[plug] FW: SCO Intellectual Property violations in Linux

[Shayne O'Neill]

Ok. The ABI files.

Groklaw did a good analysis, as did linus himself.

The basic contention that SCO had was that those filess (signals.h and a
few others) are pretty damn similar to those in unix(ware).

The problem with this is as follows. Linux's header files (and thats what
we are talking about here) follow to a large extent the norms established
in Open Groups unix specification. Ie kill signal etc.

Now SCO counter that these signals are not specifically enumerated, only
that the exported symbols be there. Perhaps, but the signals that linus
used for v 0.1 of linux came largely from the specifications layed out in
Andrew Tabulmans "Operating Systems" book (and the acompanying minux
learning kernel). This is validated by available sources on the internet
etc. Furthermore the signals do not completely match up to the unix spec.
While "KILL" does indeed match 9, its because *everyone* knows that 9 =
kill. I learned kill -9 <pid> in 1991 on a unix sys v machine , not on a
linux machine. If I where implementing unix compatability, I'd probably
chose 9 as my kill signal too. Some signalls do not match. The bus
interupt signal I think is not even implemented (might be wrong). ANd some
signals use diferent numbers.

Regardless, it appears that SCO may have dropped this claim, particularly
in light of the fact it would last aproximately 10 minutes in court before
being dismissed, as the Open Group (the owners of UNIX trademarks) , *NOT*
SCO , are the owners of this specification, and openly advocate its
implementation.

Shayne.


------------------------------------
"Must not Sleep! Must warn others!"
-Aesop.
Shayne O'Neill. Indymedia. Fun.
http://www.perthimc.asn.au

On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Chris Cornish wrote:

> Here is what he sent me, It took him all day to prepare this just for
> the record
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kieran O'Shaughnessy  HYPERLINK "mailto:[mailto:kierano at sco.com]"
> [mailto:kierano at sco.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, 20 January 2004 1:15 PM
> To:  HYPERLINK "mailto:ccornish at eftel.com.au
> Subject" ccornish at eftel.com.au
> Subject: SCO Intellectual Property violations in Linux
>
> Hi Chris,
> Thanks for your call this morning.
>
> As discussed here is a link to the December 19th 2003 letter that
> outlines a portion of SCO’s UNIX code that can be found in Linux.
>
> Please have a read of this document and let me know if you have any
> questions.
>
> The document is titled “ABI Files Letter Dec 19, 2003” and the link to
> it can be found in the second paragraph on the SCO.com frontpage,
> HYPERLINK "http://www.sco.com" www.sco.com
>
> Please have a read of this document and let me know if you have any
> questions.
>
> Regards
> Kieran
>
> Kieran O'Shaughnessy
> Regional General Manager ANZ
> The SCO Group Inc
> 56 Berry Street
> North Sydney NSW 2060
> Australia
> Ph: 02 9440 7577
> Fax: 02 9440 7588
> Mob: 0419 66 00 16
> Email:  HYPERLINK "mailto:kierano at sco.com" kierano at sco.com
> Web:  HYPERLINK "http://www.sco.com" www.sco.com
>
>
> ---
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