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March 7, 2003, the SCO Group (formerly known as Caldera Systems) filed a $1 billion lawsuit in the US against IBM for allegedly "devaluing" its version of the UNIX operating system. The amount of alleged damages was later increased to $3 billion, and then $5 billion. SCO claimed that IBM had, without authorization, contributed SCO's intellectual property to the codebase of the open source, Unix-like Linux operating system. In May 2003 SCO Group sent letters to members of the Fortune 1000 and Global 500 companies warning them of the possibility of liability if they use Linux. Because of this, the stock price of SCO's stock (Nasdaq stock symbol SCOX) skyrocketed to around $US 20 in October of 2003, although as of September of 2004 it has since returned to $US 3 - $US 4, very near its original, pre-lawsuit level. For more information, see this (courtesy Yahoo!), showing SCOX stock price history.
Since then, the claims and counter-claims made by both sides have escalated, with both IBM and Linux distributor Red Hat starting legal action against SCO, and SCO making threatening remarks toward Linux users who do not take out SCO UNIX licences.
On September 30, Judge Kimball granted the SCO Group's request for a delay until February 4, 2004, "to file any amended pleadings or add parties to this action". This pushes the start of the actual lawsuit back until 2005.
This is just one of a series of lawsuits in which SCO is involved. Other lawsuits in which SCO is involved are Red Hat v. SCO, SCO v. Novell, SCO v. AutoZone, SCO v. DaimlerChrysler.
SCO's lawsuit has been consistent only in its claim of breach of contract (since the abandonment in early 2004 of its claim of misappropriation of trade secrets), while SCO's claims in press releases and interviews have changed repeatedly as the affair has progressed. SCO has also both claimed and denied that the alleged copyright violations involved the Linux kernel.
SCO has been reported as threatening to sue Linux users and even Linus Torvalds, head of the Linux kernel programming project. Computerworld reported Chris Sontag of SCO as saying:
SCO refuses to allow access to the samples of code containing the alleged copyright violations except under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). SCO's NDA would not only require that the signer keep confidential which lines of code SCO contested, but would also require that they hold confidential any information SCO told them, even if they already knew that information before being informed of it by SCO; all Linux kernel developers have considered this to be far too restrictive, so none of them have signed it. However, at SCO's annual reseller's convention in August of 2003 they revealed two short sections of code they alleged were copyright violations, and this code was later reprinted on the , a German computer magazine publisher.
On May 30, 2003, SCO Group's CEO Darl McBride was quoted as saying that the Linux kernel contained "hundreds of lines" of code from SCO's version of UNIX, and that SCO would reveal the code to other companies under NDA in July. To put this into context, estimates the size of the Linux 2.4.2 kernel as 2,440,919 source lines of code out of over 30 million physical source lines of code for a typical GNU/Linux distribution. Therefore, as per SCO's own estimate, the allegedly infringing code would make up about 0.001% of the total code of a typical GNU/Linux installation. SCO has since upwardly revised this figure to over a million lines of code, however.
SCO's major claims have now been reported as relating to the following components of the Linux kernel:
These claims flow from the accusation of breach of contract. The contract between IBM and AT&T (to which SCO claims to be successor in interest) allows IBM to use the SVR4 code, but the SVR4 code, plus any derivative works made from that code, must be held confidential by IBM. According to IBM's interpretation of the contract, and the interpretation published by AT&T in their "$ echo" newsletter in 1985, "derivative works" means any works containing SVR4 code. But according to SCO's interpretation, "derivative works" also includes any code built on top of SVR4, even if that does not contain, or even never contained, any SVR4 code. Thus, according to SCO, any AIX operating system code that IBM developed must be kept confidential, even if it contains nothing from SVR4.
The lawsuit caused outrage in the free software and open source communities, who consider SCO's claims to be without merit. Open source advocates' arguments include:
SCO and its officers have been the subject of much criticism by the free software community, some of whom have stated that SCO's behavior may amount to illegal conduct. Indeed, SEC filings reveal that senior SCO executives dumped their personal holdings in SCO shortly after counter-suits were filed by IBM and RedHat, lending credence to the idea that the lawsuit's primary purpose is manipulation of SCO's stock price. SCO Group's CEO Darl McBride has been the subject of particular vituperation.
On May 30, 2003, Linus Torvalds was quoted by IDG.net as saying, regarding the case:
In an interview on June 23, 2003, Torvalds responded to SCO's allegation that Linux development had no process for vetting kernel contributions:
The Inquirer reported on June 15, 2003, that an unnamed Linux kernel programmer has written to SCO, threatening action based on their distribution of a Linux distribution that, according to their own claims, contains code not licensed under the GPL. According to the letter reproduced there, the programmer claimed that SCO's doing so was an infringement of his own copyright. SCO's response to this letter is not known.
On June 25, 2003, Eben Moglen, the counsel for the Free Software Foundation, released a fuller statement regarding the SCO lawsuit. In this statement, he reiterates many of the points made above, and states that:
On March 10, 2003, the [http:/www.opensource.org Open Source Initiative] (OSI) released a on the SCO vs IBM complaint, written by Eric S. Raymond, president of the OSI and author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
On July 31, 2003, the released a on the ongoing conflict , written by the FSF's Eben Moglen.
Within a few months of the filing of the lawsuit, Eben Moglen, the Free Software Foundation's legal counsel, stated that SCO's suit should not concern Linux users other than IBM. In an interview with internetnews.com, he was reported as saying:
Apparently noticing the incongruity of their selling a Linux distribution while suing IBM for stealing their intellectual property and giving it to the developers of that operating system, the SCO Group then announced on May 14 that they would no longer distribute Linux. According to their press release, "SCO will continue to support existing SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux customers and hold them harmless from any SCO intellectual property issues regarding SCO Linux and Caldera OpenLinux products."
However, as of Monday, December 8, 2003, SCO Group was still distributing the Linux kernel under the terms of the GNU GPL via their FTP server. ([ftp://ftp.sco.com/pub/updates/OpenLinux/3.1.1/Server/CSSA-2003-020.0/SRPMS/linux-2.4.13-21S.src.rpm ftp.sco.com OpenLinux 3.1.1 linux-2.4.13-21S src.rpm] (FTP))
SCO currently claims:
Section 8 of Article One of the United States Constitution states that
SCO claimed that this pre-empts the GNU General Public License, since the main purpose of the GPL is to remove exclusive rights, and promote rights for all, that the GPL is therefore a violation of that part of the US Constitution. This may put into question the legality of transferring copyrights and contributing to the public domain, two activities which have long been "legal" in the United States.
If a court agreed with SCO on this, Section 7 of the GPL would then prevent Linux from being distributed in the United States. It also would potentially make any commercial re-licensing of intellectual property (such as SCO licensing Unix System V to other vendors for redistribution) unenforcable as the exclusivity of their rights has changed by allowing others to license their intellectual property.
Though most believe that the intended interpretation of "exclusive rights" allows the inventor to have the right to control distribution in a manner that allows others to have rights license commercially or otherwise which would include the right to license software to modify and redistribute under somewhat restrictive terms.
Novell entered the controversy by publishing on May 28 a press release concerning the SCO Group's ownership of UNIX. "To Novell's knowledge, the 1995 agreement governing SCO's purchase of UNIX from Novell does not convey to SCO the associated copyrights," a letter to the SCO Group's CEO Darl McBride said in part. "We believe it unlikely that SCO can demonstrate that it has any ownership interest whatsoever in those copyrights. Apparently you share this view, since over the last few months you have repeatedly asked Novell to transfer the copyrights to SCO, requests that Novell has rejected."
SCO later claimed to have discovered an amendment to their contract with Novell transferring partial ownership to SCO. Novell stated that the amendment "appears to bear a valid Novell signature, and the language, though convoluted, seems to support SCO's claim that ownership of some copyrights for Unix did transfer to SCO"; Novell also said that it could not find its own copy of the amendment.
But in subsequent letters to SCO that Novell released on December 22, Joseph LaSala Jr., Novell's general counsel, argued that the amendment provided for a copyright transfer only under certain conditions that SCO has allegedly failed to meet.
SCO was quick to dismiss Novell's claims. "We see this as a fraudulent filing of copyright notices ... and we'll take the appropriate measures as necessary with our legal team," SCO CEO Darl McBride said during a conference call held to discuss his company's most recent financial results.
A number of Linux supporters have characterized SCO's actions as an attempt to create fear, uncertainty and doubt about Linux. Many believe that SCO's aim is to be bought out by IBM. Others have pointed to Microsoft's subsequent licensing of the SCO source code as a possible quid pro quo for SCO's action.
Univention GmbH, a Linux integrator, reported on May 30, 2003 it was granted an injunction by a Bremen court under German competition law that prohibits the SCO Group's German division from saying that Linux contains illegally obtained SCO intellectual property. If the SCO Group continues to express this position, they would have to pay a fine of 250,000 Euros. A similar injunction was sought around the same time in Poland.
On July 23, Open Source Victoria announced that they had filed a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, "asking the ACCC to investigate the SCO Group's activities in light of their unsubstantiated claims and their extortive legal threats for money against possibly hundreds of thousands of Australians."
SCO Group then filed subpoenas for Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds on November 13, 2003.
EWeek has reported allegations that SCO may have copied parts of the Linux kernel into SCO UNIX as part of its Linux Kernel Personality feature (see the EWeek report below). SCO has denied these allegations. Some open-source advocates have suggested that, if true, this may effectively have obligated SCO to release SCO UNIX source under the terms of the GPL to customers who have received SCO UNIX binary distributions.
Reuters reported that the SCO Group intended to revoke IBM's licence to use UNIX code in their AIX operating system on Friday, June 13, 2003 if no resolution is reached before then. IBM responded that they believe that SCO has no power to do so, as their license is "irrevocable". On the following Monday, June 16, 2003, CNET News.com reported that SCO had announced it had terminated IBM's licence. IBM continues to distribute and support AIX, and the SCO Group now states that they will be seeking an injunction to force IBM not only to stop selling and supporting AIX, but to return to the SCO Group or destroy all copies of the AIX operating system.
Also on June 15, 2003, postings on Slashdot and The Inquirer reported claims that:
As of June 17, 2003, CNET News.com reported that SCO has increased its claims of damage to $3 billion, and has stated that the read-copy-update code in the Linux kernel is an example of code that infringes its rights. This technique is widely believed to have been developed at Sequent Computer Systems, who were then bought by IBM, who holds several patents (including ) on this technique.
On June 23, 2003, SCO sent out a letter announcing that it would not be suing its own Linux customers. In the letter, it states:
Some observers have stated that in doing so, SCO may have granted the same rights to other Linux users who obtained a copy of Linux from an SCO partner under the terms of the GPL. Others have stated that to "hold someone harmless" is different from a grant of rights, and that SCO has not made a grant of rights in writing this letter. Others believe that this letter is moot, as a grant of rights was made by SCO by the act of releasing the software under the GPL in the first place. This action may also signal the grounds for a GPL violation suit against SCO as it is seeking different terms of distribution of works for its own customers than other recipients of the same work.
On August 6, 2003, IBM filed their counterclaims against SCO. They make 10 counterclaims, including:
In response to these counterclaims, SCO has asserted that the GPL is unenforcible, void, and violates the United States Constitution. If these claims are true, then the GPL'd applications that SCO continues to distribute (like Samba) are being distributed without the permission of the copyright owners of those applications (since the permission was the GPL itself), which would be illegal. Thus some speculate that, in order to remain legally consistent, SCO will claim that software that has been GPL'd is actually in the public domain.
The discovery portion of the lawsuit has been dragging on for an unusual amount of time. The basis for SCO's suit is that any code developed on top of SVR5 is a derivative work of SVR5 (which would include AIX), and that IBM has publicly admitted to contributing AIX code to the Linux kernel. Since SCO has never seen the AIX code, it has, as part of the discovery process, deposed IBM for the AIX code, so that it can compare AIX code to Linux kernel code. IBM, rejecting SCO's concept of derivative work, has deposed SCO for which lines of code it claims are infringing. SCO has responded that it can't determine which code is infringing until it has had the chance to look at the AIX code.
On September 26, 2003 IBM filed new counterclaims against SCO Group involving alleged copyright infringement by SCO of GPL-licensed IBM code in the Linux kernel.
Some commentators have pointed out that if SCO manages to invalidate the GPL, they are highly likely to be caught by this counterclaim, as it is of the same form as their claim against IBM.
On October 1, 2003 the SCO Group announced that they would be revoking SGI's UNIX license for code it contributed to the kernel Linux. The source of this code was identified after it was shown at .
On December 5, 2003, in the first oral arguments relating to the discovery process, a judge granted IBM's two motions to compel against SCO, and deferred consideration of SCO's motions until later. This gave SCO a 30 day deadline to provide "with specificity" which lines of code in Linux they claim form the basis of their case. This was widely regarded as a first-round victory for IBM.
In late December 2003, new developments involving copyright claims emerged.
Novell registered their claim to the copyright of original UNIX source code, effectively challenging SCO's registration of the same code.
SCO claimed in a press release to have sent DMCA notification letters alleging copyright infringement Alleged copies of these letters were posted online at and . The letters give the names of 65 files in the Linux source code tree which supposedly incorporate "copyrighted binary interfaces". was then posted on Groklaw.
On March 3, 2004, SCO sued AutoZone for "commercial use of Linux," according to Darl McBride. Then they sued DaimlerChrysler for allegedly not complying with the terms of their Unix license as originally purchased from AT&T. Published reports say that by examining deleted material in the Microsoft Word files containing the complaint, SCO was originally going to sue Bank of America instead of DaimlerChrysler.
On March 4, 2004, a leaked SCO internal email detailed how Microsoft has paid SCO over $100 million, via the Baystar deal and other means . Blake Stowell of SCO confirmed the memo was real . Baystar claimed the deal was suggested by Microsoft, but that no money for it came directly from them. Microsoft, at the time, had $550 million invested with Baystar. .
On April 16, 2004 SCO announced in a press release that BayStar had demanded that SCO redeem 20,000 shares of SCO A-1 Convertible Preferred Stock. At $1000 per share, this would cost SCO $20M. SCO stated in their press release that they believed that BayStar did not have grounds for making this demand.
On April 22, 2004, The New York Times (p.C6) reported that BayStar Capital, a private hedge fund which had arranged for $50M in funding for SCO in October 2003, was asking for its $20M back. The remainder of the $50M was from Royal Bank of Canada. In 2003, BayStar looked at SCO on the recommendation of Microsoft, according to Lawrence R. Goldfarb, managing partner of Baystar Capital: "It was evident that Microsoft had an agenda". The April 15, 2004 letter to SCO asserted that SCO's management had breached certain provisions of the investment agreement with BayStar; Goldfarb stated that if SCO reformed its management practices (spending and focus), "BayStar might keep its funds in SCO".
In an that appeared at linuxworld.com in July 2004, several claims were revealed from court filings in the SCO Group lawsuit. Most notably, SCO Group claims that the use of the Executable and Linking Format (ELF) in Linux infringes on SCO copyrights. ELF originally was defined as part of Unix System V, but in 1995, the format was published as an industry standard. SCO Group claims that the Tool Interface Standard Committee (TISC), which published the standard, overstepped its rights in granting a blanket non-exclusive license to use ELF. Novell, the owners of System V at the time of the ELF standard's publication, were on the standards committee and presumably agreed to the license terms. Since ELF is used throughout Linux and GNU operating systems, restricting the use of ELF would be a major blow to Linux. The fact that Novell was on the TISC seems damaging to SCO Group's claims, but as of this writing, no court has issued a ruling on the validity of the claims.
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