SCO Has "Made No Decision" On Linux IP Claims

Earlier today, a Slashdot post reported the possibility that SCO would attempt to collect royalty payments for intellectual property that SCO (according to that story) claims would make other Linux vendors liable to the tune of nearly $100 per Linux-running CPU. This report on NewsForge reports that SCO has issued a statement "disputing the claims in the story, but confirming that it does have significant asset claims in Unix IP and it is discussing 'possible strategies.'" Awfully ambiguous on SCO's part; I'd feel better about a straight denial.

Comments

Re:SCO

[bongoras]

For the benefit of those who are to lazy to read the (fine) story... SCO statement on Client Server News story On January 10, 2003 Client Server News published a story concerning SCO and its UNIX intellectual property. This article states as fact speculations about what SCO may do or not do with regard to its ownership of core UNIX IP. Darl McBride, president and CEO of SCO, has discussed SCO's UNIX IP ownership in many public venues and on the most recent quarterly investors' conference call. SCO has significant UNIX intellectual property dating back to the company's purchase of AT&T's Bell Labs UNIX technology. Our UNIX IP is a significant asset and for several months we have been holding internal discussions, exploring a wide range of possible strategies concerning this asset. We've reached no final decisions on any course of action. SCO is a Linux vendor and a leading member of United Linux. Contrary to the claims in the Client Server News article, SCO has no desire to take legal action against fellow Linux vendors. As a normal part of business, SCO has had discussions with several legal experts in the field of intellectual property law, and these discussions included David Boies. Contrary to the claims in the Client Server News story, SCO has not engaged Mr. Boies to take legal action against our fellow Linux vendors. It's unfortunate when a publication runs a headline, stating as fact in the present tense that our company is engaging in certain activities when, in fact, we've made no decisions, formed no programs and announced nothing about this.

Re:What IP are we talking about, exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are patents on all kinds of wacky things like the setuid bit. SCO has a collection of these that are automatically licensed when someone starts with the original UNIX source base but could be used in a lawsuit if someone tried to make something "UNIX like" without licensing UNIX. So it's basic UNIX concepts that are the sticking point here since Linux is "UNIX like" but not a UNIX and not based on any older UNIX code like *BSD.

They _have_ issued a denial

[Hayzeus]

From the press release:

SCO is a Linux vendor and a leading member of United Linux. Contrary to the claims in the Client Server News article, SCO has no desire to take legal action against fellow Linux vendors. As a normal part of business, SCO has had discussions with several legal experts in the field of intellectual property law, and these discussions included David Boies. Contrary to the claims in the Client Server News story, SCO has not engaged Mr. Boies to take legal action against our fellow Linux vendors.

I mean, geez. What else are they supposed to do?

Re:Get them for GPL violation!

[jmv]

So very wrong. If you were right, that would mean that I could write a GPLed program that reimplements the MP3 patent, and then tell Thompson Media that their patent is violating the GPL.

No, it's not the patent that's violating the GPL. The GPL only states that if you can redistribute the software freely because of a patent, then you can't redistribute it at all. The problem is that SCO is distributing Linux (Thompson is not distributing GPL MP3 software), so since it claims you can't redistribute it freely, they're not allowed to distribute it either, because of the GPL.

So esentially, if SCOs to proved to be correct, that would make the GPL invalid for those portions of code, and thus it would be free game for anybody to use the code. Then SCO could be free to grab the code and enforce their patents anyway, an effort must made easier by removing that pesky GPL.

No, the GPl says: If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. That's quite different than "the GPL doesn't apply is there's a patent".

Re:SCO doesn't seem to have any applicable patents

[jonabbey]

As the owner of UNIX, SCO probably has rights to a lot of patents from AT&T, USL, and Novell pertaining to UNIX. Those patents presumably wouldn't be recorded as being registered by SCO, even if SCO owns them now.