SCO sues IBM over Linux, seeks $1 billion [Threat to shut down AIX]

InfoWorld ^ | March 06, 2003 | james niccolai

[Fractal Trader]

Unix developer The SCO Group has filed a law suit against IBM, charging it with misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition and other illegal actions related to IBM's Linux business. The suit seeks at least US$1 billion in damages.

IBM obtained its Unix license in 1985 from AT&T, which developed the operating system, SCO said in a statement. In 1995 SCO purchased the rights and ownership of Unix and so became the successor to the Unix licenses doled out by AT&T to IBM, Hewlett-Packard and others, SCO said.

In its suit filed Thursday in the State Court of Utah, SCO alleges that IBM tried to destroy the economic value of Unix, particularly Unix on Intel-based servers, in order to benefit its own Linux services business. The suit charges IBM with misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference, unfair competition and breach of contract, SCO said.

SCO, in Lindon, Utah , also said it sent a letter to IBM demanding that it cease its allegedly anticompetitive practices. If IBM doesn't met it's demands within 100 days of receiving the letter, SCO said it has a right to revoke IBM's license for AIX Unix operating system.

IBM could not immediately be reached for comment late Thursday.

SCO claims in its suit to have been injured in the marketplace by IBM’s actions and has asked the court for damages of at least $1 billion, with the amount to be proven at a trial.

SCO announced in January that it had hired a law firm to investigate possible violations of its intellectual property.

“SCO is in the enviable position of owning the UNIX operating system,” Darl McBride, president and CEO of SCO, said in the company's statement. The company believes it has "a compelling case against IBM," he said.

[Fractal Trader]

The first blast in the intellectual property wars over Linux. Some of SCOs arguments sound weak (hurting SCO by promoting Linux), but I didn't know they had the power to revoke the AIX license.

[dep]

well, aix is on the way to the scrapheap anyway. i spent about an hour in late january with the officers of sco, discussing their patent stuff. sadly, they have gone from the old and well-loved caldera to resembling a bunch of fbi agents in a b-movie. they're likely to lose this lawsuit. company is hanging on by its fingernails anyway. too bad -- they really blew a good thing for all of us.

dep

[ShadowAce]

Would a loss by IBM in this case, trigger an all-out move to Linux-based products, rather than AIX? I would assume that they would no longer be able to support AIX, either.

Considering that IBM is the only vender (of which I am aware) that sells/promotes/supports AIX, this could have serious consequences within the Unix community.

[eno_]

This is actually kind of a dead cat bounce in the death of the value of UNIX licenses. Somebody bought the carcass of SCO just to bring this suit. It is as meritless as it looks.

[dep]

remember when intel did its "the 286 is dead" campaign? aix has been kept by ibm purely for internal political reasons -- the last version was binary compatible with linux. ibm could have by next week a "unix is dead, linux is the future" campaign, and close down what little is left of sco.

dep

[EaglesUpForever]

This is sad. They're using what's left of their intellectual property to express as loud as possible that they're a bunch of sour grapes. They should have innovated in terms of coexistence compatibility between AIX and Linux, instead they just whine like spoiled babies.

I heard SCO used to be a good company. I guess they've fallen apart with the economic downturn and whatever happened to them in the dot com era.

[snooker]

Yep really too bad. SCO was a player. Now it is just a litigation slut.

Sun, HP and IBM are the big players remaining in the UNIX market. All are original AT&T licensees.

But I don't know how you make a case that offerring two products and promoting two products harms one when the customer decides they want the other. Seems a little convoluted.

Seems to me like nothing but hot air.

Isn't Bois the layer they hired? If so that woudl explain it.

snooker

[IncredibleHulk]

As a Mormon, I hate to have to say it, but Utah Mormons don't know how to compete. Maybe more of them need to see brains spraying out the back of some heads to know how real the world is.

hulkster

[dep]

sco got hammered by linux. when caldera went public, they pissed away much of the ipo money buying most of sco, which turned out to be sco mostly taking over caldera -- arguably at the time the best rpm-based linux distribution. they then enraged just about all of their existing users, cut loose employees who were known to thousands of users, and generally screwed things up. last spring, they joined in "united linux," a plan to produce a standards-based linux (a very good idea, btw), but then fired the guy whose idea it had been, ransom love. they have since then, though, blown it bigtime, especially when they hired david bois to be a kind of legal gunslinger. they won't exist a year from now.

dep

[glorgau]

> cut loose employees who were known to thousands of users

Sounds like Mormons.

[eggman]

Looks like SCO needs some media attention because nobody is buying their updated OpenServer and Unixware. Most of the companies I know that used it, have moved or are moving to something else.

It used to be a good company.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

First of all, I always thought AIX was proprietary IBM. Guess not. Second, of all the UNIX brand systems that I have developed on, it is by far the most robust. If someone can find anything out there that rivals shmat with the SHM_MAP option, please let me know.

[da_toolman]

SCO alleges that IBM tried to destroy the economic value of Unix

I've got news for SCO, they did that themselves. SCO Unixware blows, but not quite as bad as the original SCO unix. AIX is reliable and what's more actually user friendly, I hope IBM tells them where to shove it.

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

AIX is reliable and what's more actually user friendly,

smit

[EaglesUpForever]

Thanks for the summary, makes perfect sense. Sad how greed so often manages to screw up sincere efforts.

A standards-based linux would be a *great* thing, as that is one of its real flaws: "which distribution?" "which libraries?" that sort of thing makes it scary to business users.

[da_toolman]

smit

Roger That...

[RightOnline]

Well, let's just say that I hadn't heard about this silliness, but I DO know more than a little about AIX, Linux, etc. at IBM................and SCO will get their clocks cleaned. Reading this piece, I can tell you for a FACT that they haven't the slightest clue what they're talking about and they WILL get their heads handed to them if they persist.

If they can't run with the big dogs, they should have stayed in their little kennel.

[B Knotts]

SCO is now in violation of copyright under the terms of the GPL. Because SCO distributes Linux, they are required to grant anyone using the software the same rights they have, which precludes them from enforcing any patent claim against a user of the software.

IBM is going to eat these turkeys for lunch.

[B Knotts]

BTW, SCO's chief attorney in this matter is none other than David Boies.