[TUHS] Re: SCO's "evidence" (was: RIP Darl McBride former CEO of SCO)

On Sat, Nov 09, 2024 at 12:29:55PM -0600, G. Branden Robinson wrote: The Linux Foundation does not exclusively own the copyright on the Linux kernel. The copyright is jointly owned by all of the contributors of the Linux kernel. This makes it quite unlike the FSF projects, where contributions to FSF project require a copyright assignment[1]. [1] https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2022/fall/copyright-assignment-with-the-fsf The FSF requires the copyright assignment primarily to make it easy to due entities which the FSF perceives to have violated the GPL. The Linux community tends to not prioritize using lawsuits to enforce the GPL. Our preference is to use public shaming and pursuading companies that by holding their changes back, they are actually hurting themselves. This is because the Linux kernel is constantly improving, and if you don't contribute the changes back, in order to to take advantage of the new features in the latest upstream kernel, you would have to constantly forward port your patches to tha latest kernel is P-A-I-N-F-U-L. For example, consider the data center kernel used by Google. Since it is not distributed outside of Google, there is no obligation under the GPL to distribute sources for any changes made to the Linux kernel. However, Google *wants* to contribute those changes back, because forward-porting 9,000 out-of-tree patches is a huge amount of engineering effort. Hence, Project Icebreaker[1], which is an effort to reduce this technical debt by getting as many patches upstream as possible, with a goal to be able to update to each year's Stable kernel every year. (And if you have to forward-port 9,000 commits, and then test and qualify all of these changes, it's simply impossible.) [2] https://lwn.net/Articles/871195/ Linux Foundation membership has absolutely nothing to do with GPL license obligations. All Linux Foundation members and non-members, are obliged to following the GPL license. And although Linux Foundation members might wish otherwise, LF membership also doesn't guarantee that your changes will be accepted upstream. Getting changes upstream requires that they pass peer review and the bar that subsystem maintainers set for technical assistance is quite difficult. Despite it being a high bar, many companies spend a lot of effort to make to get their changes upstream --- because it's worth it for them. And because Google wants the changes contributed by Facebook and Amazon, and Facebook wants the changes from Amazon and Google, etc., this becomes a virtuous circle which encourages other companies, like IBM, Samsung, etc., to contribute *their* changes back to the Linux kernel mainline. So why do companies join the Linux Foundation? Well, there are a number of benefits, but one very important one is that it provides a way for companies to directly collaborate with funded programs to make improvements to Linux without worrying about anti-trust conerns. For example, 15 years ago, IBM, Intel, HP, and other companies collaborate to improve Linux Scalability, and the companies collaborated about which asspects of the Linux Scalability Effort they would work on without having two companies ending up working on the same problems. Of course, 501(c)(6) organizations are not the only way companies can safely collaborate; standards development organizations like ANSI and ISO are aanother way companeis can work together. But if you think the Linux Foundation membership dues are expensive, trust me, having done both, participating in ANSI/ISO/INCITS can be *way* more expensive. (Especially once you take into account the mandatory international travel required...) - Ted