SCO turns on Unix licensees and waves the DMCA at Linux end-users

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 22 Dec 2003 at 16:42

SCO has issued a challenge to licencees of its System V Unix platform which they will most likely fail, and lashed out at Linux end-users with notification letters of further evidence of 'bad' code in Linux, citing the DMCA.

In letters sent to the some 6,000 Unix licencees, SCO is demanding that such companies provide written evidence that the software has been used strictly under the terms of the licence. Aside from showing they have not allowed Uix code to be contributed to Linux, SCO is also seeking evidence that these companies told each employee and contractor their obligations concerning the licensed code, and didn't let anyone else use the code, either - especially anyone else in terrorist harbouring nations sch as Syria, Iran, North Korea or Cuba. All this, and more, by the end of January.

These UNIX licensees include 41 companies of the Fortune 100, and as such, large corporates will find this no easy task. If they fail, SCO reserves the right to withdraw the Unix licence and demand that the companies stop using the software.

Chris Sontag, senior vice president and general manager, SCOsource division, said: 'We are taking action today to formally communicate to UNIX source code licensees and certain commercial Linux end users that they must utilize SCO's intellectual property within the bounds of their existing legal agreements and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.'

SCO is also sending out letters citing the DMCA to Linux end-users, warning of 'additional violations' in the Linux kernel resulting from 1994 court case, the settlement of which resulted in requirements to add Unix System Laboratory copyrights to Berkeley Software Development (BSD)'s 4.4 BSD-Lite platform. SCO is alleging that the 'misappropriated' code 'will induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement of any right under the DMCA'.

However that same settlement document also states that 4.4 BSD-Lite 'will not require a license from nor payment of royalties to USL.'

So, according to SCO, if you're a fully paid up Unix licencee you face an impossible auditing task. If you're a Linux end user, you have to buy a Unix IP licence. The ultimate irony is that the safest place to be, if SCO's claims ever prove justified, is as a SCO Linux user. Although the company stopped selling its distribution of the operating system earlier this year, it continues to offer Linux code because of its ongoing support obligations. Recently it went a step further, and offered those customers its Unix IP licence for free.

See also:

SCO offers some of its Linux customers its Unix IP licence free