ZDNet: SCO vs. the Linux World… What’s a Linux User to Do?

“SCO’s basic argument is that IBM has swindled it out of lots of
valuable source code and contributed it to Linux, which it had no
right to do. SCO’s complaint relies heavily on a 1985 license
agreement between AT&T and IBM. While SCO’s complaint quotes
extensively from that agreement, it makes scant mention of the
‘side letter’ to that agreement, which SCO filed as Exhibit C to
its complaint.

“That side letter expressly permits IBM to create new products
using ‘ideas, concepts, know-how or techniques’ found in the UNIX
code, as long as the programmers creating the new products do not
(1) copy code from UNIX or (2) refer to the UNIX code or manuals in
creating those new products. In addition, on page 2 of the side
letter, AT&T agreed that ‘modifications and derivative works
prepared by you [IBM] are owned by you.’ Thus, unless IBM actually
copied UNIX code into its Linux contributions rather than re-coding
the ideas it found there, its contributions to Linux were probably
proper.

“Even if IBM did copy code from UNIX, SCO will have to establish
that it (or its predecessor owners of UNIX) wrote the code, rather
than taking it from some other source…”

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