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Linux Suit Heats Up: IBM/Red Hat Give SCO a Hot Foot On On August 6, IBM responded to SCO's
amended complaint by countersuing SCO on a range of issues, stating that SCO's scheme is “an attempt to profit from its limited
rights to a very old UNIX operating system by introducing fear, uncertainty,
and doubt into the marketplace.” IBM’s counterclaims include: ▫
SCO
has violated the GNU General Public License, under which it accepted Linux
contributions and distributed Linux; ▫
SCO
has improperly claimed the right to revoke IBM's UNIX license for AIX, and by
doing so has interfered with the company; ▫
SCO
has directly infringed upon four IBM patents relating to SCO's
commercially available UnixWare, Open Server, SCO Manager
and Reliant HA clustering software products. IBM is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, and an injunction requiring SCO to refrain from misrepresenting its rights and to cease further infringement of IBM's patents. At the time of this report, SCO had not responded to IBM’s countersuit. Net/Net Industry trade shows offer a multitude of publicity
opportunities, and this week’s LinuxWorld event in
To many in the Open Source community, Red Hat’s
actions were likely a welcome relief. SCO’s
original $1 billion suit against IBM for inclusion of AIX code in the Linux
kernel has evolved publicly and metastatically into an all-out attack on
Linux, which SCO seems to regard as a near-wholesale rip-off of the
intellectual property the company purchased from Novell many years ago.
Unfortunately, SCO has been better at making claims than it has at providing
proof. The company has limited access to the evidence it says backs up its
claims only to those willing to sign NDAs, and
abandoned claims in SCO’s threats to pursue
legal action against Linux-using business customers, and its offer of
indemnification via the company’s questionable IP licensing scheme may have
brought things to a head. Red Hat may have been first out of the gate with a
legal complaint, and the company’s Open Source Now Fund is likely to receive
plaudits from Linux folk of various stripes. Overall, though, we believe
IBM’s countersuit is the sort of big gun action that will catch the attention
of Open Source adherents, the media, and — one would assume — SCO. Some have wondered why it has taken IBM so long to
fight back. The company’s apparent indifference in the face of SCO’s myriad accusations seemed nearly bovine in its
complacency. But a look at the issues contained in the company’s countersuit
suggests that IBM was simply waiting for SCO to fashion enough rope for a
public hanging before moving carefully and methodically ahead. The suit
proceeds along lines both predictable and unique. First, it echoes an issue that
many in the Linux community have pointed to. Since until recently SCO was an
active and eager Open Source participant, accepting and distributing Linux
contributions, its claims against other Open Source distributions is
contradictory and violates the GNU General Public License. Second, SCO’s claims that it has the power to revoke IBM’s
license to AIX, which lay at the heart of the company’s original suit, are
essentially fallacious and contradicted by agreements between IBM and the
original UNIX license holder, Novell. Most importantly and intriguingly, IBM claims that
SCO has itself infringed on IBM patents in four of the company’s commercial
software products; UnixWare, Open Server, SCO Manager and Reliant HA. This
may appear little more than an overt bit of tit-for-tat legalizing, but the
fact is that if IBM has the evidence to prove these allegations, it opens SCO
to legal and financial actions similar to those they have been pursuing
against IBM, and provides an interesting avenue to a possible settlement
between the two companies. Considering the volume of effluent SCO has flushed under myriad bridges over the past few months, it is reasonable to ask if such a settlement could ever realistically come to pass. The honest answer to this question is: it depends. SCO has been effective, if somewhat melodramatic, in playing a bellicose aggressor in a play of its own design. However, in the process the company has reduced its chances of realistically portraying an aggrieved victim. How well SCO will perform under a far different and less flattering spotlight, and what they may do to exit this particular stage, remains to be seen. |