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03/04/2004 Archived Entry: "More on SCO suits"

Further update: I've read the SCO complaint against Autozone, and it is not about contract violation; SCO is attempting to claim copyright violation simply because of the use of Linux. As I've observed before, this is going to be a harder case to make. Among other factors, it may depend on the outcome of the IBM, Novell, and Red Hat lawsuits. (Remember, I Am Not A Lawyer.) Also, because this is about Linux and not just an inter-company contract violation, I presume Autozone will enjoy the benefits of the legal defense funds set up by Red Hat and the Open Source Development Labs.

I've also read the SCO complaint against DaimlerChrysler, and it's as I said yesterday: failure to certify license compliance. It appears that SCO does have the contractual right to ask for this once a year. They might have a case here, but it doesn't implicate Linux.

Meanwhile, in the IBM case, the judge has given SCO 45 days to -- among other things -- "provide and identify with specificity all lines of code in Linux that it claims rights to." The Linux community has been asking for this for almost a year; SCO can stall no longer (although you can bet they'll demand that these court records be sealed).

brad