Linux vendors keep quiet over SCO warnings

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 16 May 2003 at 11:23

SCO's potential targets are keeping it zipped, even though SCO has been busy telling their customers that what they're buying infringes its copyright.

SCO targetting most of the top 1500 global companies with letters warning that the Linux software they are using contains 'an unauthorized derivative of UNIX', and even withdrawing its own version of Linux should have been the final straw that caused outcry amongst the vendors.

In a teleconference given around the time the news broke of SCO's suit against IBM, Chris Sontag, senior vice president and general manager of SCOsource, said 'This is not about the Linux community and we're not going after them.' And when questioned about the 30,000 odd other Unix licencees he said: 'It is not about other companies.'

Understandably, the Linux vendors remained po-faced, hoping the storm would burn out its fury over IBM. But then towards the end of April, Darl McBride said in an interview on CRN that 'IBM took chunks out of Monterey, and gave it away. You can find it in Red Hat and SuSE Linux,' and that 'There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done,' (meaning the IBM suit).

It now clearly is about the Linux Community and Unix licensees. And even now SuSE and Red Hat won't reveal their hands. The reason is that SCO won't tell them what it alleges has been plagiarised.

Gregory Blepp, VP of International Business for SuSE told us: 'We are not aware, nor has SCO made any attempt to make us aware, of any specific unauthorized code in any SuSE Linux product. As a matter of policy, we have diligent processes for ensuring that appropriate licensing arrangements (open-source or otherwise) are in place for all code used in our products.

'We have asked SCO for clarification of their public statements, SCO has declined. The UnitedLinux code base... will continue to be supported unconditionally by SuSE Linux. We will honor all UnitedLinux commitments to customers and partners, regardless of any actions that SCO may take or even allegations they may make.'

Red Hat simply has an official statement on the matter: 'We have not had any conversations with SCO on the allegations at hand. We are unable to comment as we have yet to learn what exact code they are claiming is questionable. Red Hat takes intellectual property very seriously, we put significant resources towards ensuring that we do not violate *valid* copyrighted claims. We've seen no indication from enterprise customers that these statements from SCO have been a deterrent from viewing Red Hat as a trusted provider of Linux solutions.'

Gael Duval, founder of Mandrake Linux concurred. 'We basically have no details about SCO's claims of UNIX copyright infrigement in the Linux kernel. This has had no effect at all on MandrakeSoft's business so far,' he told us.

'As far as I know it seems that this information won't be unveiled publicly, which is extremely surprising and could mean that SCO isn't very confortable with this action,' he added.

Many analysts believe the whole SCO ruse is to pressurise someone into buying it out. SCO's Web site even links to a Gartner report that says that if this is the case, SCO will be unlikely to succeed.

'It is unlikely IBM will acquire SCO and add to an already complex portfolio with SCO's aging OSs, especially with Linux as IBM's mainstream direction,' it reads.

And yet even if SCO's case is upheld, the settlement option seems unlikely to leave SCO as a significant vendor. The case, if there is one, has been a long time coming. The alleged infringement dates from tens of years ago which can't be in SCO's favour. It has created a huge amount of bad will within the community. And no doubt developers are already beavering away in a sealed box to deliver replacement code that can replace SCO's Unix that can be said to have been written without prior knowledge.