LinuxPlanet: SCO Pulls Trigger, Targets Torvalds

“While neither company will admit that they had talked over the
weekend, sources close to both companies said that talks had
occurred. This might explain why SCO waited several hours into
Monday before seeking to stop IBM’s AIX business.

“Officially, what SCO has done is attempt to terminate IBM’s
right to use or distribute any Unix System V related operating
system based on the right of termination granted under the IBM
& AT&T’s original 1985 Unix agreements. When IBM didn’t
comply with SCO’s demands as of the midnight, June 13, 2003
deadline, SCO declared that the termination happened
automatically.

“Mark J. Heise, a Miami-based partner in SCO law firm Boies
Schiller, & Flexner, and complex commercial litigation
specialist, said, ‘Through contributing AIX source code to Linux
and using Unix methods to accelerate and improve Linux as a free
operating system, with the resulting destruction of Unix, IBM has
clearly demonstrated its misuse of Unix source code and has
violated the terms of its contract with SCO. SCO has the right to
terminate IBM’s right to use and distribute AIX. Today AIX is an
unauthorized derivative of the Unix System V operating system
source code and its users are, as of this date, using AIX without a
valid basis to do so…'”

Complete
Story