SCO Raises Spectre Of Linux-Related Lawsuits

Linux operating system copyright

"We'll just keep recommending it as we have been," said Chris Maresca, senior partner at Olliance Group, a Palo Alto, Calif., open-source consulting firm.

SCO President and CEO Darl McBride said the Lindon, Utah-based company has received U.S. copyright registrations for Unix System V source code, which will enable it to enforce those copyrights. The move broadens a battle that began as a contract dispute with IBM in March over the use of Unix code in Linux. "The legal fairway we're working with here just got a lot wider," McBride said in a conference call last week.

Douglass Hock, president of I.D.E.A.L. Technology, an Orlando, Fla.-based Linux solution provider, said he's skeptical about SCO's copyright infringement claims.

"I don't feel they have much to go on at this point," Hock said. "Customers know that SCO has been a dying beast, and they see this as a last breath or effort to retain some sort of market share."

McBride said SCO will absolve commercial users of Linux based on kernel version 2.4.x and later that purchase from SCO a run-only, binary license for its UnixWare 7.1.3. "We have a solution here that gets you clean, gets you square with the use of Linux without the courtroom," McBride said.

The vendor plans to establish pricing for the license,which will be based on factors such as customer path, future Linux use and number of servers using Linux,over the next few weeks, McBride said. Volume discounts will be available, he said.

For its part, Olliance Group is not advising its current Linux customers to purchase the UnixWare license, though the firm's lawyers are monitoring developments in the legal battle, Maresca said.

"With all of the murkiness, I don't think it's very wise for anyone to pay SCO a license fee, though for some large enterprises it may be worth coughing up $10,000 or whatever it's going to be just to make them go away," he said.

Under copyright laws, SCO could sue for both copyright infringement and contributory copyright infringement, said David Boies, managing partner of law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner and chief legal counsel for SCO. The latter could allow for litigation against Linux vendors as well as VARs and systems integrators, he said.

While SCO doesn't view litigation as a first choice, it is open to case-by-case suits against companies that are not compliant with SCO's license requirements, Boies said. SCO does not have to wait for a settlement in its suit against IBM before bringing copyright infringement cases to court, he said.