Understanding Microsoft's Linux code shocker In a move even the software maker notes is unusual, the company is contributing code for three drivers for inclusion in the open-source operating system.

SCO Group says copyrighted code has made its way into Linux, the popular open-source OS. If true, the open-source community could find its hard-won gains threatened.

It compared source code from the Unix System V release 4.1 software that SGI has licensed from SCO with a version of the Linux kernel released this June, SGI said.

Most recently, Coverity scanned 7.6 million lines of code in Linux 3.8 and found a defect density of just .59. A copy of Coverity’s full report is available as a free download.

For months SCO has claimed that an exhaustive examination of the Linux source code has revealed software that has been copied line-by-line from its Unix System V code base. The Linux community has ...