[H-GEN] (url) SCO warns commercial Linux users of potential legal liability

[Tony Nugent]

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http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/legalissues/story/0%2c10801%2c81235%2c00.html

  SCO warns commercial Linux users of potential 'legal liability'

    Unix and Linux vendor The SCO Group today warned all commercial
    Linux users that they could be in the company's widening legal
    cross hairs until it resolves legal claims related to its Unix
    intellectual property.

    The "legal liability for the use of Linux may extend to
    commercial users," Lindon, Utah-based SCO said today in an
    announcement in which it also said it plans to immediately halt
    the sales and distribution of its own Linux products because of
    the company's ongoing legal claims that Linux is an
    "unauthorized derivative of Unix."

    For SCO, which says it has owned the rights to the Unix
    operating system since 1995, this is the third major Linux
    industry punch the company has thrown this year.

    In March, SCO stunned the Linux world when it sued IBM for $1
    billion, alleging that the company misappropriated trade secrets
    related to SCO's Unix products to benefit IBM's Linux strategy
    (see story[1]). That lawsuit came just two months after SCO
    announced that it was creating a new SCOsource division that
    would be charged with strictly enforcing its Unix position as
    the "majority owner of Unix intellectual property" (see story[2]).

    In today's announcement, SCO said "that until the attendant
    risks with Linux are better understood and properly resolved,
    the company will suspend all of its future sales of the Linux
    operating system." That also includes the sale and distribution
    of its UnitedLinux offering, SCO Linux Server 4.0, Powered by
    UnitedLinux.

[ ... ]

  [1] http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/linux/story/0,10801,79153,00.html
  [2] http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/linux/story/0,10801,77815,00.html

Cheers
Tony

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