SCO suit

[Pete French]

> I'd much rather Linux and all other open source projects stay clean, so
> that no company can ever lay claim to them and Linux needs to tighten up
> their act a bit in this regard. I wonder if they cheque whether code
> contributed from companies like IBM incorporate any of that companies
> patents?

Is Linux a GNU/FSF project ? Having been through the paperwork hurdles
necessary to get code included into an FSF project it is actually
quite strict. before anything goes into CVS you need to fill out
documents,listing the names of thesource files you are changing, plus
any known people who may have a claim on your changes, then sign something
to say that you are handing over the copyright and send it back by
post to Boston. Which take a couple of weeks turnaround. Its quite
a frustarting experience - and very nearly out me off making any
contributions too any FSF pprojects in the future - but they are at least
going though the motions of getting signed paper documents with people before
accepting any code from them.

I've never contributed anything to FreeBSD so I dont know what their
procedure is like - does anyone know what paoperwork, if any, they require
and what the checking procedures are to make sure that contributed code is
unecumbered ?

-bat.