Grokline
Encyclopedia
Grokline was a community-based, collaborative research project, designed to trace the ownership history and survivable legal enforcement rights of UNIX
and UNIX-like software code. It is run and edited by Pamela Jones
and complements her Groklaw
website, which acts as a focus for legal news of interest to the Free and Open Source Software communities, including in particular SCO Group
's litigation
against IBM
and others and its attacks on Linux
.
The purpose of the website was to collect comprehensive information on the many commercial and non-commercial releases of UNIX and UNIX-like code, so as to reduce or eliminate the scope for superficially plausible but ultimately invalid copyright
, patent
and trade secret
claims against Linux or other free and open source software.
The antecedents of Grokline are the SCO legal actions, Groklaw, and Eric Levenez' Unix History chart, which shows the technical relationship between different UNIX releases as a family tree. The logic underlying the site is that pooled community information can:
In December 2005, Grokline was taken off-line while Groklaw's volunteer administrators worked to separate the patent software used by Grokline, which does not belong to Groklaw, from the Grokline software, which Groklaw owns.
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
and UNIX-like software code. It is run and edited by Pamela Jones
Pamela Jones
Pamela Jones, commonly known as PJ, is the creator and editor of Groklaw, an award-winning website that covers legal news of interest to the free and open-source software community...
and complements her Groklaw
Groklaw
Groklaw is an award-winning website covering legal news of interest to the free and open source software community. Started as a law blog on May 16, 2003 by paralegal Pamela Jones at Radio UserLand, it has covered issues such as the SCO-Linux lawsuits, the EU anti-trust case against Microsoft, and...
website, which acts as a focus for legal news of interest to the Free and Open Source Software communities, including in particular SCO Group
SCO Group
TSG Group, Inc. is a software company formerly called The SCO Group, Caldera Systems, and Caldera International. After acquiring the Santa Cruz Operation's Server Software and Services divisions, as well as UnixWare and OpenServer technologies, the company changed its focus to UNIX...
's litigation
SCO v. IBM
SCO v. IBM is a civil lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah. The SCO Group asserted that there are legal uncertainties regarding the use of the Linux operating system due to alleged violations of IBM's Unix licenses in the development of Linux code at IBM.-Summary:On March 6, 2003,...
against IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
and others and its attacks on Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
.
The purpose of the website was to collect comprehensive information on the many commercial and non-commercial releases of UNIX and UNIX-like code, so as to reduce or eliminate the scope for superficially plausible but ultimately invalid copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
, patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
and trade secret
Trade secret
A trade secret is a formula, practice, process, design, instrument, pattern, or compilation of information which is not generally known or reasonably ascertainable, by which a business can obtain an economic advantage over competitors or customers...
claims against Linux or other free and open source software.
The antecedents of Grokline are the SCO legal actions, Groklaw, and Eric Levenez' Unix History chart, which shows the technical relationship between different UNIX releases as a family tree. The logic underlying the site is that pooled community information can:
- Assist in establishing as a fact the open nature of UNIX code, or
- Identify UNIX code which is not open source, to assist in guarding against its inclusion in open source code offerings.
In December 2005, Grokline was taken off-line while Groklaw's volunteer administrators worked to separate the patent software used by Grokline, which does not belong to Groklaw, from the Grokline software, which Groklaw owns.