SCO's lawsuit against IBM: overview

This document was written in 2003. I revisited it ten years later, in June 2013 and tidied it up a little. Since then it seems that almost all my links on the web have disappeared. My last comment of ten years ago:

I have stopped working on this document. It reflects the situation roughly in October 2003. Since then, I have become convinced that SCO's claims are bogus, and that they are acting either dishonestly or with a staggering lack of understanding. There's nothing I can do to address either of these issues.

by Greg Lehey

On this site

I have written a detailed analysis of SCO's attacks against free software, notably IBM and Linux. Some of these have been brought up to date. Others are still in the mess that I called HTML in 2003. On this site, you'll find my comments about the following topics. The dates on some of them are the last modification date of the page.

Other links

I'm not the only person to have discussed this matter, of course. I found the following links of interest, but nowadays it seems most of them have atrophied. I'd be grateful for any help updating them.

SCO home page
SCO's complaint against IBM.
Eric Raymond's position paper
Éric Lévénez's UNIX family tree
SCO's corruption of the family tree.
Caldera's release of “Ancient UNIX” under a BSD-style license
SCO's own contribution to Linux SMP code.
SCO stock price
AUUG's reaction to the affair.
Novell's letter to SCO
Linuxtag's legal action against SCO in Germany
EEtimes article about “proof” of System V code in Linux.
Robert Cringely's article on the subject.
SCO's announcement of the termination of IBM's AIX license.
Byte magazine's interview with Chris Sontag, SCO's Senior Vice President. I have written an analysis of this interview.
The Open Group's statement about the ownership of UNIX.
Forbes article What SCO Wants, SCO Gets.
Stefan Hildemann also looked at the code and commented. Due to an error on the part of the lawyers, he did not sign an NDA. Here's an English version.
Ian Lance Taylor looked at the offending code.
Robert Cringely finds the source of some of the code.
The Open Group on SCO's claims to UNIX
Dennis Ritchie maintains an overview of UNIX licenses.
TWikIWeThey overview page
SCO's own Enterprise Grade Linux.
Richard Stallman speaks
Claims that SCO copied Linux code into UnixWare.
Con Zymaris on the affair.
Sydney Morning Herald article on Con Zymaris' matrix.
SCO's VP of Engineering bailing?
More arguments for SCO's own inclusion of UNIX code in Linux
Interview with Linus Torvalds.
SCO announces that they're forcing UNIX source code onto Linux users and demanding a license fee for it.
Australian Trades Practices Act
Summary of the Australian Trades Practices Act
No go SCO, say Linux users
Red Hat files complaint against SCO. Here's a PDF version.
SCO's licensing prices
Groklaw's web log.
SCOSUCKS.COM
SCO executives benefit from inflated stock price
Is there Linux code in SCO? Join the SCO code bounty hunt and find out.
The Inquirer reports on IBM's countersuit.
Transcript of IBM's countersuit.
Heise: “SCO threatens to kill Open Source” (German).
Heise: SCO vs. Linux: /* Der Beweis und seine Folgen */
Heise: Know yourself (German)
NewsNow SCO page
Eric Raymond's Open Letter to Darl McBride
Eric Raymond condemns DoS attack against SCO
Eric Raymond's detailed rebuttal of the SCO complaint
AUUG 2003 panel on SCO, 3 September 2003.
SCO admits it doesn't know where their code examples come from
Darl McBride's Letter to the Open Source Community.
Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens reply to Darl McBride.
Eben Moglen on SCO's tactics and understanding.
HP offers to indemnify customers
IBM extends countersuit
BayStar invests in SCO
SCO subpoenas open source leaders
Why SCO will soon be going after BSD
Bob Young's Open Letter to Darl McBride