IBM: SCO guilty of further copyright violations
IBM: SCO guilty of further copyright violations
IBM has added fuel to an already flaming hot row over Linux by accusing SCO of further infringements of IBM copyrights.
Big Blue had already launched a countersuit against SCO back in early August, claiming that it breached the terms of the General Public License (GPL) under which it distributed a version of Linux, and violated four of IBM's patents. IBM is now claiming that SCO has violated copyrights on seven pieces of IBM-copyrighted software that IBM contributed to Linux under the GPL.
The legal battle started in March, when SCO sued IBM for $US3 billion, claiming that IBM moved proprietary Unix code into Linux and breached the terms of its Unix license with SCO.
In the now expanded counterclaim, IBM says it "granted SCO and others a non-exclusive license to the above-listed copyrighted contributions to Linux on the terms set out in the GPL and only on the terms set out in the GPL," adding that "SCO has infringed and is infringing IBM's copyrights by copying, modifying, sublicensing and/or distributing Linux products except as expressly provided under the GPL."
IBM also defended its decision not to offer indemnity to its customers against legal action from SCO, as HP has done, saying that indemnity runs fundamentally counter to the Linux value proposition, and that the very nature of open source, with customers modifying source code, would often invalidate any indemnity agreement in any case, as such agreements are often narrowly drawn.
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