SCO Sues IBM over Unix and Linux!

[Guest ndeb]

It appears SCO is not the only one to spread the FUD about Linux derives from Unix lie. Check out http://news.com.com/2100-1016-991622.html where the author says:

Linux, which works in many ways identically to Unix, is created by a group of open-source programmers with assistance from IBM, Intel, NEC, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and other companies.

The question is what kind of "assistance" is being implied at here ? Supplying hardware specs is different from supplying real code. Also, how many lines of linux kernel code does this "assistance" translate to ?

[qnr]

They're making the common mistake of covering GNU, Linux, and thousands of applications written by unrelated people with an umbrella named "Linux."

 

And of course Linux derives from Unix. As does Minux,. BSD, Hurd, etc. That doesn't mean they copied Unix code, just that it wasn't an "original idea/OS" -- they were all trying to be Unix-like. Just as Unix is a derivative of Multics.

[DragonMage]

From a user point of view, linux is practically the same as unix. Heck, back in 1997 when I asked a friend how to learn unix, he basically pointed at linux. He said to install it, configure it, play around with it, and by the end you should know enough about linux (the user / administrator part at least). However, from a technical point of view, linux is a totally different beast altogether.

[Guest ndeb]

However, from a technical point of view, linux is a totally different beast altogether.

And that is what is relevant in the context of the SCO-IBM lawsuit. If a million ignorant folk can't distinguish between the external looks of what they think is "linux" and "unix", then that is not going to matter in court. Its the protocols, implementation and code that are most relevant here. And linux is very different from all these UNIX/BSD derivatives.