On Friday 30 May 2003 03:08 am, James Mohr wrote:
Hi All!
It just hit me that there are other places where the UNIX source could have made it's way into Linux. I did tech support for SCO for four years (1990-1994, when it *really* was SCO). All the engineers and tech support people had access to the source code. When Caldera bought out their UNIX business, a lot of people lost their jobs. Knowing that they were about to loose their jobs, its possible that someone was really pissed off and passed the source code off to some Linux developer who was then tainted by the Caldera code, adding things to the Linux code unintentionally (maybe even intentionally).
So, if the code that Caldera claims is their's is the original AT&T code and nothing they added after the acquisition, then there are dozens (if not hundreds) of people who had motive, opportunity and means to get that source code into the hand of someone who then tainted the Linux code. If Caldera's argument has any validity at all, then that sounds like a more plausable explanation than IBM passing it along. Also, since the Linux code is available in all of its incarnations, it would be very easy to figure out when the code in question was added to the Linux source. If there is propriatary code and it comes from a time before the Caldera-IBM agreement, then there is no way it came from IBM.
Just a thought.
Regards,
jimmo
If this is indeed the case then there is the question of "diligence". It states that a company must take precautions to make its trade secrets secure and failure to show diligence is cause for forfeiture of IP and patent rights. So, if SCO fired/laid off a substantial enough of its developer work force and did not take the steps that the courts feel it should have then SCO was negligent in securing access and use of their property. This is a matter of fact and can be reviewed on a number of legel sites... I have already seens the statutes that state this. Likewise a few on the list have stated this as well. Now the issue is proving this and I'm sure that if, as you elude to, this came from some disgruntled former employee then his/her testimony would most likely be a death toll to SCOs claim and case. Cheers, Curtis.