Lawyers representing the LinuxTag association have given notice
to SCO Group GmbH to desist from unfair competitive practiices. The
notice, dated Friday, May 23, maintains that SCO Group is sowing
uncertainty among the community of GNU/Linux users, developers and
suppliers. “SCO needs to stop claiming that the standard Linux
kernel violates its copyrights, or they need to lay the evidence
for their claim on the table,” said LinuxTag’s Michael
Kleinhenz.
The association demanded that the German SCO subsidiary retract
its claims regarding ownership of Linux kernel code by this Friday,
May 30, or make its evidence public. “SCO must not be allowed to
damage its competitors by unsubstantiated claims, to intimidate
their customers, and to inflict lasting damage on the reputation of
GNU/Linux as an open platform,” Kleinhenz added.
Until a few weeks ago, SCO itself distributed the Linux kernel
GNU General Public License (GPL) as a member of the UnitedLinux
alliance. Thus even if SCO owns parts of the Linux kernel, it has
made them into Free Software by distributing them under the
GPL.
“This situation illustrates the superiority of the Free Software
licensing model: If a software manufacturer withdraws from the
development of GPL software, its contributions that were published
under the the GPL up to that time remain available to users,” said
Jürgen Siepmann, attorney and founding member of LinuxTag.
Till Jaeger, Director of the Institute for Legal Aspects of Free
and Open Source Software, agrees: “Companies see this as an
important pillar of investment security.”