It’s really worth reading the Deposition of SCO Employee Erik W Hughes. He confirms that the Linux Kernel Personality
did indeed include Linux kernel code, and as a result, both UnixWare
7.1.2 and 7.1.3 included Linux kernel code until May of 2003.
Remember that to have done so such
inclusion would have to be under the GPL — yet the question that is
left unanswered, tantalizingly, by the deposition is this: in what way
was the Linux kernel "included" in LKP? Did the UnixWare kernel somehow
make use of the Linux kernel binary? If so, how — and would the use be
intimate enough to have created a "work based on the program" as the
GPL puts it? If not, how was the kernel "included"? Was kernel source
code reused in the UnixWare kernel, as one anonymous source claimed ages ago? Firm answers to
these questions cannot be gained from this deposition alone, but IBM probably does know, and
we’re definitely getting warmer. And more and more, it looks like SCO’s
goose is cooked.
No wonder SCO is now talking about trying to
survive as a tech company even if they lose the litigation. It also is
now apparent why SCO tried to say the GPL is unconstitutional, void,
voidable, etc., anything to try to make it not be binding on them.
Please don’t anyone ever again tell me that we don’t need the GPL. Look
at the role this champion license has played in SCO v. the World.
Source: Groklaw