[Asterisk-Users] SCO/Linux concerns

[Steven Critchfield]

On Wed, 2003-07-30 at 18:07, Ajit M Kallingal wrote:
> Hello
> Since I am getting a bit concerned about the SCO vs IBM issue, I was
> wondering if can I can setup Asterisk on FreeBSD is it supported ?
> Are drivers for Digium cards available on FreeBSD ?

If you are worried about it, you really should look into what happened
during the lawsuit between Bellcore/USL and UC berkely. Basically they
removed all the offending parts from BSD and then rewrote them from
scratch. That is why there is a 4.4 lite BSD, it was they after
settlement release. It wasn't a full unix anymore, but it had enough to
start from again. From that core, you get the *BSD systems. 

The worst that will happen is a judge will deem certain parts as
infringing and order them removed. At which time the functionality will
be replaced by originally written code. No problems. 

So far the only chance of finding infringing code from SCO to linux was
donated by a caldera employee. And do remember Caldera purchased the
Unix code and then changed names to the SCO group. It isn't even the
people who used to write and maintain it. 

The real fun is when the judge goes in and finds the infringing code in
SCO's linux compatibility code that caldera employees have rumored
about. If the GPL is enforceable, then all of the historical unix code
would fall under GPL then and the lawsuit will blow away in a poof of
logic.

-- 
Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com>