IBM Files New Claims Against SCO in Linux Case

Dow Jones News Service | William M. Bulkeley

[HAL9000]

BOSTON -- International Business Machines Corp. has filed new counterclaims against SCO Group Inc. in the closely watched case involving the Linux operating system, according to a memo sent to the IBM sales force.

According to the memo, which was obtained by The Wall Street Journal, the new counterclaim charges that SCO infringed IBM's copyrights by distributing IBM's contributions to Linux after SCO had violated its Linux license by claiming a copyright on parts of Linux.

IBM says in its counterclaim that SCO violated the general Public License under which Linux is distributed. The GPL requires Linux distributors to permit customers to freely copy the software. SCO is based in Linden, Utah. The case is being tried in U.S. district court in Salt Lake City. In the memo to the sales force, IBM also said it won't offer to indemnify its Linux customers from facing lawsuits related to intellectual property claims involving Linux. Recently, Hewlett-Packard Co. said it will provide indemnification to Linux users who run the software on H-P computers.

In the memo, signed by Robert Samson, an IBM sales manager, IBM said that: " Most indemnities are narrowly drawn and are often invalidated by customer activities, such as making modifications or combining the indemnified product with other code, which are central to the vitality of open source."

It said the H-P indemnification requirements "will inhibit customers from taking full advantage of the open source development process."

Mr. Samson's memo says "HP's approach as outlined in the press, we believe runs fundamentally counter to the Linux value proposition." Many users like Linux because they can view the source code making it easy to adapt the operating system for their own uses.

[HAL9000]

SCOX down 17% on the news.

[eno_]

Excellent

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The dump phase of the pump&dump scheme is about to kick into high gear.

[eno_]

I donno. If the documents someone published are true, SCO's investors thought this would be a fine little back alley mugging and it would be all over months ago. Now that it's so high profile, Darl is going to end up as Martha Stewart's sous chef if he doesn't ride it all the way in.

[justlurking]

[...] the new counterclaim charges that SCO infringed IBM's copyrights by distributing IBM's contributions to Linux after SCO had violated its Linux license by claiming a copyright on parts of Linux.

It's about time. There's been a lot of discussion about doing this, but most of the contributors to Linux don't have the financial resources to mount this kind of challenge.

I wonder if the other contributors to Linux can join? It would be interesting if this turned into a class-action suit.

[Bush2000]

Get your hopes up...

... but remember, logic and reason don't necessarily prevail in the courts. SCO could very well walk away from this thing with a ton of IBM's money in their pockets.

[proxy_user]

If you have a ton of money, you have a ton of lawyers.

IBM probably has more lawyers than SCO has employees. If they want to hang tough, they know how to do so.

[Steely Glint]

You can't stick it to SCO hard enough to suit me.

[ShadowAce]

Get your hopes up...

... but remember, logic and reason don't necessarily prevail in the courts.

Please enlighten me. Do you hope that SCO wins, even though they are wrong? Or are you saying that SCO has a legitimate case even though most of us don't see it?

[zeugma]

The basic problem is that microsoft has enough money to continue funding SCO so SCO can continue to spread FUD. We could very well have this continue for a long time.

SUN is also bankrolling SCO to a lesser extent. Both of these companies obviously gain benefit from FUD.

[dennisw]

Nuke 'em! ....... SCO freeloaders that is.

[Bush2000]

IBM probably has more lawyers than SCO has employees. If they want to hang tough, they know how to do so.

Yeahhh, the same lawyers who agreed to license DOS from a then-little company named Microsoft rather than buy it ouright ... the same lawyers who wanted to file a patent for a toilet-queuing system... /SARCASM

[Bush2000]

Please enlighten me. Do you hope that SCO wins, even though they are wrong? Or are you saying that SCO has a legitimate case even though most of us don't see it?

I'm saying neither. SCO may have a legitimate case. I don't know, frankly. But any decision in the matter turns on the interpretation of a judge or a jury. As we saw with OJ, sometimes the evidence doesn't matter. I'm cautioning all of you to control your exuberance until it reaches trial...

[Coral Snake]

Personally i think that it will take a DEPRESSION in the tech industry caused by these rediculous forever copyright and software patent laws to finally show our money deluded legislators how STUPID these concepts are.

[Bush2000]

Tell that to your buddies at IBM. They file more patents than practically any other domestic company.

[Coral Snake]

And they may just be the ones to set off the DEPRESSION too if SCO keeps this cr*p up. ;-)

[Coral Snake]

Take a look at this:

Current status of SCO's stock price and insider trade activity at Yahoo Finance

The "pump" has stopped, its time to "dump" and Darl McBride is STILL hanging on. This guy must be a complete idiot or actually smarter than we think. (Losing money IS better than going to jail.)

[TechJunkYard]

I'm sure Darl would love to join in the fun, but he isn't vested yet. He's still got a year to go after his first profitable quarter, which was... last quarter.

[rdb3]

It appears so.

[Coral Snake]

Than it looks like Darl has to be the one left holding the bag in all this, and it couldn't happen to a "nicer" guy.