SCO's claims have absolutely no credibility

	In response to Dan Farber's "Is this the end of free Linux?" Bryan Taylor writes:

SCO's System V copyrights do not include rights to any of the code they are discussing: RCU, NUMA, JFS, SMP. RCU is patented by IBM. NUMA is not present in System V, and was independently developed by Sequent, SGI, and IBM (not SCO). SMP in Linux was originally assisted by SCO Caldera, and newer work includes functionality that no SCO prodcut has ever included. IBM authored JFS originally for OS/2, not System V.

SCO's claims against IBM are completely and utterly without merit.

You cannot have a trade secret on something that you yourself publish, which SCO did by itself publishing Linux. Copyright does not extend to anything besides the elements of a work that are your own original expression. None of the technologies in question were developed by SCO, or purchased from Novell or AT&T.

Fact: SCO's contract with IBM excludes from confidentiality requirements derivitive work that is "independently created" by IBM.
Proof: http://www.caldera.com/scosource/ExhibitD.qxd.pdf see 3.04(v) on page 12.

Fact: SCO's contract with IBM does not preclude IBM employees from "use" of ideas ("residual knowledge mentally retained") obtained by looking at System V code, so long as they are not verbatim copied.
Proof: same document section 3.06, page 12

Why aren't you writing articles asking about wrong-doing by SCO?

The only thing that is proven in this case is that SCO is running its Linux business based on piracy of the Linux kernel, which they distribute in flagrant violation of its GPL license. Their claims that its license is defective are of no assistance here.

Fact: SCO copied, modified, and distributed Linux kernel version 2.4
Proof: http://www.caldera.com/products/workstation/datasheet.html

Fact: SCO continues this distribution today, even after publicly asserting that it is not properly licensed.
Proof: ftp://ftp.caldera.com/

Fact: Kernel version 2.4.19 can by explicit license terms only  be licensed under the terms of the GPL.
Proof: It is inarguable that at least some of the code distributed by SCO was developed by Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Dave Miller, et. al. who each provide their work only under the GPL license as described in source distribution. See below for the requirements of the GPL.

Fact: SCO needs a license from each author of code it distributes or it is committing copyright infringement.
Proof: 17 USC 106

Fact: Section 2b of the GPL provides: "You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."
Proof: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

Fact: Section 4 of the GPL provides: "You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License."
Proof: same as above

Fact: Section 6 of the GPL provides: "Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein."
Proof: same as above

Conclusion: Unless SCO has independently placed all  parts of what they distributed under the GPL, then they are violating the GPL. Furthermore, SCO's "attempt" (section 4) to deny GPL licensing terms to work they claim to have authored which was distributed with Linux has  terminated their rights to distribute it (which they continue to do). SCO's distribution of Linux is nothing short of a business based on for-profit willful distribution of unlicensed and therefore pirated software.

Bryan Taylor