[OpenIndiana-discuss] Solaris 11 source code leaked?

[Gregory Youngblood]

On Dec 27, 2011, at 5:15 AM, Apostolos Syropoulos wrote:

>> 
>> Best course of action is to ignore it, don't look at it, and especially 
>> don't download it.
>> 
> 
> What kind of hysteria is this I have no idea! Even if you look at the
> code and use it, how can one prove that you have actually stolen code?

It comes from years of watching various patterns of behavior of several companies, Oracle included,  in the tech sector and both related and unrelated lawsuits play out in the US legal system. I'm in the US and view things through that perspective.

The bottom line is that anyone can bring suit against anyone for just about anything, and in civil matters especially, unlike criminal, it's not presumed innocent until proven guilty. As a result, right or wrong, sometimes the innocent party is left with the sometimes much more difficult task of proving they didn't do something. Plus, these types of legal matters can be long and drawn out and extremely expensive - look how long Caldera/SCO has been able to drag out the Linux related lawsuits. That's time and money few open source projects have or can remotely afford to lose. 

> There are many cases where people working independently have found the
> same solutions to identical problems!

Yes, that's true, but that's not really the point. The point is just the whiff of someone using that code to copy functionality into another project could be enough to start a legal chain of events that effectively dooms or severely cripples that project.

Until officially acknowledged that it's a legitimate release, the safest and most prudent course of action is to steer well clear of that code drop. Do I like it? No. But from a risk to benefit relationship, the risk is just too great for the potential benefit, and so it's best to err on the side of caution. 

> Not to mention that this code 
> does not contain anything that can be classified as innovation! 

I'm sure Oracle would beg to differ. Let's not give them reason to make that difference of opinion a legal argument.

Greg