SCO: The Black Knight Always Triumphs!
“There’s No Free Lunch — or Free Linux.” That was the title of SCO CEO Darl McBride’s keynote address at the Computer Digital Expo in Las Vegas back in 2003, and it signaled the beginning of what would become a long and acrimonious legal battle.
Claiming its proprietary Unix software had been misappropriated and incorporated into Linux (”SCO = UNIX,” said McBride), SCO embarked on an intellectual-property war with the open-source operating system. “For the last several months, we have consistently stated and maintained that our System V code is in Linux,” McBride explained. “The claims SCO has are both broad and deep. These claims touch not just IBM but other vendors as well. They also touch certain industry consortia and corporate Linux end-users. Our claims aren’t trivial. The violations of our intellectual property are not easily repaired. It is our intention to vigorously protect and enforce SCO’s intellectual property, System V source code and our copyrights. We’re now fully prepared to do that.”
And they did. SCO filed a $3 billion lawsuit against IBM, claiming that the computing giant illegally used its Unix trade secrets to improve Linux. It filed another against auto giant DaimlerChrysler. It sent threatening letters to 1,500 of the world’s largest corporations warning they could be liable for using Linux. And it filed a “slander of title” suit against Novell, when the company publicly asserted that it, not SCO, was the rightful owner of the Unix copyrights.
Pity, then, that a U.S. District Court judge in Utah ruled Friday that SCO does not, in fact, own the copyrights to Unix. Pity, too, that he said Novell can force SCO to abandon its claims against IBM if it so chooses. His ruling has effectively gutted SCO’s legal campaign against Linux users and developers. “The court’s ruling has cut out the core of SCO’s case and, as a result, eliminates SCO’s threat to the Linux community based upon allegations of copyright infringement of Unix,” said Joe LaSala, senior vice president and general counsel of Novell. “We are extremely pleased with the outcome.”
Clearly the same cannot be said of SCO. “The company is obviously disappointed with the ruling issued last Friday,” SCO said in a statement denying, with the Pythonesque insistence for which it’s known, that the case is over. “… [T]he court did not dismiss our claims against Novell regarding the noncompete provisions of the 1995 Technology License Agreement relating to Novell’s distribution of Linux to the extent implicated by the technology developed by SCO after 1995. Those issues remain to be litigated. Although the district judge ruled in Novell’s favor on important issues, the case has not yet been fully vetted by the legal system, and we will continue to explore our options with respect to how we move forward from here.”
Ah. ‘Tis but a flesh wound, right? Not by the looks of the company’s recent stock performance.
