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SCO shows its hand on Unix code violations

By Alun Williams

Posted on 21 Jul 2003 at 15:53

In the long-running Linux copyright dispute, SCO has announced that it has received US copyright registrations for Unix System V source code. It states that this is a jurisdictional pre-requisite to enforcement of its Unix copyrights.

The company is effectively giving notice to users - of specific Linux system - that they will have to purchase licences to avoid the threat of action.

SCO said that commercial Linux customers (using kernel version 2.4.x and later) should purchase a UnixWare licence to avoid action over any past copyright violations. Pricing of the run-time, binary UnixWare license has yet to be revealed, however. SCO says it will be announced in the coming weeks to customers and resellers.

'Since the year 2001 commercial Linux customers have been purchasing and receiving software that includes misappropriated Unix software owned by SCO,' said Chris Sontag, senior VP and general manager, SCOsource intellectual property division, The SCO Group. 'While using pirated software is copyright infringement, our first choice in helping Linux customers is to give them an option that will not disrupt their IT infrastructures. We intend to provide them with choices to help them run Linux in a legal and fully-paid for way.'

The company has also chosen this moment to reveal the details of the software in dispute: previously SCO had only offered to show the code in question under NDA - an offer many refused.

Among 'hundreds of files of misappropriated Unix source code and derivative Unix code' the company highlights the area of multi-processing capabilities. In an official statement SCO says: 'The Linux 2.2.x kernel was able to scale to 2-4 processors. With Linux 2.4.x and the 2.5.x development kernel, Linux now scales to 32 and 64 processors through the addition of advanced Symmetrical Multi-Processing (SMP) capabilities taken from Unix System V and derivative works, in violation of SCO's contract agreements and copyrights.'

'For several months, SCO has focused primarily on IBM's alleged Unix contract violations and misappropriation of Unix source code,' said Darl McBride, president and CEO, The SCO Group. 'Today, we're stating that the alleged actions of IBM and others have caused customers to use a tainted product at SCO's expense. With more than 2.4 million Linux servers running our software, and thousands more running Linux every day, we expect SCO to be compensated for the benefits realised by tens of thousands of customers. Though we possess broad legal rights, we plan to use these carefully and judiciously.'

'Following the distribution of our letter to the Fortune 1000 and Global 500, many prominent companies using Linux contacted SCO to ask, "What do you want me to do?",' added McBride. 'Today, we're delivering a very clear message to customers regarding what they should do. Intellectual property is valuable and needs to be respected and paid for by corporations who use it for their own commercial benefit. The new UnixWare license accomplishes that objective in a fair and balanced way.'

Up until now, his answer to the same question from recipients of the warning letter was that concerned businesses should seek their own counsel.