[NCLUG] Re: What a winner of a case .... understanding copyright

[jbass at dmsd.com]

"James Allen" <jallen at linuxmail.org> writes:
> One thing that needs to be mentioned in the discussion is that
> SCO bought Caldera Linux and named it Open Linux. SCO employees
> made contributions to Linux. SCO could have put the questionable
> code into Linux. They are just showing certain people "code fragments"
> and their is no evidence where they actually came from or how they
> got there.
>
>	http://radio.weblogs.com/0120124/2003/07/18.html
>	Caldera Employee Was Key Linux Kernel Contributor
>
>	http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030605.html
>	SCO, Not IBM, May Have Put Unix Code Into Linux Instead?

Both those articles are interjecting speculation (sometimes with the
force of fact) into an argument that Linux himself has been very
clearly quoted several times on:

	http://radio.weblogs.com/0120124/2003/07/15.html

	Linus quote: "So we actually have a very good notion of where
	the code came from and what the [intellectual property] rights
	are...when it comes to the stuff that IBM has given Linux, we
	have been very, very careful about how we accept them. The one
	thing SCO has mentioned has been the Read Copy Update code that
	IBM gave us, and that wasn't accepted for the longest time into
	the kernel exactly because we knew the patents were owned by IBM.
	[But] we said we couldn't take it until you [IBM] said very
	explicitly that you also license the patents." 

Now I speculate that Linus probably will be quick to provide the documentation
for the Caldera contributions, just to get them off the table. What about
everything else that remains?

John