[Linux-aus] Re: [Talk] SCO position, rationale and AUUG

[Enno Davids]

Hey guys,

I've been watching this debate with interest and while I have no concerns
about any of our groups expressing support or taking other advocacy roles,
it seems to me we're not well placed to put our hands on our hearts and
say that the allegations are untrue. (Especially absent any real details
or concrete examples of where code 're-use' is alleged to have occurred.)

Its especially hard to for us to credibly suggest that no one who ever
worked on Linux ever had access to or made reference to the UNIX sources
whilst they were making some improvement to the Linux kernel. Its
extraordinarily unlikely, given the general attitudes of the Linux developer
community, but we can't prove it never happened. (The old proving a negative
thing I guess...)

Given this I would have thought that the best we could do is to issue
statements of support, note that the processes and opinions were such that
it is unlikely that any such breaches occurred and perhaps express a
generic view that we don't condone the unauthorised use of the intellectual
property. (aka. sieze the moral high ground...)


Enno.


(It also seems to me that IBM in particular are masters at finding things
that people who sue them are doing that infringe on some portion of their
large patent portfolio and quite comfortable at using this to make law suits
disappear in out of court cross-licensing 'partnerships'... I expect this
case to go away with no other effect than Caldera/SCO having flushed a lot
of money down that toilet labelled legal expenses.)