SCO is distributing GDB 4.12 at ftp://ftp2.sco.com/pub/Skunk1/CD-ROM/src/Tools/gdb-4.12.tar.Z, which contains bfd, including ELF reading code. The code is not an exact replica of that in binutils but they appear to share a common ancestry.

So, more evidence gobbling ahead for SCO, methinks. In case you are interested in Skunkware, by the way, there's an interesting presentation about it, titled "Open Source and SCO" at SCO's FTP site here: ftp://ftp2.sco.com/pub/skunkware/intro/index.html. The presentation was given at an earlier SCOForum by Ronald Joe Record, Open Source Program Architect, The Santa Cruz Operation. Here's the COPYING file, the good old GPL. I thought I'd list some highlights, since the poor presentation probably isn't long for this world. As soon as Groklaw publishes these addresses, SCO sweeps them off the Internet.

Speaking of which, I'm told SCO is distributing STREAMS methods and concepts, some source code that demonstrates how to write a STREAMS driver on ftp://ftp2.caldera.com/pub/Skunk96/UnixWare/FreeBird/hints/Development/Sample_Source .

A whole lot of methods and concepts going on there. [Cf. Groklaw's recent article on STREAMS.] By the way, there is some SCO documentation with a very helpful page on STREAMS. Knowledge made freely available is a wonderful thing, don't you think?

Here's just some of the contents in the Ron Record presentation, just for the record:

Advantages of Open Source ...

Customer Advantages

Survive vendor collapse
Not at the mercy of unfixed bugs
Not tied to vendor's strategy or support

Open Source Projects at SCO

... UDI - Uniform Driver Interface
SCO Skunkware
Open SAR
Lxrun - Linux Emulation...

What is SCO Skunkware?

Open Source, Freeware and Shareware
Precompiled for SCO platforms

Release History

1983 - First SCO Xenix Games Diskette
1993 - Skunkware (SCO UNIX 3.2)
1994 - Skunkware 2.0 (OpenDesktop)
1995 - Skunkware 5 (OpenServer 5)
1996 - Skunkware 96 (OpenServer 5) (*Update to Skunkware 5)
1997 - Skunkware 97 (OSR5 + UW2)
1998 - Skunkware 7 & Skunkware 98 (*Skunkware 99 is an update to both 7.1 and 98)

How Do I Get SCO Skunkware?

Included with UnixWare 7 and OpenServer 5
Order online at http://www.sco.com/offers/
... Download via Http or FTP
http://www.sco.com/skunkware
ftp://ftp.sco.com/skunkware

Installing SCO Skunkware

Any SCO Platform
Mount CD and fun /mnt/INSTALL
Open Server 5

Software Manager (/etc/custom) with CD-ROM...

UnixWare 7

Mount CD and run /mnt/INSTALL

Who Made SCO Skunkware?

Thousands of programmers around the world
Ron Record, Skunkware Technical Lead
... http://www.sco.com/skunkware/credits.html

What's New in Skunkware 99 (OpenServer)

...GCC 2.95 Lxrun

What's New in Skunkware 99 (UnixWare 7)

GCC
Lxrun

What's In SCO Skunkware

Database Mgmt
Shells/Shell Utilities
Multimedia Tools
Graphics Tools
File Managers
System Administration
Window Managers
Mail & News
Networking
Development Tools
Text Processing
Java Classes/Apps
X11 Applications
Interpreters/Scripting
Emulators
Games
Editors
InterNetworking

Development Tools

Integrated GNU Compilation System

C, C++, Objective C and Fortran 77 support

GNU Source Level Debugger
GNU Development Tools (make, bison, flex, rcs, cvs, indent, patch, autoconf...)
Graphics Libraries ...
Posix Threads for OpenServer
...InfoDock Integrated Development Environment
Erlang Programming Languages
Standard Template Library
SCO Packaging Front-ends...

Emulators

Linux Emulation System (lxrun )

References

Project UDI
http://www.sco.com/udi/

Open SAR
http://www.starnix.com/osar/

Linux Emulation
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~steven/lxrun

Linux, Open Source & Network Computing

http://www.sco.com/linux/
This Presentation
http://www.sco.com/forum1999/conference/develop/d4/

SCO has SCO OpenServer Documentation, called DocView still up on the Internet here. There is a page on GNU development tools, and lookee here: binutils. I guess they can't say they didn't know what binutils was, that it came in the GNUtools package, and that it included ELF. The copyright on the documentation is 2003 Caldera International, Inc. (SCO OpenServer Release 5.0.7 -- 11 February 2003). That's a month before Caldera, now SCO, sued IBM. And they provide a helpful link to GNU.org, so they certainly know it's all GPL.

But just in case they try to say they didn't know, here's a 2004 presentation from SCOforum in which the slides show binutils in GNUtools. [Update: As is their wont, SCO has removed the slides from that link. However, you can still find the slides here.] It's listed clear as a bell on the slide titled Open Source Components in OpenServer gnutools package, binutils 2.15.90. You can find it listed also in the slide titled Open Source Components in UnixWare OSTools Package, which lists both Gcc and binutils 2.10.1.

Why is SCO so careless? The first rule of story telling, if one is so inclined, is to make sure you aren't caught in the truth. Linus said once that the Open Source method encourages truthfulness. I believe we have just demonstrated that in our ELF series, which by the way isn't finished. SCO forgot about all those Open Source eyeballs. It's a tremendous advantage to Open Source, and it's the fuel of Groklaw.

SCO told the court some stories but it neglected to clean up all the contrary evidence. Why? One can only speculate, but I think it's because they made a big mistake thinking that Linux folks were no longer needed. They trimmed the engineers and there is nobody there to warn them, or nobody motivated to do so. And now, should this pile of inanity ever reach a jury, I don't think the jury will like what it hears. Judges either.

And what about SCO's experts, who backed SCO up on this inanity about ELF and STREAMS, etc.? Whatever do you think the judge and jury will think of them now? Probably the same thing you are thinking.