13-Year-Old Linux Dispute Returns As SCO Files New Appeal (theinquirer.net)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from THE INQUIRER: Now-defunct Unix vendor, which claimed that Linux infringed its intellectual property and sought as much as $5 billion in compensation from IBM, has filed notice of yet another appeal in the 13-year-old dispute. The appeal comes after a ruling at the end of February when SCO's arguments claiming intellectual property ownership over parts of Unix were rejected by a U.S. district court. That judgment noted that SCO had minimal resources to defend counter-claims filed by IBM due to SCO's bankruptcy. "It is ordered and adjudged that pursuant to the orders of the court entered on July 10, 2013, February 5, 2016, and February 8, 2016, judgement is entered in favor of the defendant and plaintiff's causes of action are dismissed with prejudice," stated the document. Now, though, SCO has filed yet again to appeal that judgement, although the precise grounds it is claiming haven't yet been disclosed.

Comments

SCO actually got a bad deal here

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly think the $699 and $1399 licensing fees were excessive. However, SCO was actually right about some things. I remember when SCO originally filed their lawsuit, saying their source code was illegally used in the Linux kernel. People called on SCO to indicate which files and lines of source code were their intellectual property. SCO actually showed their source code to analysts, who agreed that the Linux kernel contained the same code. Despite SCO actually publicly saying which files infringed upon their intellectual property, the response was a bunch of excuses. They claimed that SCO might not actually own the code they purchased from Novell. They claimed that the infringing code didn't count because copyright law couldn't protect it. The FOSS community moved the goalposts when SCO proved that Linux infringed upon their copyrights. Because they dared challenge IBM, a behemoth intent on making profits from Linux, they were run out of business. If you're big enough, have enough money, and buy enough lawyers, you can get away with anything. IBM is doing to SCO what Microsoft does to their opponents.