Citizendia

The SCO-Linux controversies are a series of legal and public disputes between the software company SCO Group (SCO) and various Linux vendors and users. The SCO Group Inc ( TSG, informally SCO;) is a software company formerly called Caldera Systems and Caldera International. Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks The SCO Group alleges that its license agreements with IBM means that source code that IBM wrote and donated to be incorporated into Linux was added in violation of SCO's contractual rights. In Computer science, source code (commonly just source or code) is any sequence of statements or declarations written in some Human-readable Members of the Linux community disagree with SCO's claims; IBM, Novell and Red Hat have ongoing claims against SCO. International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology Novell Inc ( is a global Software Corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE In Computing, Red Hat Inc ( is a company dedicated to Free and open source software, and a major Linux distribution vendor

On August 10, 2007 a federal district court judge in SCO v. Events 612 BC - Killing of Sinsharishkun, King of Assyrian Empire Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Novell ruled that Novell, not the SCO Group, is the rightful owner of the copyrights covering the Unix operating system. The court also ruled that "SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and Sequent". After the ruling Novell announced they have no interest in suing people over Unix and stated "We don't believe there is Unix in Linux". [1][2][3][4]

SCO/Linux Controversies
Overview
Litigation
Companies Involved
Individuals Involved
Others
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Contents

Background

At the beginning of 2003, SCO claimed that there had been "misappropriation of its UNIX System V code into Linux". The SCO Group is currently involved in a dispute with various Linux vendors and users During the SCO Forum 2003 The SCO Group (SCO showed several alleged examples of illegal copying of copyrighted code in Linux. SCOsource is a business division of The SCO Group that manages its (now legally voided) Unix Intellectual property. SCO v IBM is a civil Lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah. The SCO Group v DaimlerChrysler was a lawsuit filed in the United States, in the state of Michigan. SCO v Novell is a lawsuit brought by the SCO Group against Novell. The Red Hat v SCO lawsuit - Red Hat filed suit against The SCO Group on August 4, 2003. The SCO Group Inc ( TSG, informally SCO;) is a software company formerly called Caldera Systems and Caldera International. International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology Novell Inc ( is a global Software Corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE Ralph J Yarro III is Chairman of the board and the largest shareholder in The SCO Group Inc 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 Darl McBride (born 1959 is the CEO of The SCO Group. He became the CEO of Caldera International on June 28, 2002, and United Linux was an attempt by a consortium of Linux distributors to create a common base distribution for enterprise use so as to minimise duplication of engineering USL v BSDi was a Lawsuit brought in the United States in 1992 by Unix System Laboratories against Berkeley Software Design, Inc and the Caldera OpenLinux is a defunct Linux distribution that was created by the former Caldera Systems (now SCO Group) corporation Groklaw is an award-winning website covering legal news of interest to the free and open-source software community Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV (and usually pronounced though rarely written as System 5 was one of the versions of the Unix Operating system In Computer science, source code (commonly just source or code) is any sequence of statements or declarations written in some Human-readable However, the company refused to identify the specific segments of code, claiming that it was a secret which they would only reveal to the court. They did say that the code could be found in the SMP, RCU and a few other parts of the Linux kernel. In Computing, symmetric multiprocessing or SMP involves a Multiprocessor computer-architecture where two or more identical processors can connect to a single Linux is an operating system kernel used by a family of Unix-like Operating systems These are popularly termed Linux operating systems and

They later announced that they were suing IBM for $1 billion, claiming that IBM transferred SCO trade secrets into Linux. International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology A trade secret is a Formula, practice, Process, Design, instrument, Pattern, or compilation of Information which That amount later rose to $3 billion, and then again to $5 billion.

Experts note that the USL v. BSDi case had shown that the Unix copyrights are weak and unenforceable. USL v BSDi was a Lawsuit brought in the United States in 1992 by Unix System Laboratories against Berkeley Software Design, Inc and the SCO has not claimed patent infringement, as all the relevant patents are proven to remain with AT&T and Novell. Patent infringement is the act of utilizing a patented Invention without permission from the Patent holder Before proposing a merge request please see Talk and see if the merger you propose has recently been made and The UNIX trademark was not owned by SCO. A trademark or trade mark, represented by the symbols ™ and ®, or mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual That left trade secrets, which, according to some observers, should be an issue strictly between SCO and IBM and would not affect Linux users, but SCO has since explicitly dropped all trade secret claims from the case.

There then ensued a bewildering storm of claims, counter claims, threats, and litigation that involves many of the major names in the computer industry, including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Novell, Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems and Red Hat. International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer Novell Inc ( is a global Software Corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE Silicon Graphics Inc (commonly initialised to SGI, historically sometimes referred to as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) is a company Sun Microsystems Inc ( is a multinational vendor of Computers computer components Computer software, and Information technology services In Computing, Red Hat Inc ( is a company dedicated to Free and open source software, and a major Linux distribution vendor

As of mid 2004, five major lawsuits have been filed

In cases SCO has publicly implied that a number of other parties have committed copyright infringement, including not only Linux developers but also Linux users. "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " SCO v IBM is a civil Lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah. The Red Hat v SCO lawsuit - Red Hat filed suit against The SCO Group on August 4, 2003. SCO v Novell is a lawsuit brought by the SCO Group against Novell. The SCO Group v DaimlerChrysler was a lawsuit filed in the United States, in the state of Michigan. The SCO-Linux controversies are a series of legal and public disputes between the Software company SCO Group (SCO and various Linux vendors and users

UNIX SVRx

SCO's claims are derived from several contracts that may have transferred UNIX System V Release 4 intellectual property assets. The UNIX IP rights originated with Unix System Laboratories (USL), a division of AT&T. Unix System Laboratories or USL was originally organized as part of Bell Labs in 1989 Before proposing a merge request please see Talk and see if the merger you propose has recently been made and In 1993, USL sold all UNIX rights and assets to Novell, including copyrights, trademarks, and active licensing contracts. Novell Inc ( is a global Software Corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE Some of these rights and assets, plus additional assets derived from Novell's development work, were then sold to the Santa Cruz Operation in 1995. Santa Cruz Operation ( SCO) was a Software company based in Santa Cruz California which was best known for selling three Unix variants for Year 1995 ( MCMXCV) was a Common year starting on Sunday. Events of 1995 The Santa Cruz Operation had developed and was selling a PC-based UNIX until 2000, when it then resold its UNIX assets to Caldera, which later changed its name to SCO Group. The SCO Group Inc ( TSG, informally SCO;) is a software company formerly called Caldera Systems and Caldera International.

Through this chain of sales, SCO claims to be the "owner of UNIX". The validity of these claims is hotly contested by others. SCO claims copyright to all UNIX code developed by USL, referred to as SVRx, and licensing contracts originating with AT&T, saying that these are inherited through the same chain of sales. Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV (and usually pronounced though rarely written as System 5 was one of the versions of the Unix Operating system The primary document SCO presents as evidence of these claims is the "Asset Purchase Agreement",[5] defining the sale between Novell and the Santa Cruz Operation. SCO says that this includes all copyrights to the UNIX code base and contractual rights to the licensing base. The other parties disagree.

UNIX copyrights ownership

The status of copyrights from USL is murky, since UNIX code is a compilation of elements with different copyright histories. Some code was released without copyright notice before changes in the Copyright Act of 1976 made copyright automatic. History and purpose Before the 1976 Act the last major revision to statutory copyright law in the United States occurred in 1909 This code may be in the public domain and not subject to copyright claims. The public domain is a range of abstract materials &ndash commonly referred to as Intellectual property &ndash which are not owned or controlled by anyone Other code is affected by the USL v. BSDi case, and is covered by the BSD License. USL v BSDi was a Lawsuit brought in the United States in 1992 by Unix System Laboratories against Berkeley Software Design, Inc and the BSD licenses represent a family of Permissive free software licences.

Groklaw uncovered an old settlement made between Unix System Laboratories (USL) and The University of California. Groklaw is an award-winning website covering legal news of interest to the free and open-source software community [6] This settlement ended a copyright infringement suit against the University for making BSD source code freely available that USL felt infringed their copyrights. In Computer science, source code (commonly just source or code) is any sequence of statements or declarations written in some Human-readable The university filed a counter suit, saying that USL had taken BSD source code and put it in UNIX without properly acknowledging the university's copyright. This settlement muddies the question of SCO's ownership of major parts of the UNIX source code. This uncertainty is particularly significant in regard to SCO's claims against Linux, which uses some BSD code.

Novell challenges SCO's interpretation of the purchase agreement. In response to a letter SCO sent to 1500 companies on May 12, 2003,[7] Novell exchanged a series of letters[8] with SCO beginning in May 2003, claiming that the copyrights for the core UNIX System V were not included in the asset purchase agreement and are retained by Novell. Events 1191 - Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. In October 2003, Novell registered those copyrights with the US Copyright Office.

In response to these challenges from Novell, SCO filed a "slander of title" suit against Novell, SCO v. Novell. In law slander of title is normally a claim involving Real estate in which one entity falsely claims to own another entity's property SCO v Novell is a lawsuit brought by the SCO Group against Novell. This claimed that Novell was interfering with their business activities by clouding the ownership of UNIX copyrights. SCO's claim for special damages was dismissed on June 9, 2004 for "failure to specifically plead special damages. "[9] However, SCO was given 30 days "to amend its complaint to more specifically plead special damages". In the same ruling, the judge expressed doubt that the Asset Purchase Agreement transferred the relevant copyrights.

SCO filed an amended complaint. In late July, 2005, Novell filed an answer to SCO's complaint, denying all of its accusations. Novell also filed its own Slander of Title counter-lawsuit against SCO. Novell has also filed claims for numerous breaches of the APA between Novell and the Santa Cruz Operation. Santa Cruz Operation ( SCO) was a Software company based in Santa Cruz California which was best known for selling three Unix variants for Under the APA, Santa Cruz (and later SCO after SCO purchased Santa Cruz Operation's Unix Business) was given the right to market and sell Unixware as a product, retaining 100% of all revenues. Santa Cruz Operation (and later SCO) also was given the responsibility of administering Unix SVR4 license agreements on behalf of Novell. When money was paid for licensing, SCO was to turn over 100% of the revenue to Novell, and then Novell would return 5% as an Administration Fee. Novell claims that SCO signed Unix SVR4 licensing agreements with Microsoft and Sun Microsystems, as well as with numerous Linux End Users for Unix IP allegedly in the Linux Kernel, and then refused to turn the money over to Novell. Novell is suing for 100% of the revenue, claiming SCO is not entitled to the 5% administration fee since they breached their contract with Novell. Novell's counterclaims proposed asking the court to put appropriate funds from SCO into escrow until the case is resolved, since SCO's cash is diminishing quickly.

Novell also retained the right to audit SCO's Unix Licensing Business under the APA. Novell claims that SCO has not turned over vital information about the Microsoft, Sun and Linux End User License Agreements, despite repeated demands by Novell for them to do so. Novell, in another claim that is part of their counter suit, is asking the court to compel SCO to allow Novell to perform this audit of SCO's Unix Business.

On August 10, 2007 Judge Dale Kimball, hearing the SCO v. Events 612 BC - Killing of Sinsharishkun, King of Assyrian Empire Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Novell case, ruled that ". . . the court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights". [1][10]

License administration standing

The Novell to Santa Cruz Operation Asset Purchase Agreement also involved the administration of some 6000 standing licensing agreements between various UNIX users and the previous owners. These licensees include universities, software corporations and computer hardware companies. SCO's claimed ownership of the licenses has become an issue in three aspects of the SCO-Linux controversies. The first was the cancellation of IBM's license, the second was SCO's complaint against DaimlerChrysler (see SCO v. DaimlerChrysler), and the third is the derivative works claim of the SCO v. IBM case. The SCO Group v DaimlerChrysler was a lawsuit filed in the United States, in the state of Michigan. SCO v IBM is a civil Lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah.

In May 2003, SCO canceled IBM's SVRx license to its version of UNIX, AIX. This was based on SCO's claim of unrestricted ownership of the System V licensing contracts inherited from USL. IBM ignored the license cancellation, claiming that an amendment to the original license[11] made it "irrevocable. " In addition, as part of the Purchase Agreement, Novell retained certain rights of control over the administration of the licenses which were sold, including rights to act on SCO's behalf in some cases. Novell exercised one of these rights by revoking SCO's cancellation of the IBM license. SCO disputed the validity of both of these actions, and amended its SCO v. IBM complaint to include copyright infringement, based on IBM's continued sale and use of AIX without a valid SVRx license. SCO v IBM is a civil Lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah.

In December 2003, SCO demanded that all UNIX licensees certify some items, some related to the use of Linux, that were not provided for in the license agreement language. Since DaimlerChrysler failed to respond, SCO filed the SCO v. DaimlerChrysler suit in March 2004. The SCO Group v DaimlerChrysler was a lawsuit filed in the United States, in the state of Michigan. All claims related to the certification demands were summarily dismissed by the court.

The third issue based on the UNIX licensees agreement is related to SCO's claims of control of derivative works. This is a major and complex question and is discussed in the next section below.

Control of derivative works

Many UNIX licensees have added features to the core UNIX SVRx system and those new features contain computer code not in the original SVRx code base. In most cases, software copyright is owned by the person or company that develops the code. SCO, however, claims that the original licensing agreements define this new code as a derivative work. In Copyright law, a derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major basic copyrighted aspects of an original previously created first work They also claim that they have the right to control and restrict the use and distribution of that new code.

These claims are the basis of SCO v. IBM. SCO v IBM is a civil Lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah. SCO's initial complaint,[12] said that IBM violated the original licensing agreement by not maintaining confidentiality with the new code, developed and copyrighted by IBM, and releasing it to the Linux project.

IBM claims that the license agreement (noted in the $Echo newsletter of April 1985)[13] and subsequent licenses defines derivative works as the developer's property. This leaves IBM free to do as it wishes with its new code. In August 2004, IBM filed a motion for partial summary judgment. The motion stated that IBM has the right to do as it wishes with software not part of the original SVRx code. In February 2005, the motion was dismissed as premature, because discovery was not yet complete. IBM refiled this motion along with other summary judgment motions as noted below in September of 2006.

SCO allegations of copyright and trade secret violations

SCO claims that Linux infringes SCO's copyright, trade secrets, and contractual rights. Copyright is a legal concept enacted by Governments, giving the creator of an original work of authorship Exclusive rights to control its distribution usually for A trade secret is a Formula, practice, Process, Design, instrument, Pattern, or compilation of Information which This claim is fundamental to the SCOsource program, where SCO has demanded that Linux users obtain licenses from SCOsource to be properly licensed to use the code in question. SCOsource is a business division of The SCO Group that manages its (now legally voided) Unix Intellectual property. Exactly which parts of Linux are involved remains unclear as many of their claims are still under seal in the SCO v. IBM lawsuit. SCO v IBM is a civil Lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah.

SCO originally claimed in SCO v. IBM that IBM had violated trade secrets. But these alleged violations by IBM would not have involved Linux distributors or end users. SCO's trade secret claims were dropped by SCO in their amended complaint. [14]

SCO also claimed line for line literal copying of code from UNIX code files to Linux kernel files and obfuscated copying of code, but originally refused to publicly identify which code was in violation. SCO submitted to the court evidence of their claims under seal but much of it was excluded from the case after it was challenged by IBM as not meeting the specificity requirements to be included.

These examples have fallen into two groups. The first are segments of files or whole files alleged to originate in UNIX SVRx code such as the errno.h header file. TemplateC_Standard_library --> errnoh is a Header file in the standard library of C programming language. The second group are files and materials contributed by IBM that originated with IBM development work associated with AIX and Dynix, IBM's two UNIX products. Dynix (short for DYNamic unIX) is an Operating system developed by Sequent.

Each of these has a different set of issues. In order for copyright to be violated, several conditions must be met. First, the claimant must be able to show that they own the copyrights for the material in question. Second, all or a significant part of the source must be present in the infringing material. There must be enough similarity to show direct copying of material.

SVRx code allegedly in Linux

The issue of ownership of the SVRx code base was discussed above. The SCO-Linux controversies are a series of legal and public disputes between the Software company SCO Group (SCO and various Linux vendors and users Besides the unresolved issue of what was actually transferred from Novell to Santa Cruz Operation, there are also the portions of the SVRx code base that are covered by BSD copyrights or that are in the public domain.

SCO's first public disclosure of what they claim is infringing code was at SCO Forum in August 2003. The SCO Group Inc ( TSG, informally SCO;) is a software company formerly called Caldera Systems and Caldera International. The first, known as the Berkeley Packet Filter, was distributed under the BSD License and is freely usable by anyone. The second example was related to memory allocation functions, also released under the BSD License. It is no longer in the Linux code base. [15]

SCO has also claimed that code related to application programming interfaces was copied from UNIX. However, this code and the underlying standards they describe are in the public domain and are also covered by rights USL sold to The Open Group. The Open Group is an industry Consortium to set vendor- and technology-neutral open standards for Computing infrastructure [16] A later claim was made to code segments related to ELF file format standards. In Computing, the Executable and Linking Format ( ELF, formerly called Extensible Linking Format) is a common standard File format for Executables This material was developed by the Tool Interface Standard (TIS) Committee and placed in the public domain. [17] SCO claims that the TIS Committee had no authority to place ELF in the public domain, even though SCO's predecessor in interest was a member of the committee.

SCO has claimed that some are violating UNIX SVRx copyrights by putting UNIX code into Linux. They may or may not have brought this claim directly in any of their cases. The IBM case is about derivative works, not SVRx code (see below). The Novell case is about copyright ownership. DaimlerChrysler was about contractual compliance statements.

The "may or may not" comes from AutoZone's case. In AutoZone, SCO's complaint claimed damages for AutoZone's use of Linux. However, when objecting to AutoZone's request for a stay pending the IBM case, SCO apparently contradicted their written complaint, claiming that the case was entirely about AutoZone copying certain libraries (outside the Linux kernel) from a UNIX system to a Linux-based system to facilitate moving an internal application to the Linux platform faster; SCO's original complaint does not appear to mention these libraries. AutoZone denies having done this with UNIX libraries. If SCO's oral description of their case is the correct one, then their AutoZone claim has nothing to do with the Linux kernel or the actions of any distributors.

The copyright issue is addressed directly in two of the cases. The first is by IBM in their counterclaim in SCO v. IBM. SCO v IBM is a civil Lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah. The issue is central to a pending motion by IBM, stating that IBM violated no copyrights in its Linux related activities. It is also addressed by Red Hat in the Red Hat v. SCO case. Red Hat claims that SCO's statements about infringement in Linux are unproven and untrue, damaging to them and violates the Lanham Act. The Lanham (Trademark Act (title 15 chapter 22 of the United States Code) is a piece of legislation that contains the federal statutes of Trademark law in the Red Hat asks for an injunction to stop claims of violations without proof. They also ask for a judgment that they violated no SCO copyrights. A hearing on the IBM motion was held in September 15, 2004. Judge Kimball took the motion under advisement. The Red Hat case is on hold.

Allegations of reverse copying

EWeek has reported allegations that SCO may have copied parts of the Linux kernel into SCO UNIX as part of its Linux Kernel Personality feature. [18] If true, this would mean that SCO is guilty of a breach of the Linux kernel copyrights. SCO has denied this allegation, but according to Groklaw, one SCO employee confirmed it in a deposition. [19]

IBM code in Linux

SCO has claimed a number of instances of IBM Linux code as breaches of contract. These examples include code related to Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), Journaled File System (JFS), Read-copy-update (RCU) and Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA). In Computing, symmetric multiprocessing or SMP involves a Multiprocessor computer-architecture where two or more identical processors can connect to a single Journaled File System or JFS is a 64-bit Journaling filesystem created by IBM. Non-Uniform Memory Access or Non-Uniform Memory Architecture ( NUMA) is a computer memory design used in Multiprocessors where the memory access This code is questionably in the Linux kernel, and may have been added by IBM through the normal kernel submission process. This code was developed and copyrighted by IBM. IBM added features to AIX and Dynix.

SCO claims that they have "control rights" to this due to their licensing agreements with IBM. SCO disavows claiming that they own the code IBM wrote, rather comparing their "control rights" to an easement, rights which allow them to prohibit IBM from publicizing the code they wrote, even though IBM owns the copyrights. For railroad track easement see Track transition curve. An easement is the right or freedom to do something or the right to prevent They base this claim on language in the original license agreement that requires non-disclosure of the code and claim that all code developed by UNIX licensees that is used with the code under license be held in confidence. This claim is discussed above at Control of derivative works.

SCO and the GPL

Before changing their name to the SCO Group, the company was known as Caldera. Caldera was one of the major distributors of Linux from 1994 to 2003. Year 1994 ( MCMXCIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar) Some, like Eben Moglen,[20] have suggested that because Caldera distributed the infringing code under the GNU General Public License, or GPL, that this act would license any proprietary code in Linux. Eben Moglen is a professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, and is the founder Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, [21]

SCO has stated that they did not know their own code was in Linux, so releasing it under the GPL does not count. However, as late as July and August of 2006, long after that claim was made, they were still distributing ELF files (the subject of one of SCO's claims regarding SVRx) under the GPL. [22][23]

SCO has also claimed, in early stages of the litigation, that the GPL is invalid and non-binding and legally unenforceable. [24] In response, supporters of the GPL, such as Eben Moglen, claimed that SCO's right to distribute Linux relied upon the GPL being a valid copyright license. [25] Later court filings by the SCO group in SCO v. IBM use SCO's alleged compliance with the license as a defense to IBM's counterclaims. [26]

The GPL has become an issue in SCO v. IBM. Under U. S. copyright law, distribution of creative works whose copyright is owned by another party is illegal without permission from the copyright owner, usually in the form of a license; the GPL is such a license, and thus allows distribution, but only under limited conditions. Since IBM released the relevant code under the terms of the GPL, it claims that the only permission that SCO has to copy and distribute IBM's code in Linux is under the terms and conditions of the GPL, one of which requires the distributor to "accept" the GPL. IBM says that SCO violated the GPL by denouncing the GPL's validity, and by claiming that the GPL violates the U. S. Constitution, together with copyright, antitrust and export control laws. IBM also claims that SCO's SCOsource program is incompatible with the requirement that redistributions of GPLed works must be free of copyright licensing fees (fees may be charged for the acts of duplication and support). IBM has brought counterclaims alleging that SCO has violated the GPL and breached IBM's copyrights by collecting licensing fees while distributing IBM's copyrighted material. [27]

Status of current lawsuits

SCO v. IBM

Main article: SCO v. IBM

On March 7, 2003, SCO filed suit against IBM. SCO v IBM is a civil Lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah. Events 161 - Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius dies and is succeeded by co-Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. International Business Machines Corporation abbreviated IBM and nicknamed "Big Blue", is a multinational Computer Technology Initially this lawsuit was about breach of contract and trade secrets. Later, SCO dropped the trade secrets claim, so the claim is breach of contract. SCO also added a copyright claim related to IBM's continued use of AIX, but not related to Linux. The judge subsequently stated that the SCO group had indeed made a claim of copyright infringement against IBM regarding Linux. IBM filed multiple counter claims, including charges of both patent violations, which were later dropped, and violation of copyright law. Discovery in the case is still underway.

On February 8, 2005 Judge Kimball ruled that IBM's motions for summary judgment were premature but added:

Viewed against the backdrop of SCO's plethora of public statements concerning IBM's and others' infringement of SCO's purported copyrights to the UNIX software, it is astonishing that SCO has not offered any competent evidence to create a disputed fact regarding whether IBM has infringed SCO's alleged copyrights through IBM's Linux activities. Events 421 - Constantius III becomes co- Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. [28]

On June 28, 2006 Judge Brooke Wells granted, in part, IBM's motion to limit SCO's claims and excluded 186 of SCO's 294 items of allegedly misused intellectual property (IBM had challenged 201 of them for various reasons). Events 1098 - Fighters of the First Crusade defeat Kerbogha of Mosul. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. [29] Wells cited a number of factors including SCO's inability to provide sufficient specificity in these claims:

In December 2003, near the beginning of this case, the court ordered SCO to, "identify and state with specificity the source code(s) that SCO is claiming forms the basis of their action against IBM. " Even if SCO lacked the code behind methods and concepts at this early stage, SCO could have and should have, at least articulated which methods and concepts formed "the basis of their action against IBM. " At a minimum, SCO should have identified the code behind their method and concepts in the final submission pursuant to this original order entered in December 2003 and Judge Kimball’s order entered in July 2005. [30]

This left about 100 of SCO's items of allegedly misused intellectual property (the merits of which have not yet been judged), out of 294 items originally disclosed by SCO.

Following the partial summary judgment rulings in the SCO vs Novell Slander of Title case, Judge Kimball has asked[31] the parties in SCO v IBM to prepare by August 31 a statement of the status of this case.

Red Hat v. SCO

Main article: Red Hat v. SCO

Red Hat filed suit against SCO on August 4, 2003. The Red Hat v SCO lawsuit - Red Hat filed suit against The SCO Group on August 4, 2003. In Computing, Red Hat Inc ( is a company dedicated to Free and open source software, and a major Linux distribution vendor Events 70 - The Destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. Red Hat sued SCO for false advertising, deceptive trade practices and asked for a declaratory judgment of noninfringement of any of SCO's copyrights. This case has been stayed pending resolution of the IBM case.

SCO v. Novell

Main article: SCO v. Novell

After SCO initiated their Linux campaign, they said that they were the owners of UNIX. SCO v Novell is a lawsuit brought by the SCO Group against Novell. Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with Small caps) is a computer Novell claimed these statements were false, and that they still owned the rights in question. Novell Inc ( is a global Software Corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE After Novell registered the copyrights to some key UNIX products, SCO filed suit against Novell. After the suit was dismissed because it was filed in the wrong court, SCO re-filed their complaint.

On July 29, 2005, Novell filed its answer with the court, denying SCO's claims. Events 1014 - Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars: Battle of Kleidion: Byzantine emperor Basil II inflicts a decisive defeat Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Novell also filed counterclaims asking the court to force SCO to turn over the revenues it had received from UNIX licenses, less a 5% administrative fee. Additionally, Novell asked the court to place the funds in a "constructive trust" in order to ensure that SCO could pay Novell since the company's assets were depleting rapidly.

On August 10th 2007, Judge Dale Kimball, hearing the SCO v. Novell case, ruled that ". . . the court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights". Novell was awarded summary judgments on a number of claims, and a number of SCO claims were denied. SCO was instructed to account for and pass to Novell an appropriate portion of income relating to SCOSource licences to Sun Microsystems and Microsoft. A number of matters are not disposed of by Judge Kimball's ruling, and the outcome of these are still pending. [1][10]

SCO v. AutoZone

AutoZone, a corporate user of Linux and former user of SCO OpenServer, was sued by SCO on March 3, 2004. AutoZone ( is a Fortune 500 corporation based in Memphis Tennessee which is engaged primarily in the business of the retail sale of automotive parts and accessories Linux (commonly pronounced ˈlɪnəks Events 1284 - Statute of Rhuddlan incorporated the Principality of Wales into England 1575 - Indian "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " [32] SCO claims AutoZone violated SCO's copyrights by using Linux. This suit has been stayed pending the resolution of the IBM, Red Hat and Novell cases.

SCO v. DaimlerChrysler

Main article: SCO v. DaimlerChrysler

In December 2003, SCO demanded that some UNIX licensees certify certain issues regarding their use of Linux. The SCO Group v DaimlerChrysler was a lawsuit filed in the United States, in the state of Michigan. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. DaimlerChrysler, a former UNIX user and current Linux user, did not respond to this demand. Daimler AG ( (formerly DaimlerChrysler AG) is a German car corporation (not to be confused with the British car-maker Daimler Motor Company) and On March 3, 2004 SCO filed suit against DaimlerChrysler for violating their UNIX license agreement by failing to respond to the certification request. Events 1284 - Statute of Rhuddlan incorporated the Principality of Wales into England 1575 - Indian "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Almost every claim SCO made has been ruled against in summary judgment. [33] The last remaining issue, that of whether DaimlerChrysler made a timely response, was dismissed by agreement of SCO and DaimlerChrysler in December 2004. SCO retains the right to continue this case at a future date, providing it pays legal fees to DaimlerChrysler.

Other issues and conflicts

SCO announces that it will not sue its own customers

On June 23, 2003, SCO sent out a letter announcing that it would not be suing its own Linux customers. Events 1180 - First Battle of Uji, starting the Genpei War in Japan 1305 - The Flemish Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. [34] In the letter, it states:

"SCO will continue to support our SCO Linux and OpenLinux customers and partners who have previously implemented those products and we will hold them harmless from any SCO intellectual property issues regarding Linux. "

SCO and SGI

In August 2003, SCO presented two examples of what they claimed was illegal copying of copyrighted code from UNIX to Linux. One of the examples (Berkeley packet filter) was not related to original UNIX code at all. The other example did, however, seem to originate from the UNIX code and was apparently contributed by a UNIX vendor, Silicon Graphics. However, an analysis by the Linux community later revealed that:

SCO and BayStar Capital

In October 2003, BayStar Capital and Royal Bank of Canada invested USD$50 million in The SCO Group to support the legal cost of SCO's Linux campaign. Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. The Royal Bank of Canada ( Banque Royale du Canada in French is Canada 's largest company and Bank. Later it was shown that BayStar was referred to SCO by Microsoft, whose proprietary Windows operating system competes with Linux. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. In 2003, BayStar looked at SCO on the recommendation of Microsoft, according to Lawrence R. Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer Goldfarb, managing partner of BayStar Capital: "It was evident that Microsoft had an agenda". [35]

On April 22, 2004, The New York Times (p. Events 1500 - Portuguese Navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral becomes the first European to sight Brazil. "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " C6) reported that BayStar Capital, a private hedge fund which had arranged for $50M in funding for SCO in October 2003, was asking for its $20M back. A hedge fund is a private Investment fund open to a limited range of investors which is permitted by regulators to undertake a wider range of activities than other investment The remainder of the $50M was from Royal Bank of Canada. SCO stated in their press release that they believed that BayStar did not have grounds for making this demand. [36]

On August 27, 2004 SCO and BayStar resolved their dispute. Events 479 BC - Greco-Persian Wars: Persian forces led by Mardonius are routed by Pausanias, the Spartan "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " [37]

SCO and Canopy Group

The Canopy Group is an investment group with shares in a trust of different companies. The Canopy Group is an investment firm founded by Ray Noorda, headquartered in Lindon Utah. It is a group owned by the Noorda family, also founders of Novell. Raymond John "Ray" Noorda ( June 19 1924 &ndash October 09 2006) was a U

Until February 2005, Canopy held SCO shares, and the management of SCO held shares of Canopy. The two parties became embroiled in a bitter dispute when the Noorda family sought to oust board member Ralph Yarro III on claims of misappropriation. Ralph J Yarro III is Chairman of the board and the largest shareholder in The SCO Group Inc In Law, misappropriation is the intentional illegal use of the Property or funds of another person for one's own use or other unauthorized purpose particularly by With internal problems not made public (which included the suicides of an employee and the daughter of Ray Noorda)[38], the Canopy Group agreed to buy back all the shares that SCO had in Canopy in exchange for their SCO shares and cash.

SCO and Canopy Group are now mostly independent, though SCO continues to rent their Utah office space from Canopy. [39]

Microsoft funding of SCO controversy

On March 4, 2004, a leaked SCO internal e-mail detailed how Microsoft had raised up to $86 million via the BayStar referral and other means. Events 51 - Nero, later to become Roman Emperor, is given the title Princeps iuventutis (head of the youth "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer [40] Blake Stowell of SCO confirmed the memo was real. [41] BayStar claimed the deal was suggested by Microsoft, but that no money for it came directly from them. [42] In addition to the Baystar involvement, Microsoft paid SCO $6M (USD) in May 2003 for a license to "Unix and Unix-related patents", despite the lack of Unix-related patents owned by SCO. This deal was widely seen in the press as a boost to SCO's finances which would help SCO with its lawsuit against IBM. [43][44][45][46]

SCOsource

After their initial claim of copyright infringement in the Linux kernel, The SCO Group started their SCOsource initiative which sells licenses of SCO's claimed copyrighted software, other than OpenServer and Unixware licenses. SCOsource is a business division of The SCO Group that manages its (now legally voided) Unix Intellectual property. After a small number of high profile sales (including one that was denied by the claimed purchaser), SCO claimed to offer corporate users of Linux a license at $699 (USD) per processor running Linux. However, many individuals have found it impossible to buy such a license from SCO. SCO says that participants of the SCOsource initiative are not liable for any claims that SCO makes against Linux users.

The Michael Davidson Email

On July 14, 2005, an email[47] was unsealed that had been sent from Michael Davidson to Reg Broughton (both Caldera employees) in 2002, before many of the lawsuits. Events 1223 - Louis VIII becomes King of France upon the death of his father Philip II of France. Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. See also 2002 (disambiguation Year 2002 ( MMII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. In it, Davidson reported how the company had hired an outside consultant because

“of SCO's executive management refusing to believe that it was possible for Linux and much of the GNU software to have come into existance [sic] without *someone* *somewhere* having copied pieces of proprietary UNIX source code to which SCO owned the copyright. Sic is a Latin word meaning "thus" "so" "as such" or "just as that" The hope was that we would find a "smoking gun" somwhere [sic] in code that was being used by Red Hat and/or the other Linux companies that would give us some leverage. Sic is a Latin word meaning "thus" "so" "as such" or "just as that" (There was, at one stage, the idea that we would sell licences to corporate customers who were using Linux as a kind of "insurance policy" in case it turned out that they were using code which infringed on our copyright). ”

The consultant was to review the Linux code and compare it to Unix source code, to find possible copyright infringement. Davidson himself said that he had not expected to find anything significant based on his own knowledge of the code and had voiced his opinion that it was "a waste of time". After 4 to 6 months of consultant's work, Davidson says, "we had found absolutely *nothing*. ie [sic] no evidence of any copyright infringement whatsoever. Sic is a Latin word meaning "thus" "so" "as such" or "just as that" "

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER Civil Case No. 2:04CV139DAK
  2. ^ Montalbano, Elizabeth. The SCO Group is currently involved in a dispute with various Linux vendors and users Copyfraud is a term used to describe the misuse of false claims of Copyright. "Novell Won't Pursue Unix Copyrights", PC World, 2007-08-15. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 778 - The Battle of Roncevaux Pass, at which Roland is killed Retrieved on 2007-09-04. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 476 - Romulus Augustus, last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, is deposed when Odoacer proclaims himself  
  3. ^ Judge Says Unix Copyrights Rightfully Belong to Novell. New York Times (2007-08-11). Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 2492 BC - Traditional date of the defeat of Bel by Hayk, progenitor and founder of the Armenian nation Retrieved on 2007-08-15. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 778 - The Battle of Roncevaux Pass, at which Roland is killed
  4. ^ Court Rules: Novell owns the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights! Novell has right to waive!. Groklaw (2007-08-10). Groklaw is an award-winning website covering legal news of interest to the free and open-source software community Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 612 BC - Killing of Sinsharishkun, King of Assyrian Empire Retrieved on 2007-08-15. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 778 - The Battle of Roncevaux Pass, at which Roland is killed
  5. ^ in the original or transcribed
  6. ^ The full settlement available from Groklaw's website
  7. ^ May 12, 2003 letter to Novell Chairman and CEO Jack Messman hosted by Novell.
  8. ^ Novell's Unique Legal Rights
  9. ^ Judge Kimbal's Order available from Groklaw's website
  10. ^ a b Novell statement on today’s SCO ruling, Novell Open PR, 2007-08-10
  11. ^ Groklaw - Amendment X as Text
  12. ^ The SCO Group v
  13. ^ Groklaw - $ echo April 1985
  14. ^ The SCO Group v
  15. ^ Bruce Perens, Analysis of SCO's Las Vegas Slide Show.
  16. ^ Bruce Perens, SCO's failing case against IBM, zdnet. com. au, March 10, 2004.
  17. ^ Groklaw - A Tall Tale About ELF - by Frank Sorenson, Dr Stupid and PJ
  18. ^ Did SCO Violate the GPL?
  19. ^ Groklaw - Erik Hughes Deposition: LKP Did Include Linux Kernel Code
  20. ^ Moglen, Eben (2003-06-27). Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1358 - Republic of Dubrovnik is founded 1709 - Peter the Great defeats Charles XII of Sweden FSF Statement on SCO v. IBM. Free Software Foundation, Inc. The Free Software Foundation ( FSF) is a Non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the Free software movement .
  21. ^ SCO Faces Hurdles in Linux Claims
  22. ^ Groklaw - SCO is Distributing ELF Under the GPL Still. Yes. Now. Today
  23. ^ Groklaw - SCO Is Still Distributing ELF Under the GPL, Part 2
  24. ^ SCO Group Launches Broadside Against GPL
  25. ^ GPL Awaits Test in SCO Group/IBM Dispute
  26. ^ Groklaw - SCO's Memo in Opp. to IBM's Motion for SJ on Claim of Copyright Infringement
  27. ^ Groklaw - IBM's Second Amended Counterclaims Lists 9 Newly Registered Copyrights
  28. ^ Groklaw - Kimball Memoradum and Order - as text
  29. ^ Groklaw - Wells Grants in Part IBM's Motion to Limit SCO's Claims! In *Large* Part
  30. ^ http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060628203537917 (paragraph 30)
  31. ^ http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/IBM-1077.pdf
  32. ^ Primary court documents pertaining to this case can be found at http://sco.tuxrocks.com/?Case=AutoZone.
  33. ^ Not dismissed, see the hearing transcript, page 15
  34. ^ The SCO Group, Inc. | Scosource | Letter_to_partners
  35. ^ TECHNOLOGY; Investor's Pullout Stirs Doubts About SCO Group - New York Times
  36. ^ [1]
  37. ^ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/27/sco_completes_baystar_settlement/
  38. ^ Daily Herald - Canopy founder's daughter found dead
  39. ^ Jones, Pamela (2007-12-19). Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 324 - Licinius abdicates his position as Roman Emperor. SCO Asks Bankruptcy Court to Approve New Leases in NJ and Utah. Groklaw.
  40. ^ Halloween Document 10
  41. ^ Leaked Memo Revives SCO-Microsoft Connection Furor
  42. ^ BW Online | March 11, 2004 | SCO's Suit: A Match Made in Redmond?
  43. ^ Microsoft to license Unix code | CNET News.com
  44. ^ The SCO Group | Investor Relations | SCO Announces UNIX Licensing Deal With Microsoft
  45. ^ SCO strikes gold, Verizon just strikes | InfoWorld | Column | 2003-08-08 | By Robert X. Cringely
  46. ^ Reviews and free Windows downloads at ZDNet.co.uk
  47. ^ http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/IBM-459-22.pdf

External links

Eben Moglen is a professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, and is the founder Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16 1953 often abbreviated " rms " is an American software freedom activist Bradley M Kuhn (born in 1973 is a Free software activist from the United States. The Open Directory Project ( ODP) also known as dmoz (from directory
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