The SCO-Linux controversies are a series of legal and public disputes between the software company SCO Group (SCO) and various Linux vendors and users. The SCO Group alleges that its license agreements with IBM mean that source code that IBM wrote and donated to be incorporated into Linux was added in violation of SCO's contractual rights. Members of the Linux community disagree with SCO's claims; IBM and Red Hat have counter-sued.

SCO-Linux controversies
Timeline of SCO-Linux controversies
SCO and SGI
SCOsource
SCO v. IBM
SCO v. DaimlerChrysler
SCO v. AutoZone
SCO v. Novell
Red Hat v. SCO
SCO Group
IBM
Novell
Groklaw
Ralph Yarro III
Pamela Jones
Darl McBride
Marc J. Rochkind
United Linux
USL v. BSDi
Caldera OpenLinux Background
SCO's claims are derived from several contracts that may have transferred UNIX System V Release 4 intellectual property assets. The UNIX IP rights originated with Unix System Laboratories (USL), a division of AT&T. In 1993, USL sold all UNIX rights and assets to Novell, including copyrights, trademarks, and active licensing contracts. Some of these rights and assets, plus additional assets derived from Novell's development work, were then sold to the Santa Cruz Operation in 1995. The Santa Cruz Operation had developed and was selling a PC-based UNIX until 2000, when it then resold its UNIX assets to Caldera, which later changed its name to SCO Group.
Through this chain of sales, SCO claims to be the "owner of UNIX". The validity of these claims is hotly contested by others. SCO claims copyright to all UNIX code developed by USL, referred to as SVRx, and licensing contracts originating with AT&T, saying that these are inherited through the same chain of sales. The primary document SCO presents as evidence of these claims is the "Asset Purchase Agreement", defining the sale between Novell and the Santa Cruz Operation. SCO says that this includes all copyrights to the UNIX code base and contractual rights to the licensing base. The other parties disagree.

UNIX SVRx
The status of copyrights from USL is murky, since UNIX code is a compilation of elements with different copyright histories. Some code was released without copyright notice before changes in the Copyright Act of 1976 made copyright automatic. This code may be in the public domain and not subject to copyright claims. Other code is affected by the USL v. BSDi case, and is covered by the BSD License.
Recently, Groklaw was able to uncover an old settlement made between Unix System Laboratories (USL) and The University of California..

UNIX copyrights ownership
The Novell to Santa Cruz Operation Asset Purchase Agreement also involved the administration of some 6000 standing licensing agreements between various UNIX users and the previous owners. These licensees include universities, software corporations and computer hardware companies. SCO's claimed ownership of the licenses has become an issue in three aspects of the SCO-Linux controversies. The first was the cancellation of IBM's license, the second was SCO's complaint against DaimlerChrysler (see SCO v. DaimlerChrysler), and the third is the derivative works claim of the SCO v. IBM case.
In May 2003, SCO canceled IBM's SVRx license to its version of UNIX, AIX. This was based on SCO's claim of unrestricted ownership of the System V licensing contracts inherited from USL. IBM ignored the license cancellation, claiming that an amendment to the original license made it "irrevocable." In addition, as part of the Purchase Agreement, Novell retained certain rights of control over the administration of the licenses which were sold, including rights to act on SCO's behalf in some cases. Novell exercised one of these rights by revoking SCO's cancellation of the IBM license. SCO disputed the validity of both of these actions, and amended its SCO v. IBM complaint to include copyright infringement, based on IBM's continued sale and use of AIX without a valid SVRx license.
In December 2003, SCO demanded that all UNIX licensees certify some items, some related to the use of Linux, that were not provided for in the license agreement language. Since DaimlerChrysler failed to respond, SCO filed the SCO v. DaimlerChrysler suit in March 2004. All claims related to the certification demands were summarily dismissed by the court.
The third issue based on the UNIX licensees agreement is related to SCO's claims of control of derivative works. This is a major and complex question and is discussed in a separate section below.

License administration standing
Many UNIX licensees have added features to the core UNIX SVRx system and those new features contain computer code not in the original SVRx code base. In most cases, software copyright is owned by the person or company that develops the code. SCO, however, claims that the original licensing agreements define this new code as a derivative work. They also claim that they have the right to control and restrict the use and distribution of that new code.
These claims are the basis of SCO v. IBM. SCO's initial complaint, [1], said that IBM violated the original licensing agreement by not maintaining confidentiality with the new code, developed and copyrighted by IBM, and releasing it to the Linux project.
IBM claims that the license agreement (noted in the $Echo newsletter of April 1985, [2]) and subsequent licenses defines derivative works as the developer's property. This leaves IBM free to do as it wishes with its new code. In August 2004, IBM filed a motion for partial summary judgment. The motion stated that IBM has the right to do as it wishes with software not part of the original SVRx code. In February 2005, the motion was dismissed as premature, because discovery was not yet complete. IBM is able to refile the motion after discovery is completed.

Control of derivative works
SCO claims that Linux infringes SCO's copyright, trade secrets, and contractual rights. This claim is fundamental to the SCOsource program, where SCO has demanded that Linux users obtain licenses from SCOsource to be properly licensed to use the code in question. Exactly which parts of Linux are involved remains unclear as many of their claims are still under seal in the SCO v. IBM lawsuit.
SCO originally claimed in SCO v. IBM that IBM had violated trade secrets. But these alleged violations by IBM would not have involved Linux distributors or end users. SCO's trade secret claims were dropped by SCO in their amended complaint.[3]
SCO also claimed line for line literal copying of code from UNIX code files to Linux kernel files and obfuscated copying of code, but originally refused to publicly identify which code was in violation. SCO submitted to the court evidence of their claims under seal but much of it was excluded from the case after it was challenged by IBM as not meeting the specificity requirements to be included.
These examples have fallen into two groups. The first are segments of files or whole files alleged to originate in UNIX SVRx code such as the errno.h header file. The second group are files and materials contributed by IBM that originated with IBM development work associated with AIX and Dynix, IBM's two UNIX products.
Each of these has a different set of issues. In order for copyright to be violated, several conditions must be met. First, the claimant must be able to show that they own the copyrights for the material in question. Second, all or a significant part of the source must be present in the infringing material. There must be enough similarity to show direct copying of material.

SCO allegations of copyright and trade secret violations
The issue of ownership of the SVRx code base was discussed above. Besides the unresolved issue of what was actually transferred from Novell to Santa Cruz Operation, there are also the portions of the SVRx code base that are covered by BSD copyrights or that are in the public domain.
SCO's first public disclosure of what they claim is infringing code was at SCOForum in August 2003. The first, known as the Berkeley Packet Filter, was distributed under the BSD License and is freely usable by anyone. The second example was related to memory allocation functions, also released under the BSD License. It is no longer in the Linux code base. In AutoZone, SCO's complaint claimed damages for AutoZone's use of Linux. However, when objecting to AutoZone's request for a stay pending the IBM case, SCO apparently contradicted their written complaint, claiming that the case was entirely about AutoZone copying certain libraries (outside the Linux kernel) from a UNIX system to a Linux-based system to facilitate moving an internal application to the Linux platform faster; SCO's original complaint does not appear to mention these libraries. AutoZone denies having done this with UNIX libraries. If SCO's oral description of their case is the correct one, then their AutoZone claim has nothing to do with the Linux kernel or the actions of any distributors.
The copyright issue is addressed directly in two of the cases. The first is by IBM in their counterclaim in SCO v. IBM. The issue is central to a pending motion by IBM, stating that IBM violated no copyrights in its Linux related activities. It is also addressed by Red Hat in the Red Hat v. SCO case. Red Hat claims that SCO's statements about infringement in Linux are unproven and untrue, damaging to them and violates the Lanham Act. Red Hat asks for an injunction to stop claims of violations without proof. They also ask for a judgment that they violated no SCO copyrights. A hearing on the IBM motion was held in September 15, 2004. Judge Kimball took the motion under advisement. The Red Hat case is on hold.

SVRx code allegedly in Linux
EWeek has reported allegations that SCO may have copied parts of the Linux kernel into SCO UNIX as part of its Linux Kernel Personality feature. If true, this would mean that SCO is guilty of a breach of the Linux kernel copyrights. SCO has denied this allegation.

Allegations of reverse copying
SCO has claimed a number of instances of IBM Linux code as breaches of contract. These examples include code related to Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), Journaled File System (JFS), Read-copy-update (RCU) and Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA). This code is unquestionably in the Linux kernel, and was added by IBM through the normal kernel submission process. This code was developed and copyrighted by IBM. IBM added features to AIX and Dynix.
SCO claims that they have "control rights" to this due to their licensing agreements with IBM. SCO disavows claiming that they own the code IBM wrote, rather comparing their "control rights" to an easement, rights which allow them to prohibit IBM from publicizing the code they wrote, even though IBM owns the copyrights. They base this claim on language in the original license agreement that requires non-disclosure of the code and claim that all code developed by UNIX licensees that is used with the code under license be held in confidence. This claim is discussed above at Control of derivative works.

IBM code in Linux
Before changing their name to the SCO Group, the company was known as Caldera. Caldera was one of the major distributors of Linux from 1994 to 2003. Some, like Eben Moglen, have suggested that because Caldera distributed the infringing code under the GNU General Public License, or GPL, that this act would license any proprietary code in Linux[5].
SCO has stated that they did not know their own code was in Linux, so releasing it under the GPL does not count. This claim however seems very questionable given that as late as July and August of 2006, long after that claim has been made, they were still distributing allegedly disputed source code under the GPL with apparent full knowledge of the fact [6] [7]
SCO has also claimed in early stages of the litigation, that the GPL is invalid and non-binding and legally unenforcable. [8] In response, supporters of the GPL, such as Eben Moglen, claimed that SCO's right to distribute Linux relied upon the GPL being a valid copyright license[9]. Later court filings by the SCO group in SCO v. IBM use SCO's alleged compliance with the license as a defense to IBM's counterclaims[10].
The GPL has become an issue in SCO v. IBM. Under U.S. copyright law, distribution of creative works whose copyright is owned by another party is illegal without permission from the copyright owner, usually in the form of a license; the GPL is such a license, and thus allows distribution, but only under limited conditions. Since IBM released the relevant code under the terms of the GPL, it claims that the only permission that SCO has to copy and distribute IBM's code in Linux is under the terms and conditions of the GPL, one of which requires the distributor to "accept" the GPL. IBM says that SCO violated the GPL by denouncing the GPL's validity, and by claiming that the GPL violates the U.S. Constitution, together with copyright, antitrust and export control laws. IBM also claims that SCO's SCOsource program is incompatible with the requirement that redistributions of GPLed works must be free of copyright licensing fees (fees may be charged for the acts of duplication and support). IBM has brought counterclaims alleging that SCO has violated the GPL and breached IBM's copyrights by collecting licensing fees while distributing IBM's copyrighted material[11].

Status of current lawsuits

Main article: SCO v. IBM SCO v. IBM

Main article: Red Hat v. SCO Red Hat v. SCO

Main article: SCO v. Novell SCO v. Novell
AutoZone, a corporate user of Linux and former user of SCO OpenServer, was sued by SCO on March 3, 2004. SCO claims AutoZone violated SCO's copyrights by using Linux. This suit has been stayed pending the resolution of the IBM, Red Hat and Novell cases.

SCO v. AutoZone

Main article: SCO v. DaimlerChrysler SCO v. DaimlerChrysler

Other issues and conflicts
On June 23, 2003, SCO sent out a letter announcing that it would not be suing its own Linux customers. [16] In the letter, it states:
"SCO will continue to support our SCO Linux and OpenLinux customers and partners who have previously implemented those products and we will hold them harmless from any SCO intellectual property issues regarding Linux."

SCO announces that it will not sue its own customers
In August 2003, SCO presented two examples of what they claimed was illegal copying of copyrighted code from UNIX to Linux. One of the examples (Berkeley packet filter) was not related to original UNIX code at all. The other example did, however, seem to originate from the UNIX code and was apparently contributed by a UNIX vendor, Silicon Graphics. However, an analysis by the Linux community later revealed that:

The code originated from an even older version of UNIX which at some point was published by Caldera (the same Caldera which had later became SCO) thus making any claim of copyright infringement very shaky.
The code did not do anything. It was in a part of the Linux kernel that was written in anticipation of a Silicon Graphics architecture that was never released.
It had already been removed from the kernel two months earlier.
The contested segment was small (80 lines) and fairly trivial. SCO and SGI
In October 2003, BayStar Capital and Royal Bank of Canada invested USD$50 million in The SCO Group to support the legal cost of SCO's Linux campaign. Later it was shown that BayStar was referred to SCO by Microsoft, whose proprietary Windows operating system competes with Linux. In 2003, BayStar looked at SCO on the recommendation of Microsoft, according to Lawrence R. Goldfarb, managing partner of BayStar Capital: "It was evident that Microsoft had an agenda".
On April 22, 2004, The New York Times (p. C6) reported that BayStar Capital, a private hedge fund which had arranged for $50M in funding for SCO in October 2003, was asking for its $20M back. The remainder of the $50M was from Royal Bank of Canada. SCO stated in their press release that they believed that BayStar did not have grounds for making this demand. [17]
On August 27, 2004 SCO and BayStar resolved their dispute. [18]

SCO and BayStar Capital
The Canopy Group is an investment group with shares in a trust of different companies. It is a group owned by the Noorda family, also founders of Novell.
Until February 2005, Canopy held SCO shares, and the management of SCO held shares of Canopy. The two parties became embroiled in a bitter dispute when the Noorda family sought to oust board member Ralph Yarro III on claims of misappropriation. With internal problems not made public (which included the suicides of an employee and the daughter of Ray Noorda [19]), the Canopy Group agreed to buy back all the shares that SCO had in Canopy in exchange for their SCO shares and cash.
SCO and the Canopy Group are now completely independent.

SCO and Canopy Group
After their initial claim of copyright infringement in the Linux kernel, The SCO Group started their SCOsource initiative which sells licenses of SCO's claimed copyrighted software, other than OpenServer and Unixware licenses. After a small number of high profile sales (including one that was denied by the claimed purchaser), SCO claimed to offer corporate users of Linux a license at $699 (USD) per processor running Linux. However, many individuals have found it impossible to buy such a license from SCO. SCO says that participants of the SCOsource initiative are not liable for any claims that SCO makes against Linux users.

The Michael Davidson Email

Timeline of SCO-Linux controversies
Category:SCO-Linux litigation