Kevin McBride leaks some of the SCO code comparison documents
In a blog post dated July 10th, 2010, Kevin McBride has leaked almost 50 of the code comparisons that were submitted in evidence in SCO vs IBM..
You can download the archive.
Read on to view individual files if you don't want to download the whole thing.
Yes, this is the same Kevin McBride who says:
Software should not be “free.” In this new day and age of corporate control of the world, IP rights are an important barrier of protection that help the little guy. Big companies mostly don’t need IP rights, because they can get their way through force and market power. Small companies and individual developers need strong IP rights so the fruits of their labor are not commoditized by big companies.We also learned what the fuss was all about over Linux STREAMS ...... I greatly respect Prof. Stallman and his efforts to create a clean GNU tool chain. Prof. Stallman seems to be an IP purist, who may not believe in copyrights, but would never think of bending the rules. (I’m not sure this is the case, but it is my perception of him.)
... Whether you like it or not, the SCO cases have imposed a level of IP discipline on the open source software world that did not exist before SCO.
List of files
Tab-229 Tab-230 Tab-2311 Tab-232 Tab-233 Tab-235 Tab-236 Tab-237 Tab-238 Tab-239 Tab-240 Tab-242 Tab-243 Tab-244 Tab-245 Tab-246 Tab-247 Tab-248 Tab-249 Tab-250 Tab-251 Tab-252 Tab-253 Tab-254 Tab-255 Tab-329 Tab-330 Tab-331 Tab-332 Tab-333 Tab-409 Tab-410 Tab-412 Tab-413 Tab-414 Tab-415 Tab-416 Tab-417 Tab-418 Tab-419 Tab-420 Tab-421 Tab-422 Tab-441
Linux STREAMS
We also learned that the whole STREAMS fuss was not about linux, but about a product distributed by gcom, a provider of legacy solutions.
Their Linux STREAMS (LiS) product provides a couple of loadable drivers that would intercept calls to the old streams api and convert them. In other words, far from the allegations that the linux kernel contained code that infringed streams, it's evident from the need of an add-on loadable module that the linux kernel does not contain any STREAMS code.
Of particular note, and probably a source of much consternation to SCO and their proponents, is that LiS itself doesn't implement streams either, just does protocol translation. So neither linux nor LiS contains infringing code.
The whole end-user $699 license was a scam
In my view, contract violations by IBM would not result in liabilities by other Linux users.So according to Kevin McBride, one of the lawyers who worked on the case, there was no reason for end users to take out a license. It's logical to conclude that SCOsource was a protection scam. So what happened? To me, it looks like SCO lawyer-shopped until they found attorneys who were willing to go along with the scheme for a price - everyone has their price, and in this case, it was $30,000,000.00.
The Appeal of SCO's loss to Novell - Novell will probably win.
Will Novell win the current SCO appeal? Probably. Will Novell donate the UNIX copyrights to the Linux community if it wins the current appeal? Probably–although Novell’s Linux activities have been difficult to predict in recent years. But does Linux violate UNIX copyrights? Yes.
... except, or course, that the jury, after seeing these files, decided otherwise.
mentioned elsewhere ...
Techdirt: "Supposed 'Proof' Of SCO's Infringement Claims Against Linux Seem Lacking".
Slashdot has the story of someone involved in the SCO case finally showing off some of the "evidence" that SCO believed proved Linux infringed on SCO's copyrights. Of course, with the case basically dead due to a court ruling (one of a few) that SCO never actually held the copyrights in question, this might not matter, but it's still interesting to view -- and, yet again, suggests how incredibly weak SCO's case is. The "evidence" is in a blog comment on an otherwise unrelated blog post by Kevin McBride, a lawyer who is the brother of former SCO CEO Darl McBride, the mastermind (or puppet, depending on who you talk to) behind SCO's strategy.In that comment, Kevin McBride lists out 46 different "examples" of code that SCO claimed was copied from Unix into Linux. In case those files conveniently disappear, a Slashdot user conveniently republished the comment and archived the files.
Daily Tech: "Proof" That Linux Project Ripped Off Unix Code Released
SCO was defeated when Novell was shown to hold most of the applicable Unix intellectual property and Novell waived the case. In the end, SCO filed for bankruptcy, and the Novell loss resulted in a ruling that SCO owes Novell $2.35M USD for copyright infringements (a total later bumped to $3.4M USD).Even as SCO is appealing [PDF] that decision, Kevin McBride, a lawyer and brother of former SCO CEO Darl McBride has released [see comments section] a wealth of documents showing some of the code that SCO claimed IBM's Linux ripped off.
In case those links no longer work, you can also get a collected archive of the PDFs here.
Groklaw - see comments
Slashdot - see comments
