[TUHS] SCO vs. IBM: NOVELL steps up to the plate

[norman@nose.cs.utoronto.ca (Norman Wilson)]

M. Warner Losh:

  There's another article that is saying that there are 10-15
  line snippets scattered all through the kernel.  Give me a break.
  That claim is so absurd as to be not credible on its face.  I can see
  one or two files, maybe stretching my disbelief to its limits, but I
  can't see anything more pervasive than that.

I agree that it sounds unlikely, and I won't give it much credit
until SCO makes its evidence generally available.  But it's by no
means absurd.  Suppose SCO invented some whizzy data structure and
associated code conventions to afford especially efficient
interprocessor locks.  That could show up in fragments scattered
throughout the kernel, and the idea itself could in fact be
valuable intellectual property and the fragments a demonstration
that the idea was stolen.

Or suppose the issue at hand was a particular way to implement a
file system switch.  I was involved in adding such a thing to an
old-fashioned kernel myself; it touches many little pieces of
code all over the kernel that happen to do certain things to or
with in-core i-nodes.  If I was worried that someone had stolen
such work wholesale, part of what I would look for would indeed
be scattered fragments.

As I say, there's no useful evidence on view at all, therefore
there is no useful evidence that what I am describing is what
the fuss is about.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON