
The bottom line here is that a Federal Court has already considered the code in question and found that it was non-infringing.
SCO was certainly aware of the court ruling when the made their claim.
Does the word frivolous come to mind.
Tom
Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be
lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.
- Isaac Asimov
GrepLaw
