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Analysis of Linux Code that SCO Alleges Is In Violation Of Their Copyright and Trade Secrets.
Perins.com ^ | Bruce Perins (with help from many members of the Linux community)

Posted on 08/19/2003 11:00:12 AM PDT by shadowman99

Analysis of Linux Code that SCO Alleges Is In Violation Of Their Copyright and Trade Secrets.

Bruce Perens <bruce@perens.com>, with help from many members of the Linux community.

On August 18 at their trade show in Las Vegas, SCO showed code that they claim was copied into Linux in violation of their copyright or trade secrets. The German publisher Heise photographed two slides of SCO's code show and made them public on their news ticker. Heise publishes c't, a popular German computer magazine. These are the slides:

This slide has some of the "System V" source code comments deliberately obfuscated using Greek characters in a Symbol font. You can remove the obfuscation by typing in the Greek text and changing back to a Latin font. The result is:

* As part of the kernel evolution toward modular naming, the * functions malloc and mfree are being renamed to rmalloc and rmfree. * Compatibility will be maintained by the following assembly code: * (Also see mfree/rmfree below)
We haven't yet located the original source of this code, the next slide is more telling.

We've found the malloc() function this slide refers to. It is included in code copyrighed by ATT and twice released under the BSD license: once by Unix Systems Labs (ATT), and again by Caldera, the company that now calls itself SCO. The Linux developers have a legal right to make use of the code under that license. No violation of SCO's copyright or trade secrets is taking place.

The ATT source code is here on the net, from a version released around 1979, although we believe that earlier versions exist. The Caldera license letter releasing this code is here. Caldera is, of course, the company that now calls itself SCO. The license very clearly permits the Linux developers to use the code in question. Historical information on why Caldera released the Unix source code to the public is here, and contains some information relevant to the SCO court cases.

The malloc() code also appears in Lions Commentary on Unix, in this form:

/* 
 * Allocate size units from the given 
 * map. Return the base of the allocated 
 * space. 
 * Algorithm is first fit. 
 */ 
malloc(mp, size) 
struct map *mp; 
{ 
   register int a; 
   register struct map *bp; 

for (bp = mp; bp->m_size; bp++) { if (bp->m_size >= size) { a = bp->m_addr; bp->m_addr =+ size; if ((bp->m_size =- size) == 0) do { bp++; (bp-1)->m_addr = bp->m_addr; while((bp-1)->m_size = bp->m_size); return(a); } } return(0); }

Lions' book was first published in the 1980's under non-disclosure and was used as a textbook by universities that had licensed the Unix source. ATT vended a copy of this book to Unix licensees for some time, and a photocopy version was widely circulated among Unix licensees. The original SCO, before its purchase by Caldera, allowed the book to be published without any non-disclosure terms in 1996.

Another version of the algorithm was published in Kernighan & Ritchie's The C Programming Language, Prentice Hall 1978, apparently without restrictions.

Another version of the code is copyrighted by the University of California as part of the BSD Unix system that they produced for the U.S. Army and released as Open Source. That code is also under the BSD license, and appears here in this file released in 1984.

In the early 1990s, ATT's Unix Systems Labs (USL) sued BSDI, a company vending the BSD system, and the University of California, over this and other code in the BSD system. The claims that SCO is making are very similar to the ATT claims. ATT lost. It was found that ATT had copied heavily from the university without attribution, and thus ATT settled the case. In the settlement, the University agreed to add an ATT copyright notice to some files and continue to distribute them under the BSD license. ATT agreed to pay the University's court costs. Some details of the lawsuit are here.

The ATT code that was subject of this lawsuit survives into SCO's current system. SCO's "pattern analysis team" found this code and correctly concluded that it was identical to code in Unix. But they didn't take the additional step of checking whether or not the code had been released for others to copy legally.

Actually, you don't need a "pattern-analysis team" - you can just type lines of the allegedly copied program text into google.com, and google will show you where that code has been posted to the net.

My sources in this analysis are some very helpful members of the Linux community who posted information on the Linux Weekly News web site, and on this page of very useful information on the SCO cases.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; Front Page News; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Technical
KEYWORDS: ibm; linux; microsoft; redhat; sco; techindex; unix
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To: justlurking
The evidence is already clear: SCO is claiming proprietary rights over code that was released into the public domain twice by previous "owners" of Unix.

I don't believe that statement is correct, I sure haven't seen any proof of it.

81 posted on 08/19/2003 9:04:41 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
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To: justlurking
Nice picture, but aren't you supposed to be providing a timeline for this one example (of supposedly many) that you have a single picture of? I don't really see that referenced anywhere, do you?
82 posted on 08/19/2003 9:06:37 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
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To: justlurking
I can't put my hands on the article right now, but stock fraud doesn't necessary require direct sale by the officers.

Oh, lord, no.

Defrauding the market to pump up your stock price is illegal. Maybe he's just doing it to keep his job (the company had never made a profit). Maybe he's doing it because his wife owns stock. Maybe he's just a meglomaniac liar with delusions of granduer.

Or maybe -- he's the tool of a puppetmaster?

83 posted on 08/19/2003 9:09:16 PM PDT by Dominic Harr
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To: Golden Eagle; All
I don't believe that statement is correct, I sure haven't seen any proof of it.

!?!

***Winner!***
Baghdad-Bob "Post of the Week" award.

84 posted on 08/19/2003 9:18:34 PM PDT by Dominic Harr
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To: Golden Eagle
Have you noticed that we haven't seen any "Penguin Pings",
"Calling all penguins" or Linux advertising on these threads since my own little "ping" pic started showing up. Seems to have done its job admirably and I actually hope its not needed again. Of course most of this seems to be done by two posters who then act like the French and will not continue to participate in the flame wars that they start with this stuff.

Now to the subject. How can these people continue to accuse us of supporting stock fraud when all they can come with in the way of evidence is "I'll get the article tommorrow." and personal attacks. And anyway even if SCO is involved in a "pump 'n' dump" stock fraud scheme it still doesn't detract from the fact the fact that the code might have been stolen. It just means that one bunch of crooks is taking advantage of the activities of another. Again hardly something for the Linux community to get up on its "moral" high horse about. I am sure that that would also be the opinions of yourself, Bush2000 and theEnginner on the stock fraud issue if it actually exists too.
85 posted on 08/19/2003 9:35:51 PM PDT by Coral Snake (Biting commies, crooks, traitors, islamofascists and any other type of Anti American)
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To: Dominic Harr
The code was never "public domain", no matter what your idiot sources on slashdot may be telling you. Funny how you all fall for their nonsense so easily.
86 posted on 08/19/2003 10:15:59 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
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To: Coral Snake
How can these people continue to accuse us of supporting stock fraud when all they can come with in the way of evidence is "I'll get the article tommorrow." and personal attacks. And anyway even if SCO is involved in a "pump 'n' dump" stock fraud scheme it still doesn't detract from the fact the fact that the code might have been stolen. It just means that one bunch of crooks is taking advantage of the activities of another. Again hardly something for the Linux community to get up on its "moral" high horse about.

Excellent insight, as so often. I hardly care for SCO. But I care for America, and for the laws of it and the Holy Bible, and ANYONE who trespasses on them will have to deal with it.

87 posted on 08/19/2003 10:19:01 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
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To: Dominic Harr
Baghdad-Bob "Post of the Week" award.

Look, you drooling idiots in the open source cheering section posted a grainy picture of what you claim is part of the evidence in SCO's lawsuit -- and the rest of us are supposed to simply buy your argument that ALL of the evidence is the same?!? If the evidence is so "clear", as justlurking put it, then it shouldn't be a problem to detail ALL of the evidence; otherwise, put down IBM's water and shut the hell up.
88 posted on 08/19/2003 11:15:07 PM PDT by Bush2000
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To: Dominic Harr
Or maybe -- he's the tool of a puppetmaster?

Yeah, it's Elvis. Or the Yeti. Or Bigfoot. Or the Loch Ness Monster. Or little green men. You choose.
89 posted on 08/19/2003 11:16:48 PM PDT by Bush2000
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To: Bush2000
Have you ever noticed how when certain Linux "community"
members (whose screen names I will NOT mention due to the ban on personal attacks but we all know who they are) always
seem to bring the conversation here from a mature level streight down the porclain recepticle? And these same ones are the ones who call us immature trolls.

And it simply amazes me how they can think they can destroy SCO's case with ONE SLIDE out of many. When you say blowhards you are 100 percent right.
90 posted on 08/20/2003 12:47:22 AM PDT by Coral Snake (Biting commies, crooks, traitors, islamofascists and any other type of Anti American)
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To: Golden Eagle
Golden Eagle wrote:
I fail to see any relevance to that letter you and Danger are posting everywhere. It says clearly:
with specific exclusion of UNIX System III and UNIX System V and successor operating systems

That letter released all of the code from the UNIX 16 bit versions it covered (and the early UNIX 32V 32 bit versions).

The code in question was in malloc.c from Unix V5, which is covered by that letter. It was also in malloc.c from Unix V7, which is also covered by that letter.

The exclusion for UNIX System III and UNIX System V applies to code that was developed later and is unique to those systems.

Otherwise, that letter is completely meaningless and none of the early UNIX code can be used becase we don't know what parts of that code are in UNIX System III and UNIX System V, so nobody can use any of the code that was "released."

Then, there's the AT&T/USL/Novell settlement with BSDI to consider. Parts of UNIX System V and UNIX System III were released to BSD under the terms of that settlement. BSD then published these portions of UNIX under the BSD Open Source license. This license is basically a "do whatever you want, just keep our copyright lines in the code" kind of license very similar to the letter from Caldera releasing the early UNIX versions. I believe that malloc.c was one of the modules released to BSD under that settlement, and that's another entirely legal source for this code being in Linux.

The copies of this code in various books will also be problematic for TSG (The SCO Group). Some of the books that contain this code were written by AT&T Bell Labs employees. AT&T Bell Labs (as a predecessor in interest to SCO) had to know about these books and did not allege copyright violations when the books were published.

Also, using sample code from a copyrighted book in developing programs for future commercial products has been held to be "fair use" by the courts. So, including code from a copyrighted book about computer programming doesn't require any release from the author of the book. If a Linux kernel programmer did that, that would not indicate a copyright violation in Linux. SCO's only course of action in that case would be against the authors and publishers of the book, and the statute of limitations has probably run out on some of those books.

If The SCO Group sues anyone over the "intellectual property rights" to this particular code, the defense is going to be that these "intellectual property" rights were neglected for over 20 years, and that this neglect either explicity or implicitly waives those rights and invalidates the claims of Caldera/The SCO Group. In the case of this particular code, that defense should prevail.

91 posted on 08/20/2003 5:38:25 AM PDT by cc2k
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To: Bush2000
I would be cautious if I were you about looking at a single function and declaring victory. SCO reportedly showed off a lot of code besides this one function. We'll just have to see what develops...

Do you think it's possible that SCO picked code that makes them look like a bunch of idiots on purpose? Is it part of a strategy to throw everyone off the scent of something else? It's an odd of piece of code to throw out there to bolster your argument.

92 posted on 08/20/2003 5:56:49 AM PDT by bobwoodard
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To: Golden Eagle
The code was never "public domain", no matter what your idiot sources on slashdot may be telling you. Funny how you all fall for their nonsense so easily.

You must have a rather narrow definition of "public domain." If I publish some obsolete code and say "Here, copy and use this freely." it is in the public domain.

It has been conclusively established that old UNIX sources have, in this way, been at various times placed in the public domain, including by the predecessor entity of the current SCO.

They have no case, and they have pursued a case as only a monumental idiot would pursue a case. They are piling up liability for themselves, for Canopy Group, and Schiller & Flexner, who will all end up as pariah to anyone using Linux - which is to say everyone.

93 posted on 08/20/2003 5:58:19 AM PDT by eno_ (Freedom Lite - it's almost worth defending)
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To: justlurking
The mainstream media will probably pick this up tomorrow. Apparently, the financial markets haven't figured it out yet, because SCO's stock price is down less than 1%. If I were a gambler, I'd be shorting them right now.

Darl, call your broker, STAT....


94 posted on 08/20/2003 6:04:26 AM PDT by steve-b
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To: Golden Eagle
You ARE supporting a cheesy pump-and-dump schemer - a criminal, a fraudster. Darl McBride is a crook. A liar. A thief. He is perpetrating a massive stickup, and when someone points out his "weapon" is really just his finger in his pocket, he claims the lint in his other pocket is anthrax.

You are the one who choose Darl McBride as your hero without any due dilligence. And now you smell like him.
95 posted on 08/20/2003 6:04:36 AM PDT by eno_ (Freedom Lite - it's almost worth defending)
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To: Coral Snake
You forgot the closing tag:
UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS.

96 posted on 08/20/2003 6:13:57 AM PDT by steve-b
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To: justlurking
Even though it is only one of their claims, it was so easily discredited that it calls the rest of their claims into question.

Precisely. Reputation and known behavior matters when judging the credibility of other statements -- otherwise, a statement on personal ethics by Bill Clinton would carry the exact same credibility as a statement on that subject by His Holiness John Paul II.

97 posted on 08/20/2003 6:21:17 AM PDT by steve-b
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To: Bush2000
Look, you drooling idiots in the open source cheering section posted a grainy picture of what you claim is part of the evidence in SCO's lawsuit -- and the rest of us are supposed to simply buy your argument that ALL of the evidence is the same?!?

The reason that anybody has to guess about the evidence based on what random samples they can glean is that SCO has refused to provide a full account of the allegedly infringing material.

It's as if I called a cop, pointed at someone down the block, and demanded that the cop arrest him because "he stole my stuff"... and then refused to answer the cop's request to describe the "stuff" that had been stolen. If I persisted in such ranting and demanding, the cop would (quite correctly) arrest me for harassing the target and making a bogus report to the police.

98 posted on 08/20/2003 6:49:43 AM PDT by steve-b
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To: Liberal Classic
That was great! I saw The Princess Bride (for about the 20th time) the night before last and I love your adaptation from the movie.

This one is destined to be a classic:
"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia; and only slightly less well known is this: Never go in against SCO, when intellectual property is on the line!"
99 posted on 08/20/2003 7:14:36 AM PDT by webstersII
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To: justlurking; Coral Snake
Is this the article you are talking about?

I can't put my hands on the article right now, but stock fraud doesn't necessary require direct sale by the officers.

100 posted on 08/20/2003 7:39:30 AM PDT by Salo
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