SCO says top corporate signs IP Linux licence

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 12 Aug 2003 at 12:23

SCO has said that an unnamed company from the Fortune 500 list has signed up to its recently announced IP Licence for Linux.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but SCO says a licence has been purchased for each of the company's Linux servers.

'We've had more than 300 companies in the first four business days of this program contact SCO to inquire about SCO's Intellectual Property License for Linux,' said Chris Sontag, senior VP and general manager, SCOsource, SCO's software licensing division. 'We anticipate this being the first of many licensees that will properly compensate SCO for our intellectual property. After having initiated the program last week, we are very pleased with the licensing interest to date.'

In May SCO targeted the top 1500 global corporate Linux users in a letter, warning them that the operating system may infringe its IP - advising them to seek their own legal counsel over what actions to pursue.

SCO of course is delighted to publicise its first licensee as the product of this strategy - demonstrating that its warnings tactics are paying off.

The Linux community will be hoping that the majority of Linux customers will refrain from signing up and adding weight to SCO's cause. Rather, they should stay their hand until they are legally obliged to buy into the licence program or otherwise.