“They're mostly located in Redmond although they have recruited a few allies,” said Zollar.
He then indicated that SCO -- which is currently making intellectual property claims over code contained in some versions of Linux and manoeuvring to extract licence fees from commercial applications of the operating system -- was part of the alliance.
The licence claims were the latest of a series of events since SCO and IBM became embroiled in a high-profile legal dispute over the code. SCO claims that it has intellectual property rights over portions of code that IBM, among other companies, misappropriated and added to Linux source. It alleges that the code was lifted directly from a version of Unix System V, over which it has claimed copyright.
IBM did not take the opportunity to elaborate on Zollar’s statement about the alleged relationship between the two companies.
Some industry observers and open-source proponents claim that SCO’s legal dispute is a deliberate move to create uncertainty over the intellectual property rights of collaboratively developed software applications.
IBM has made clear its belief in the importance of Linux to its customer offerings and server strategy.
IBM yesterday said that it had witnessed 600 percent growth in the deployment of Linux in its iSeries mid-range server platform throughout the Asia Pacific region. However, the company added that the operating system was not yet being used for core applications.
Zollar said Linux progress in the enterprise space was unstoppable and he described SCO’s claims as “silly”.
Talkback
LINUX IS PUBLIC DOMAIN, a la ASHTON-TATE: dBASE!
I am absolutely outraged by the SCO claim and have not heard of such a ludicrously ambitious claim since the equally absurd BT hyperlink patent. I think this is yet another attempt to make money by dragging through old patents and copyrights, which only serves to slow the progress of computing and frustrate users as a knock on effect.
While I share the outrage expressed by Travis Grant, my reaction is (somewhat) tempered by the near certainty that someone would pull a stunt like this eventually, therefore creating the unavoidable necessity of engaging in fight someday. In fact, it's really a sign of Linux' success that someone would try to get free money off of it.
The Della Croce incident (in which an individual registered LINUX as a trademark and attempted to claim royalties from those using the name) was a forshadowing of a larger claims to unearned rights to come. Of course, it's easy for me to say that now. I didn't see it coming and wouldn't have predicted it, even though, in retrospect, I think I should have known better.
Annoying as it is, this scenario or one like it was going to have to play out eventually. Of course SCO and those arrayed at their side would like for us to believe that they've already won and the whole thing's a done deal, but it's not that easy.
This may take years, as brief after brief is submitted, reviewed, reviled, and revised, and hearing after hearing on minor points of law is schedule, rescheduled, heard, reheard, rehashed, revised, reviewed, rescheduled, etc. etc. etc...
Hopefully it won't that bad, but count on it, it will go on for a long time and we need to be prepared for the long haul. I think SCO can't win, but unfortunately, they don't really have to -- there'll be plenty of ways to make money off of this fiasco between now and the it's finally decided.