SCO fingered for GPL release of disputed technologies

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 1 Aug 2006 at 17:48

SCO is making available key Linux files from its own servers under the GNU General Public License, it has been discovered. Yet in its court case against IBM it is contending these technologies have not been licensed outside of Unix and never for use in Linux.

Readers of Groklaw identified a utilities file on SCO's ftp servers that include ELF (Executable and Linking Format) files essential to Linux.

At the time of writing the files are freely available for download from ftp://ftp2.sco.com/pub/skunkware/src/misc/ and have no other obvious licensing restriction aside from the GNU General Public License.

Groklaw quotes evidence that in court SCO has relied on the fact that it has 'as the copyright owner of source code and/or documentation upon which the following files and lines of code were copied or derived, has never contributed or authorized these lines of code or the documentation related thereto, for use in Linux as specified under part 0, or any other provision, of the GPL'.

That claim comes from Exhibit G, which actually lists this same binutils-2.8.1 file as subject to those claims.

It has even brought on expert witness Dr. Thomas Cargill, 'a software consultant and former computer science professor and UNIX developer' to testify that ELF technologies were illegally incorporated into Linux from Unix: 'Linux is a substantial copy of UNIX System V Release 4 ("SVr4") because it appropriated the essential structure of UNIX by incorporating (1) many of the "system calls" in SVr4; (2) the SVr4 file system; (3) the ELF format ...'

SCO has defended its previous position of distributing a Linux platform, claiming it was unaware of that the system contained its intellectual property. At this point though, the same argument does not hold.

What this means for Linux users is that SCO will find it increasingly tough to pursue them with demands for licensing fees connected with such IP claims - a path it has followed in its SCOsource division.

Pamela Jones, who runs the Groklaw site told us: 'My opinion is their ELF claim is deep sixed, with no hope of a resurrection. As to their reputation inside the court and out, I'd say it just got sent to the deep with it.'

SCO had not responded to requests for comment at the time of writing.