Skeptical Reactions To SCO From Around The Globe

Besides the recent action in Australia, lots of others are choosing to make affirmative statements denying SCO's claims to own the name and code of all things *nix. Read below for a wrap-up of some recent public reactions to the SCO claims from a wide range of potential litigants (if the SCO case gets that far): Japanese conglomerates, American department stores, Bruce Perens, kernel developer Richard Gooch via Mozillaquest, and Joe ("Citizen") Barr.

IpsissimusMarr writes "The Inquirer reports that 'The biggest computer manufacturers in Japan that build systems running Linux will hold out against blustering by SCO to extract license fees based upon unsubstantiated infringement claims, it has emerged.' Its nice to see more support from the business world denouncing SCO's tactics."

janda writes "ComputerWorld is reporting that several companies, including Coastal Transportation, Burlington Coat Factory, and Boscov's Department Store are taking a wait-and-see attitude towards SCO and their new 'Linux license' arrangement.

Best quote from the article:

'I don't remember signing anything with SCO saying I owe them any kind of licensing fees.' (Tom Pratt, Coastal Transportation)

I find it refreshing that companies are starting to stand up to SCO's blackmail attempts."

An anonymous reader points to this story at Mozillaquest according to which IBM says that SCO does not have a viable claim to JFS, NUMA, RCU, etc., writing "IBM says it owns the AIX code it contributed to the Linux kernel despite SCO claims that it has registered its Unix System V copyrights. A big problem for IBM and the GNU/Linux community might be the inclusion of JFS, NUMA software, RCU, etc into the Linux kernel. SCO claims it owns them. However, IBM, SuSE, and kernel.org's Richard Gooch reject SCO-Caldera and Darl McBride's claims that GNU/Linux contains SCO-owned or SCO-copyrighted code. ... The Linux kernel code is copyrighted under the GNU GPL. IBM owns its AIX additions and copyrights to Unix System V code and its development of JFS, RCU, and NUMA software code."

arilian writes "According to this article from ARNnet, SCO's new license may leave them open to litigation by other contributers to the Linux kernel." Bruce Perens and intellectual property lawyer Jim LaBarre are quoted in this one.

Finally, Joe Barr writes "I just filed a complaint against The SCO Group with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It was easy. I used their online complaint form at:

www.sec.gov/complaint/cf942sec9570.htm.

The basis for my complaint is that SCO is using false and unsubstantiated claims of IP rights to UNIX and Linux in order to manipulate its stock price and force consumers to purchase SCO licenses.

Maybe someone else would like to do the same."