SCO says "The Lawyer made me do it" re: Letter to Commercial Linux Users

Information Week ^ | May 15, 2003 | Aaron Ricadela

[NotQuiteCricket]

Outside and in-house legal counsel advised the SCO Group to send a warning letter about Linux use to the CEOs of 1,350 companies Monday, SCO CEO Darl McBride says. In a letter dated May 12, SCO Group, which holds the license to the original AT&T Unix operating system, warned commercial users of the open-source Linux operating system that "Linux infringes on our Unix intellectual property and other rights." McBride also said in the letter that "legal liability that may arise from the Linux development process may also rest with the end user." In an interview Thursday, McBride said the company, formed when the former Caldera Systems bought the rights to Unix software products from the old Santa Cruz Operation in 2001, had in recent months hired consulting software engineers who found that the Linux kernel contains "lines and blocks" of Unix source code. "Linux is an unauthorized derivative of our Unix source code," he says.

According to McBride, in-house counsel and lawyers from the firm Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP, which is representing SCO in a Linux-related lawsuit against IBM filed in March, advised the company to tell Linux users that they could be violating SCO's intellectual-property rights. Boies Schiller & Flexner employs David Boies, a prominent attorney who represented the U.S. Department of Justice in its antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.

McBride says SCO has "no desire" to file suit against Linux users and wants to help companies comply with SCO's rights. "We're the messenger in this case," he says. SCO also said it will immediately stop selling its SCO Linux and OpenLinux products, which contribute just 2% of revenue, projected at $21 million for the quarter which ended April 30. Shares of SCO Group (Nasdaq-SCOX) closed Thursday up $1, at $4.55.

[NotQuiteCricket]

SCO just can't get it right. Poor guys. And if it turns out that they released the same code (the propritary UNIX code) in their Linux distribution, their IBM lawsuit will be all over.

[vbmoneyspender]

I wonder if they are going to sue people for using their flavor of Linux. Or how about them suing themselves for selling OpenLinux?

[thatsnotnice]

SCO also said it will immediately stop selling its SCO Linux and OpenLinux products…

SCO Linux? The last operating systems that I used from SCO were SCO UnixWare and SCO Open Server, IIRC.

I remember them being unwieldy, but that’s probably due to unfamiliarity on my part.

[SoDak]

No, that's about right. SCo UnixWare is crappy.

[TechJunkYard]

SCO Linux?

Caldera OpenLinux.

[TechJunkYard]

.. in-house counsel and lawyers ... advised the company to tell Linux users that they could be violating SCO's intellectual-property rights.

It's the stupid lawyers... right...

McBride says SCO has "no desire" to file suit against Linux users .... "We're the messenger in this case," he says.

Right... and if the lawyers tell you to file suit anyway... you'll do it.

.. David Boies, a prominent attorney who represented the U.S. Department of Justice in its antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.

He also worked for Al Gore's team during the '00 election. And he did a lousy job on both cases.

[theFIRMbss]

>Outside and in-house legal counsel advised the SCO Group to send a warning letter about Linux use to the CEOs of 1,350 companies Monday, SCO CEO Darl McBride says.

For some companies
(including some giant ones),
just a tiny thought

of legal trouble
is enough to put them off
a non-normal path.

(Executives hate
wasting business resources,
and just being part

of even a small
legal action eats up tons
of time and money.)

[MarkL]

Wow...

I started on Altos XENIX, and moved to SCO XENIX, back in the "old days." Later I worked with SCO Unix. I was also a Novell person, and got all excited when Novell bought Unix from ATT. However, the brainiacs in Novell's marketing department decided to position Univel (later renamed to UnixWare) as an alternative server operating system to Novell's NetWare. They sold about 4 copies, then decided to sell it, and SCO was the buyer. So for a while, SCO actually sold two different versions of UNIX. Then Caldera (which I believe was founded by Novell's founder, Ray Noorda), bought SCO, so they were selling both Linux and Unix.

I don't know if this is still true, but many years ago, when SCO was struggling (more than usual), Microsoft became an investor in SCO... I wonder if they still own a part of what's now SCO...

Mark

[j_tull]

Penguin ping(1M)

[rdb3]

The Penguin Ping.

Wanna be Penguified? Just holla!

Got root?

[Knitebane]

Agreed. I keep having the feeling that once the fabric is peeled off of this puppet we will see that hand inside comes from Redmond.

Of course, the Microsofties will never see it, even if you show it to them.

[jammer]

Well, it probably IS the stupid lawyers--the stupid Microsoft lawyers. There is more than one company protecting its flanks in this thing.

[jammer]

Right. I posted before I read yours, but you put your finger on it first.