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SCO and Justice

Jun 27, 2003

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The Sequents Of Events

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the new information does matter. Here's the current speculation: Someone at Sequent wrote and contributed useful code to SCO UNIX. IBM bought Sequent. The same code showed up in Linux.

The knee-jerk reaction to this news is that Sequent owns at least the algorithms and ideas (the abstract intellectual property), if not the copyrights to the source code itself. This means that if IBM, Sequent's new proud owner, wants to put the code in Linux, it has every right to do so.

Even if SCO has some rights to this code, one can no longer argue that IBM stole the code from SCO to make Linux great, because IBM (Sequent) invented the code, not SCO. Indeed, since IBM was indirectly responsible for improving SCO UNIX with the code in the first place, SCO should be indebted to IBM for the innovation, not the other way around.

Let's assume for a moment that the court decides IBM did not have the right to re-use this code in Linux. What is the remedy for the offense? I don't mean monetary remedy -- we haven't gotten to the issue of monetary damages yet. I'm talking strictly about what it would take to correct the offense.

The remedy seems obvious. IBM and/or the Linux Kernel maintainers should remove the offending code and replace it with original code that performs the same function. That seems a bit silly, doesn't it?

It might give a twisted mind at SCO some satisfaction knowing that SCO was able to put IBM and the Kernel developers to the trouble. But if Linux will end up with the features either way, and IBM/Sequent invented the code in the first place, why should it have to go through the contortions of modifying the code just so it won't look like the SCO code anymore?

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