SCO to file lawsuit against enterprise Linux user
SCO to file lawsuit against enterprise Linux user
Hot on the heels of naming a large enterprise Linux user that had signed up for its intellectual property licence, The SCO Group revealed plans to widen its legal attack on the Linux community by filing a lawsuit against a large company using the open source operating system.
Speaking at the Software 2004 conference in San Francisco, SCO Chief Executive Darl McBride would not reveal the name of the organisation the SCO is to pursue in the courts, but said it was a recognised name.
McBride also revealed that the company will be pursuing other large enterprise users through the courts. It is unlikely that SCO will score any quick victories while the legal wrangle of the use of Unix source code is still in progress.
SCO owns the intellectual property for the Unix operating system, parts of which it claims has been illegally moved into Linux by IBM. It is currently suing IBM for US$5 billion for the alleged violation.
As a result of the alleged moving of proprietary source code, SCO considers enterprise Linux users to be liable to pay SCO for the use of the Unix code within their Linux infrastructures, and has made available a licence which it is encouraging Linux users to purchase. It is looking for a fee of US$699 per single processor server to use Linux.
So far, there have been very few takers, as most organisations are waiting for the outcome of the ongoing court case between SCO and IBM before deciding whether or not to purchase the licence.
Earlier this week, SCO announced that EV1Servers.Net, a hosting division of Houston-based Everyone's Internet (EV1.Net), had signed an intellectual property agreement.
The licences have been available in Australia for a few weeks now, but no takers have been announced.
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