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> I don't know. SCO has invited reporters to their site to
> inspect the code. That is no proof either.
Right, especially since they are only showing the code, not its
provenance; perhaps the SysV code was donated by IBM as part of
Monterey.
> As a result, [open source]
> competitors can use their innovations
Depends on the licensing -- you do understand the GPL, right?
As for the presuambly patentable IP that's behind the code, well...
many (most?) in the open source community are willing to accept the
risk that competitors might adopt it. They see that as a reasonable
cost of doing business, rather than be part of a system that requires
a defensive patent portfolio of one's own.
> If the open source community is
> unable to warranty and indemnify, then the IBMs and Red Hats
> have to as a condition of profiting from open source. My
> guess is, they will want much more control over the compilation
> and submission processes to do that.
First, why do you draw a line between IBM/RH and "the open source
community"? They are part of the community, and they are meeting a
market need by providing indemnification. Don't think of the
OSS community as just some work-at-home hackers grinding at code;
it's much bigger than that.
Second, the beauty of having the code -- and, subtly but almost more
importantly, it's edit history -- in the public is that companies can
do their own due diligence to the extent that they feel the need.
Sure, Linus might not have gotten the memo from corporate advising developers
to stay away from USPTO 1,234,677, but in my experience such memos never
exist: most companies keep a strict Chinese Wall between legal IP
and source code developers.
Third, they don't need control over the compilation and submission
process. Cherry-picking has always been encouraged.
/r$
--
Rich Salz Chief Security Architect
DataPower Technology http://www.datapower.com
XS40 XML Security Gateway http://www.datapower.com/products/xs40.html
XML Security Overview http://www.datapower.com/xmldev/xmlsecurity.html
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