[plug] Today's dose of chutzpah from TSG

[Leon Brooks]

http://www.computerwire.info/brnews/6FF3308412856B4D80256D4E005D45FA

[this will shortly vanish from public view]

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Linux Distributors Appear to be Safe From SCO

By Matthew Aslett
 
Linux distributors are safe from legal action by The SCO Group Inc, 
because the company does not want to destroy Linux, according to SCO's 
SVP and general manager of the SCOsource intellectual property 
enforcement division, Chris Sontag.
 
Although the Lindon, Utah-based Unix operating system vendor is sticking 
by its claims that Linux contains code that has been illegally copied 
from its Unix System V, it appears the company is unlikely to follow up 
its $3bn lawsuit against IBM Corp with similar actions against Red Hat 
Inc, SuSE Linux AG or others.
 
    "One of the reasons we haven't launched a suit against a Linux
    distributor is because of the GPL [open source General Public
    License]," Sontag told ComputerWire. "It would blow up the GPL
    and destroy Linux and we do not want to do that."

    [Oh... dear, we forgot about this aspect of the GPL. What can
    we do? Oh! Yes! We threaten it with a lawsuit. As if TSG does
    anything else these days.]
 
Rather than focus its legal efforts on the open source community and 
Linux distributors, SCO is working to identify the issues and come up 
with solutions in consultation with customers and other parties, said 
Sontag. The company hopes to have these solutions finalized during 
July, he added.
 
One solution may be a new kind of licensing mechanism for the SCO Unix 
code, he said, although there remain issues with the GPL that 
complicate how such a mechanism might be implemented. Sontag said SCO's 
effort was focused on identifying Linux intellectual property issues 
and possible mechanisms through which future problems could be 
prevented.
 
"The reason why there is such a big problem is that there are no 
mechanisms in Linux to ensure the technology going into Linux," he 
said. "For a commercial entity there are processes to know where the 
code has come from. In the case of Linux, there's no mechanism."
 
Both Red Hat and SuSE have made statements to the contrary in recent 
weeks, with Mark Webbink, general counsel of Red Hat stating: "We take 
intellectual property issues very seriously. We are constantly 
reviewing available source code to determine its origin and whether it 
is protected by IP." 
 
"We have processes in place through which we make sure as much as you 
can that we don't run into that trap," said SuSE's CEO, Richard Seibt 
earlier this month. "Part of the Autobuild process [SuSE's product 
build process] is to make sure that there is no illegal code in our 
distribution. In open source, this was the case from the beginning."
 
Either way, it looks as if Red Hat, SuSE and other Linux distributors 
will not face the wrath of SCO's lawyers, although that does not mean 
that other Unix vendors don't have something to worry about.
 
"There is derivative code from AIX and Sequent Dynix [in Linux], there 
has also been contribution of derivative code from other licensees, and 
there has also been Unix System V code directly copied into Linux line 
by line," said Sontag.
 
Asked if this meant that SCO was considering lawsuits against other Unix 
vendors Sontag was more reserved. "Potentially," he said. "Some of them 
we're in talks with, some of them we're not yet." Given the large 
number of Unix licensees there are any number of targets for SCO, 
although Hewlett Packard Co and Sun Microsystems Inc have both declared 
themselves safe from litigation.
 
Although more Unix vendors may become SCO legal targets, Sontag repeated 
his statement that the company was not out to destroy Linux, or open 
source software, but to protect its own rights.
 
"With regards to SCO's IP being transferred into Linux, it's appropriate 
that we have a right to say 'that's not right'," he said. "We don't 
have an issue with open source and free software as long as it is 
individually developed. It's when we're talking about people taking 
commercial technologies inappropriate to their contracts and 
implementing them into Linux."

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Cheers; Leon