I think Zarax has forgotten the history of the computer industry in his blind hatred of IBM and his blind love of Microsoft. He's also ignoring lots of stuff that some of us have pointed out to him time and again about his personal corporate heroes, but I digress.
At issue here is IBM's supposed copying of source code from the AT&T UNIX source code into Linux and other open source projects. The things that Zarax (and SCO) are ignoring (or trying to cover up) include:
- Some of the code that was "copied" existed in IBM operating systems BEFORE they existed in any SCO operating system
- SCO is suing for infringement to code that they bought AFTER the supposed infringement took place.
- Much of the code that SCO is asserting as theirs was actually BSD code, which is licensed so liberally that anyone can legally take it and use it in a commercial project without compensating anyone beyond a copyright line
- IBM has the actual PATENTS on some of the software processes taht SCO is claiming they have copyrighted code for. The patents will trump SCOs supposed copyrights every day of the week
The SCO/IBM thing is entertaining, to say the least. In the 80s, IBM got its ass handed to it over copyright and patent (these are seperate) issues regarding the creation of the clone PC market. Ever since, IBM has been very, very careful to document and manage their source code and patent portfolios very carefully (did you know that IBM has the single biggest patent portfolio on earth, and its the fastest growing: they are awarded more patents every year than ANY other patent holder in the world). IBM has had twenty years of learning from its mistakes. Given that they have more money, more lawyers and more governmentally mandated monopoly power than SCO could ever hope to scrape up, SCO is going to gets its ass surgically removed, spitted, roasted and served up on a platter with a nice garnish.