"Stolen" SCO Linux Code Snippets Leaked

stere0 writes "An article (in German) published on the German IT news site Heise includes two pictures (1, 2) of the "stolen" source code SCO claims to be theirs. Part of the first screenshot has been scrambled, the font has probably just been changed to Symbol; can anybody decipher it? I searched for the code snippets on Google. The code does indeed come from the kernel; the photographs show what seems to be lines 88-102 and 109-123 of /arch/ia64/sn/io/ate_utils.c from the 2.4 kernel tree. " Update: 08/19 16:39 GMT by M : LWN has a nice piece tracing the origins of the disputed code, and showing that SCO is simply lying.

oh no!

[krisp]

Quick, bust out vi and change all the variable names!

This..

[Nick Fury]

Still doesn't prove shit for SCO's claim other than digital cameras are getting smaller and easier to hide.

Code in picture 2 doesn't even compile

[*igor*]

if (size == 0)
return) ((ulong_t NULL);

What is this, amateur night?

I dunno...

[slashhax0r]

It's all Greek To me!!!

Stolen Comments!!!

[burgburgburg]

The fact that SCO refused to show code fragments that they claim are stolen, but felt free to display this purloined comment indicates the root of the problem:

The System V comments have been stolen!!!

Obviously no actual code has been used. But the comments, the key component of the intellectual property that makes up SCO, has been lifted near verbatim and ruthlessly incorporated into Linux. Oh, the injustice.

When will it end?!?

Re:Comments ...

[FrankoBoy]

It's often what Slashdot is all about, anyway ;)

Translation of Kernel Code

[Matrix272]

It actually says:

# Comment by Linus:
# This is not code written by SCO. I swear to god, I wrote it myself.
# It just looks a lot like SCO's code. It just happened that way. There's
# only so many ways to do certain things... I mean, hey, I have to make
# a living too! Where are my lawyers? Well? I don't have any! I have to
# scrap by on a measly salary trying my best to make a difference in the
# world, all the while, companies like IBM and Microsoft release shitty
# software all the time, and nobody seems to care! They're all getting
# butt-raped, and they don't even know it! Well, not anymore! I'm going to
# make the best operating system in the world, and name it after myself!
# M$ and IBM sux0rs!

Translation

[Vaulter]

/*
* The following code is verbatim from Linux 2.4, and
* should guarantee binary compatibility for applications.
*/

SCO sues my uncle's tire shop!

[rice_burners_suck]

For immediate release:

SCO (NASDAQ: SCUM) today filed a lawsuit against Joe's Tire Shop for violating SCO's trademarks. SCO alleges that Linux, a proprietary CRM middleware product developed by IBM, contains technologies owned by SCO.

"Joe's Tire Shop uses Microsoft Windows," commented SCO CEO Darl McBride. "We have already established that Microsoft has violated our trademarks by using Linux. The liability for these actions, therefore, falls on Joe's Tire Shop. It is the responsibility of Joe's Tire Shop and all businesses worldwide to side with SCO and allocate all of their resources to the exclusive end of helping us. Either you're with us or you're against us."

If SCO wins the lawsuit, Joe, the owner of Joe's Tire Shop, will pay 10 billion in damages. SCO alleges over four billion lines of source code--essentially the middleware business rules developed by SCO--have been illegally copied in the Linux Colonel, the main component of IBM's CRM product.

"By leveraging innovative technologies, content providers streamline compelling enterprise solutions," said a spokesperson for SCO. SCO stocks climbed 11% after the initial announcement.

Ah hah!

[airrage]

It was Professor Plum in the library with the candlestick!!!!

Re:second one does look too close if it is there

[iainl]

I don't doubt you would fail both students if they wrote that code. Not for collaborating, but for both nicking it from 1992-era BSD...

Re:Code in picture 2 doesn't even compile

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to use the sco switch:

gcc -o -scoRuLEz ate_utils.c ate_utils.o

Re:Comments ...

[wonkamaster]

There is nothing wrong with having the same comments.

There is nothing wrong with having the same comments.

Re:oh no!

[BohKnower]

Every college student knows that you must change comments and variable names of the code you copy.

How could the IBM engineers miss it.

Linux Code ?

[KoolDude]

From http://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/marc elo/linux-2.4/arch/ia64/sn/io/ate_utils.c [kernel.org]

/*
* Free the previously allocated space a of size units into the specified map.
* Sort ``a'' into map and combine on one or both ends if possible.
* Returns 0 on success, 1 on failure.
*/
void
atefree(struct map *mp, size_t size, ulong_t a)
{

Do we really need *this* code ?

00-nought

[Chagatai]

I love this quote:

With pictures and title music from James bond films the manager sought itself to join in the faithful ones of the former cult company from Santa Cruz for fight for property.

Sorry, but Darl is no 007. If I had to cast him in a James Bond movie he would be something like "henchman #7 who gets shot by his own soldiers and falls off a banister to hang by his neck in front of James Bond." If he were even able to be given a name such as "Odd Job" or "Goldfinger", Darl's name would be "Ass Hat" or something like that.

Re:I can decipher it!

[$rtbl_this]

But that's actually the same thing. It's a little known secret that all foreign languages are really just English spelled/pronounced wrong or encoded in a different character set. It's just one of the things that they don't want you to know.

Re:Very interesting news article

[Squideye]

So he's actually stated that SCO's case is based on huge chunks. That's great, that's really great. "Hey, everyone, look at our huge chunks."

Huge chunks of code or perhaps of a browner substance, more like bovine digestive waste in nature?

Don't forget spelling...

[DaHat]

Most know that... one must also remember to make sure the spelling is correct, teachers often get wise when two students make the same spelling mistake

Re:I can decipher it!

[wwest4]

maybe it's just bad corporate humor - powerpoint slides meant for exec types. the author anticipated:

"what does that C code mean"

"it's all greek to me"

har, har.

Re:In the ia64 directory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chewbacca uses an x86 32 bit computer. Chewbacca buys software license for a ia64 computer.

IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!

Re:Translation of "symbol" section:

[hcetSJ]

They can't use Symbol font as a substitution cypher!!! I did that in 3rd grade!!! I demand they pay me $699 for each character encrypted with the Symbol Font Substitution Cypher (tm)(R)(c)(MD)(DDS)!!!

Re:Translation of "symbol" section:

[jandrese]

You know, you'd might want to start updating your resume because SCO excecs have been dumping their stock, which is usually a sign that a company is going down. Its not going to be easy to find another cushy job like that where you can sit in your nice office and astroturf Slashdot.

Re:Translation of "symbol" section:

[bnenning]

In that way, when the courts inevitably rule that the offending code cannot be used in ANY release and blocks ALL USERS from using ANY recent distributions

Does Darl know you've found his stash?

Re:Careful there

[Anonymous Coward]

What's there to argue? He suggested using the correct editor after all...

Re:Don't forget spelling...

[Moofie]

What about those of us who don't make spelling mistkaes?

Re:oh no!

[captain_craptacular]

The problem is IBM only hires the top 5% of any given graduating class. Basically if you don't have a 3.75+ GPA, forget about it. Therefore they hire all the geeks who never considered cheating and don't know how to get by in the real world. If they just hired a real person as a "conformance officer" occasionally, such trivial mistakes wouldn't slip by.

Re:Translation of "symbol" section:

[cmdr_beeftaco]

Are you claiming that Linux is just a parody of Unix?

Re:Code in picture 2 doesn't even compile

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, give the guys a break. They're just a lawsuit company. Systems, code and stuff like that aren't their business anymore.

Time to patch.

[Anonymous Coward]

The old comments need to be stripped out and rewritten in a more informative, non infringing way. So if any of the kernel devs are here, get writing those new comments.

Next time, write it in Perl

[Raster Burn]

If these functions were implemented in Perl, they would be guaranteed to look different than the System V!

I'm pissed

[lspd]

Come on now. I took the idea of comparing sources using MD5 hashes that Michael Chaney and Rick Bradley came up with, tweaked it a bit, compared Sys3 with 2.4.21 and posted this match on /. a while back.

When it was posted on the Linux Kernel Mailing List they gave me a little shout-out. If when SCO says "a team of code comparison experts" they actually mean some guy on slashdot...well...they could at least give me a mention. Not like I really care about getting a proper "* Thanks LSPD" in the SCO Legal Case Changelog, but give me a break.

Bastards...

Hey, God coded it first!

[paiute]

It is amusing that SCO is employing pattern-recognition to "find" code that allegedly originates with SCO. I will bet you that if you run pattern recognition on the Bible, you will find as many hits in Scripture as they will find in the kernel.

You may have to translate the Bible into machine language first, though.

*scratches head*

[Platinum Dragon]

So let me get this straight.

A patch was submitted by someone from HP, containing a Silicon Graphics, Inc. copyright line, along with at least one chunk of code that is nearly identical to several early BSDs, as part of an SMP implementation, that SCO is claiming IBM donated to the Linux kernel in violation of a contract?

What. The. Fuck. I don't even want to try and figure out the web of licences, contracts, and original sources for this code. Based on other comments, it looks like a basic (crappy) implementation of memory allocation. On top of it all, whoever at SCO prepared the PowerPoint presentation managed to mistype the supposed SysV code.

Several scattered thoughts come to mind, among them "chutzpah", "pump and dump", and "someone's going to jail when this is all over."

You see!

[nedwidek]

You see! This is why they didn't show their evidence! You all have gone and poked holes in it. Shame on you, you're going to be responsible for the death of a corporation!

Important note for the sarcasm impared: yes, the above is sarcasm.

Re:I can decipher it!

[Is every nickname ta]

Actually, the last word is beloo, as they decided to use an omega for a "w", which is lacking in greek.

Re:Translation of "symbol" section:

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Since you probably didn't read some of the comments, as others have pointed out, these exact comments (and even some source) are in the public domained Unix 7 code, as well as old BSD code

You, sir, need to get your head examined. You're thrying make sense and post truthful statements on slashdot...

It's got to be infringement.....

[telstar]

After all ... there can't be more than one person that actually comments their code, can there?

Re:Translation of "symbol" section:

[buffer-overflowed]

Don't worry, I don't make a habit of it.

HOW DARE THEY ...

[ProfMoriarty]

SCO blatently copying peoples' hard work.

Even the COMMENTS are the same ... have they no shame?

Re:Don't forget spelling...

[Sique]

Interestingly though "mistkaes" means something like dung cheese in German ;)

Re:Don't forget spelling...

[Moofie]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that there exists a "dung cheese" in German cuisine, but I am repulsed.

Thanks for sharing. : )

Re:Translation of "symbol" section:

[deadcasuals]

Congratulations. You are now a criminal under the DMCA for breaking SCO's encryption algorithm!

g00r00? [ngsec.biz]

Re:anyone who would work for Darl? ;-)

[dnoyeb]

NO!? You mean like the stock options worth today about $5,000,000 they gave to the company that paid ~$3,000,000 for the first license?

Re:It's HP's fault this stupid code is in there.

[6079_Smith]

So to sum it up: SCO sued IBM, because HP comitted a patch copied by SGI from an old Bell Labs Unix, which was released under a BSD license by SCO. Seems like Sun are the only ones not involved. That's probably the reason they bought one of those Unix licenses from SCO, just to be part of the picture.

Surely, IBM has *some* MBA's on staff!

[jabber01]

All they have to do is show the code to a former business major. The cheating and underhandedness of which the geeks never think is part and parcel of the business curriculum. In fact, I'm quite sure there's a whole section dedicated to the practice on the LSATs - so if not management, IBM's legal department could easily see to it.

Re:00-nought

[Picass0]

Dr. Evil - Gentlemen welcome to my underground lair. Its been 30 years but I'm back. Everything's gone perfectly to plan except one small flaw. Due to a technical error by my henchman Darl complications arose in the unfreezing process.

Darl - My design was perfect.

Dr. Evil - Look what you did to Mr. Bigglesworth.

Darl - But Dr. Evil we were unable to anticipate feline complications due to the reanimation process.

Dr. Evil - Silence. Let this be a reminder to you all that this organization will not tolerate failure.

(trap door opens)

Darl - Ahhhhhh.

Dr. Evil - Gentlemen, lets get down to business.

Darl - Ahhhhhh.

Dr. Evil - We've got a lot of work to do.
Darl - Someone help me. I'm still alive only I'm very badly burned.

Dr. Evil - Some of you I know some of you I'm meeting for the first time.

Darl - Hello out there. Anyone. Can someone call an ambulance, I'm in quite a lot of pain.

Dr. Evil - Ok, you've all been gathered here to form my evil cabinet...excuse me. Yes he's down there.

Darl - If somebody could open the retrieval hatch down here I could get out. See I designed this devise myself...Oh, Hi, Good. I'm glad you found me listen, I'm very badly burned so if you could just...You shot me.

Dr. Evil - Ok, moving on.

Darl - You shot me right in the arm, why did...

Dr. Evil - Right, Let me go around the table and introduce everyone.

No wonder SCO's products suck...

[kwiqsilver]

They're all written in Greek [heise.de]! Greek is a fine language for religious texts and plays about incest, but it's not a programming language. Silly SCO...
Here's what they cleverly hid using a different font:
"As part of the kernel evolution
toward modular naming, the
functions malloc and mfree are being
renamed to rmalloc and rmfree.
Compatibility will be maintained by
the following assembler code:
(also see mfree/rmfree below)
"
Does breaking their encryption count as my DMCA violation for today?

Appropriate Simpsons quote

[Platinum Dragon]

Judge: The foreman will pass the verdict to the bailiff.

[Lionel Hutz hands him something]

Judge: This verdict is written on a cocktail napkin. And it still says guilty. And guilty is spelled wrong!

Re:SCO are lazy, stupid bastards

[Ride-My-Rocket]

SCO are lying, thieving, scurilous rumour mongers and sadly getting much too much attention.
Which makes me think: could the whole thing be simply intended to distract our attention from something else happening...? It is a classic ploy.

Frodo and Samwise are about to throw the Ring of Power into the fiery depths of Mount Doom?!

Re:Code in picture 2 doesn't even compile

[lcde]

So it looks like someone in SCO hand typed all the linux code again to the presentation, does this mean they violated their own Copyright and owe themselves $699?

Re:Why is everyone fixated on the kernel source co

[praedor]

It matters NOW because they have gone on record with the claim that GPL is invalid. They have fired a full broadside, showing their intent is to try to kill GPL (wild hail mary long bomb pass that is hopeless). They are cornered because IBM didn't do what they were SURE IBM would do: buy them out to shut them up. Their bluff was called so now they are panicked, stuck in their corner, lashing out in every direction hoping for something to get them out of their corner.

They are all looking at jail terms when all is said and done. They will lose their silly court cases, linux will bounce back from its little speed bump, linux and the GPL will be more legitimized and more inassailable, M$ will chew their nails because their gambit with SCO didn't pan out and they will actually have to face the competition in a fair and open fight, the SEC will roll the whole SCO crew over hot coals...this will be a hoot to look back on. It is getting to the point of being able to look back on it that sucks. Too frickin' slow to get resolution.

I would like to see a more high-speed court filing to force SCO to put up or shut up rather than have to wait YEARS for the Redhat and IBM suits to play out. Let's speed this up people!

RTFKC!

[Anonymous Coward]

"I haven't read the code yet..."

Great. First people didn't bother to read the articles, now they can't even be bothered to grok the kernel code. Lazy bastards!

That's $10, $12, #14, ...

[tilleyrw]

Okay people, I own one, that is one share of SCOX that I'm willing to part with before this debacle plays itself out.

Now, who would like to say they own a piece of the greatest financial scam since Enron???

No shoving now, cash only...

Re:oh no!

[jmbr]

And every college student knows that the code you copy has to compile. The code on the 2nd SCO picture doesn't, 'return)((ulong_t NULL);' is wrong.
Well, it isn't very interesting for the point they're trying to make but it makes them look urm, messy.

Re:Slashdot is working

[Anonymous Coward]

1-2-3 Who's that? Who's that?

4-5-6 Slashdot! SlashDOT!

YaaaAAAAAYYYYY US! YaaaAAAYYYYY US!

Hooray for SCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Go SCO go!

Look what I found !!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been discovered that the code was submitted in linux by HP on March 9, 2002. The author was [e-mail]

http://linux.bkbits.net:8080/linux-2.5/diffs/Bit Ke eper/deleted/.del-ate_utils.c~f3dbb032c5361f93@1.1 ?nav=hist/BitKeeper/deleted/.del-ate_utils.c~f3dbb 032c5361f93

So to sum it up:

SCO sued IBM, because HP comitted a patch copied by SGI from an old BELL LABS (otherwise known as AT&T) Unix, which was released under a BSD license by SCO (previously known as CALDERA) after aquiring the copyrights from NOVELL with the help of funding from MICROSOFT and SUN and in turn got counter-sued by IBM,SUSE and REDHAT.

Anyone else ?
oh .. what was that one fortune 500 company which paid up to SCO ?

a little allegory

[dh003i]

SCO: You tresspassed on my property

YOU: Huh? What? Where's your property?

SCO: I can't tell you that, because telling you that would allow you to tresspass on my property again.

YOU: Huh? How the fuck am I supposed to avoid tresspassing on your property if you won't tell me where it is.

SCO: That's your problem.

YOU: Can you show me some evidence that proves I tresspassed on your property?

SCO: No, that would violate our property rights!

YOU: Can you show me how not to tresspass on your property?

SCO: No, that would violate our property rights. Now, we're going to sue you for tresspassing!

Re:oh no!

[swillden]

I have yet to witness a compiler that did anything even remotely clever with register usage, much less correctly identify where the performance hot-spots were.

The fact that compilers don't do a great job of optimizing register usage doesn't mean the register keyword is useful. The (correct) statement was that most compilers have ignored it for some time. It doesn't matter if your recommendation to the compiler is a good one if the compiler ignores you on the grounds that it thinks it knows better.

On a lighter note, while googling to see how the compiler I use the most (gcc) handles the register keyword, I found this gem [faqs.org].

The resulting program will contain a request, on creation of the variable that it be placed in a cpu register, the operating system may ignore or honour this request.

Eh? I wasn't aware that the OS might decide to rewrite my program. If it can do that, can I get a Linux kernel patch that will automatically fix all the bugs in my software? It'd be really cool if it would also add all of the features I haven't gotten around to implementing yet...