[luau] More SCO stuff

[Warren Togami]

On Sun, 2003-06-22 at 10:17, Hawaii Linux Institute wrote:
> Me again, Warren-
> 
> Since you are keeping up with the SCO case better than anyone in our own 
> local Linux community, perhaps you know the answer to my question.
> 
> There is another important issue that, based on my very limited 
> knowledge, the Linux community does not seem to have discussed.  This 
> regards the statute of limitations.
> 
> While Utah may have a different statute of limitations, the* Uniform 
> Trade Secrets Act*, from which most state trade secret laws are based, 
> provides that an action for misappropriation of trade secret must be 
> brought within 3 years after the misappropriation is discovered or by 
> the exercise of reasonable diligence should have been discovered.  Since 
> the Linux kernel is open sourced, it would be very difficult for SCO to 
> argue that it was unable to discover that the alleged trade secert was 
> included in the Linux kernel.  Thus, the statute of limitation is 3 
> years after the kernel patch is posted on the internet.
> 
> This brings up an interesting point, regarding another undiscovered 
> advantage of using open sourced software.  If the code has been there 
> for more than three years, then you don't have to worry about scums like 
> SCO bringing up trade secret suits.  With a proprietary software, you 
> may have to live under a constant fear.
> 
> Wayne

The Open Source community and tech writers have analyzed extensively
several aspects of this case, including alleged trade secret
infringement.  Eric S. Raymond said that intends to prove that Unix
source code has been lax in secrecy enforcement, letting many people see
it without signing a NDA.  Last article I read mentioned that 90 people
have responded who have had legal access to the SCO Unix source code
without an NDA.

http://slashdot.org/search.pl?topic=88
Recent SCO articles on Slashdot since April 4th to help you get caught
up.

Also note that SCO's complaint was originally filed in Utah state court,
but has since moved to Federal court.

http://www.opensource.org/sco-vs-ibm.html
Eric S. Raymond of the Open Source Initiative's position paper on this
SCO issue.  He talks extensively about trade-secret status, SCO and Unix
history, and also possible validation of the GPL in this case.

(Note that SCO in distributing Linux code for many years, even still
available for download a week ago when I checked, may or may not be
difficult to explain away in court.)

Warren Togami
warren at togami.com