SCO's 'Smoking Gun' Versus IBM

Forbes ^ | 8/4/04 | Daniel Lyons

[Golden Eagle]

NEW YORK - The nasty legal battle between SCO Group and IBM may soon grow wider, as SCO executives have dropped a new bombshell.

In private interviews during their annual user conference in Las Vegas this week, SCO executives said they have discovered that IBM lacks proper licenses for its Unix-based AIX operating system, heart of a multibillion-dollar business for IBM.

SCO alleges that since 2001, AIX has contained code for which IBM does not have a license. Moreover SCO claims to have found internal IBM e-mails in which IBMers acknowledge this shortcoming.

[Golden Eagle]

Could IBM have blundered as badly as they did against Microsoft?

[Paleo Conservative]

Could IBM have blundered as badly as they did against Microsoft?

[vbmoneyspender]

One certain thing is that SCO has lost none of its appetite for litigation. To date the firm has sued IBM, Novell (nasdaq: NOVL - news - people ), AutoZone (nyse: AZ - news - people ) and DaimlerChrysler (nyse: DCX - news - people ). Also, SCO has been sued by Red Hat (nasdaq: RHAT - news - people ). Now SCO threatens to bring a new complaint against IBM.

Indeed, SCO says the company's biggest investor, BayStar Capital, has been pushing SCO to drop its Unix business altogether and simply become a litigation machine, bringing intellectual property-related lawsuits. But SCO insists it remains committed to selling Unix software--when it's not busy fighting people in court.

Enuf said.

[Golden Eagle]

Quite a story if true.

[Bulwark]

I'd put money on it being more smoke from SCO.

[irv]

I'd put money on it being more smoke from SCO.

Ditto. Sounds like just more of the same old FUD.

[SoDak]

Me too, I must sa I'm surprised IBM doesn't just pick up a controlling interest in SCO, just to save itself the headaches.

[flashbunny]

That's probably what they've been hoping for - being bought out. This pump and dump scheme can't last much longer.

[Golden Eagle]

Sounds like just more of the same old FUD.

May be, but IBM invented FUD, and it doesn't have to be false.

[ikka]

IBM has more lawyers than the DOJ; they have the most patents of anybody and deal in intellectual property and software contracts every day, with literally the largest corporations in the world.

And I am supposed to believe that SCO, after making ridiculous claim after outrageous claim, has found some loophole, when AIX is a $10 billion USD per year business unit for IBM? Sure, right.

Next the CEO of SCO will put in for three Purple Hearts and run for office.

[HAL9000]

Quite a story if true.

Porting an x86 operating system it to PowerPC would be difficult. There would be all sorts of problems with the memory organization, none of the drivers would work, and CPU functions like I/O and interrupts must be handled differently. It would take several man-years to make it work.

Of course, Linux has been capable of running on x86 or PowerPC since well before 2001, so it may not be impossible to migrate SCO Unix to PowerPC - just unlikely.

[Paladin2]

Once again, with feeling: SCOx has yet to produce a single line of offending code.

Until they do, try to be an American and presume innocence.

Sounds like whatever they found doesn't likely have anything to do with SCOx's code (what little they can actually prove that they do have).

If SCOx keeps this up, they won't make a good business or law school case study because it will be way too complex and time consuming.

Too bad, it could have been a classic or at least a contend'a.

[The Bandit]

But does SCO really have any rights to SVR4? Undoubtly SVR4 belongs to dozens of developers.

[ShadowAce]

Isn't this the same claim they made against Daimler-Chrysler?

[tophat9000]

Just more BS from SCO...

[Golden Eagle]

Bold or color your words as much as usual, but it still doesn't make them correct. SCO has provided code both publicly and additionally privately to the court. I have no idea how legitimate it is, but is certainly has been provided.

[Golden Eagle]

I don't think so, that was something about not responding to audit as required by contract wasn't it?

[GeorgiaFreeper]

Man you brought them scurrying from under the refrigerator with this one. Does the OSS crowd ever have any substantive arguments versus invoking the name of their patron saint, Elmer Fud?

[ShadowAce]

Something like that, but I think they're gonna define "proper license" as something noone with two brain cells is gonna accept--like a renewed license that they never applied for, or something like that.

It probably came from an "audit" of its own license contracts with IBM and they found a possibility for more litigation. My gut feeling (no proof either way) is this is the same method they used on DCC.

[Golden Eagle]

It probably came from an "audit" of its own license contracts with IBM and they found a possibility for more litigation.

Probably did, and lots of these big company trials break on email that surfaces during discovery.