Solaris is legit Unix says Sun

By Alun Williams

Posted on 10 Mar 2003 at 11:23

In the wake of SCO's challenge to IBM over the IP (intellectual property) rights to Unix, Sun Microsystems has moved to reassure Solaris users that it has licensing rights to the Unix used on SPARC and x86 systems.

The networking systems company has announced that it has 'absolutely no licensing issues with SCO today'.

It was at the end of last week that SCO squared up to IBM over its use of Unix - SCO bowls up to big blue for a billion. It claims intellectual property ownership of Unix libraries that allow programs on SCO's version of Unix to run on Linux systems. It has filed a suit alleging that IBM had 'made concentrated efforts to improperly destroy the economic value of Unix, particularly Unix on Intel, to benefit IBM's new Linux services business'.

Although SCO has clarified its position and emphasised that Linux systems in general would not be subject to IP disputes, Sun has moved quickly to try and reassure Solaris customers.

Specifically, Sun has confirmed that - through a series of licensing agreements - it has acquired the right develop Unix based products. This covers its complete range of Solaris and Linux systems: Solaris (for SPARC and x86 platforms), Trusted Solaris and Sun Linux.

You can read Sun's statement confirming its licensing rights to Unix here.