SCO Group - SCO-Linux Lawsuits and Controversies

SCO-Linux Lawsuits and Controversies

The SCO Group was, in 2004, involved in a dispute with various Linux vendors and users. In this campaign SCO "announced that Linux contained SCO's UNIX System V source code and that Linux was an unauthorized derivative of UNIX". Although many are skeptical about their claims, SCO initiated a series of lawsuits and claims that so far have not been upheld by the courts. Thus far the impact on both Linux and Unix has been minimal. While making numerous public assertions that Linux infringes upon their copyrights, the lawsuits themselves concern contractual issues which are tangential to the issue of whether or not Linux infringes any copyrights. Further complicating the issue is the legitimacy of SCO claims concerning the ownership of System V Release 4.0 (SVR4) Unix copyrights. The success or failure of the claims will also have a profound effect on the financial future of The SCO Group, itself. SCO has, to date, made little headway in this dispute. In particular, in February 2005, Judge Dale Kimball, the judge in the SCO v. IBM case has stated:

Viewed against the backdrop of SCO's plethora of public statements concerning IBM's and others' infringement of SCO's purported copyrights to the Unix software, it is astonishing that SCO has not offered any competent evidence to create a disputed fact regarding whether IBM has infringed SCO's alleged copyrights through IBM's Linux activities.

On August 10, 2007, Judge Kimball, hearing the SCO v. Novell case, ruled that "...the court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights". Novell was awarded summary judgments on a number of claims, and a number of SCO claims were denied. SCO was instructed to account for and pass to Novell an appropriate portion of income relating to SCOSource licences to Sun Microsystems and Microsoft. A number of matters are not disposed of by Judge Kimball's ruling, and the outcome of these are still pending.

On August 24, 2009, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued its findings on SCO's appeal of the 2007 summary judgment. It reversed Judge Kimball's summary judgment rulings on ownership of UNIX and UnixWare copyrights, SCO’s claim seeking specific performance, the scope of Novell’s rights under Section 4.16 of the APA, and the application of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing to Novell’s rights under Section 4.16 of the APA. It upheld Kimball's ruling on royalties due Novell. The reversed judgments were remanded to trial in Utah Federal court.

On March 30, 2010 a federal jury found unanimously that the copyrights to Unix and UnixWare did not transfer to SCO. Then on June 10, Judge Stewart granted all remaining claims of Novell, and denied all claims of SCO, closing the case.

SCO appealed for a second time on September 9, 2010. However, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court ruling in all respects.