[NTLUG:Discuss] Bruce Perens on the source code shown at SCO Forum Las Vegas

[Brain Kontrath]

I just found some interesting info from Bruce Perens website on the 
so-called  stolen source code that was displayed at the SCO Forum in Las 
Vegas.  Here is a some of what he says on his website regarding the 
slides that SCO was showing:

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   This slide has several C syntax errors and would never compile. So, 
it doesn't quite represent any source code in Linux. But we've found the 
malloc() function this slide refers to. It is included in code 
copyrighed by AT&T and twice released under the BSD license: once by 
Unix Systems Labs (AT&T), and again by Caldera, the company that now 
calls itself SCO. Some of the released versions include the comment in 
the first slide. The Linux developers have a legal right to make use of 
the code under that license. No violation of SCO's copyright or trade 
secrets is taking place.

The function was written by Dennis M. Ritchie or Ken Thompson at AT&T, 
in 1973. It appears in both "dmr" and "ken" directories, in different 
versions. You can see the function in this file, originally called 
dmr/malloc.c. The code is from Unix version 3, the oldest known version 
of Unix that still exists in machine-readable form. The complete source 
for that system can be found here on the net. In 2002, Caldera released 
this code as Open Source, under this license. Caldera is, of course, the 
company that now calls itself SCO. The license very clearly permits the 
Linux developers to use the code in question. Historical information on 
why Caldera released the Unix source code to the public is here, and 
contains some information relevant to the SCO court cases.

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http://perens.com/Articles/SCOCopiedCode.html