eWeek: SCO Group Slaps IBM with $1B Suit

"In 1995, SCO purchased the rights and ownership of UNIX and UnixWare that had been originally owned by AT&T. This included source code, source documentation, software development contracts, licenses and other intellectual property that pertained to UNIX-related business. SCO became the successor in interest to the UNIX software licenses originally licensed by AT&T Bell Laboratories to all UNIX distributors, including Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM, Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems Inc., and many others.

"'SCO is in the enviable position of owning the UNIX operating system,' said Darl McBride, president and CEO, SCO, in an interview with eWeek Thursday. 'It is clear from our stand point that we have an extremely compelling case against IBM. SCO has more than 30,000 contracts with UNIX licensees and upholding these contracts is as important today as the day they were signed.'

"McBride said the bottom line was that SCO owned the source code to Unix and the right to that operating system. IBM had taken AIX and made it available to the Linux community in an unlawful way..."

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• CNET News: SCO Sues Big Blue over Unix, Linux(Mar 07, 2003)
• eWeek: SCO Group On the Licensing Warpath?(Mar 03, 2003)
• InfoWorld: Has SCO Fired Volley to Start Linux Legal War?(Feb 13, 2003)
• OSOpinion.com: Linux' New Worst Enemy(Feb 12, 2003)
• Are Linux Users Infringing on SCO's Property?(Jan 23, 2003)