Re: Linux v2.6.9 and GPL Buyout

From: Jeff V. Merkey
Date: Sat Oct 23 2004 - 00:27:42 EST



I need you to commit to this in writing, signed and sealed though. Any
chance of doing this as per previous allusion?



Jon.


I forward this email to Jon Masters digital signature, secret spy, magic, digital signing email address:

The following offer was formerly made to Jeff V. Merkey and the entire Linux Community by Darl McBride of the SCO Group
On October 22, 2004, at around 14:00 p.m. MST. I was in a room with Blake Stowell, Director of Public Relations, and
Darl McBride, CEO of the SCO Group, and Mr. McBride stated the following offer. Prior to the offer I reviewed the
Evidence SCO had in their possession to present regarding their claims that IBM Corporation took their intellectual
property and in violation of contracts used it for linux development. Their agreements and source code appear to chart
and track a detailed evolution of Unix technologies into Linux. Their presentation is extremely thorough, valid,
and credible from a technical viewpoint. I make formal affidavit under penalty of perjury as to the statements made.
Darl McBride said:

" .... The SCO has identified Intellectual Property in the Linux Kernel that we believe infringes on our intellectual property
rights. We believe the Linux code which comprises source files of the following subsystems listed in the foregoing
document (which I, Jeff V. Merkey have posted at ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/sco_stuff, and which
document was taped to Blake Stowell's wall directly above his telephone -- I will put the document up when I can get
to a scanner this weekend -- try Saturday afternoon). We have a detailed listing of the files
in Linux and the specific line numbers in these files which comprise source code and intellectual property that infringes
our intellectual property rights based on contracts we hold with IBM and others. We can provide this listing to any
interested parties who wish for us to identify the infringing code so that they may remove this code from Linux for
commerical use. We are not trying to stop people from using Linux, however, we would request that our intellectual
property be removed from the Linux kernel and we will offer certification to any Linux user, developer, maintainer,
contributor, that their code and the Linux code is free from claim from SCO. Any Linux kernel which does not use
the attached subsystems or distribute the code is considered non-infringing. Any code written by any IBM employee
may potentially contain SCO's intellectual property and should be removed, including device drivers. SCO will certify
the use of and hosting of any Linux system or source code and release all claims if the following subsystems are removed
from the distribution:

RCU
46 files
109,688 lines

NUMA
101 files
56,587 lines

JFS
44 files
32,224

XFS
173 files
119,130 lines

SMP
1,185 files
829,393 lines

Total
1,549 files
1,147,022 lines


Darl McBride then instructed Mr. Blake Stowell, Director of public relation to give me his personal card and further stated
that this offer was made to Jeff V. Merkey, the Linux Community, and any companies I was affiliated with if the terms
of this offer were complied with. Blake Stowell's contact information:

bstowell@xxxxxxx
355 South 520 West Suite 100
Lindon, Utah 84042
801-932-5703 phone
801-852-9088 fax
801-369-5595 cell


Sworn before The Linux Commnity as the Truth under penalty of perjuy October 22, 2004 10:41 p.m. MST

Jeffrey Vernon Merkey

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/