SCO suit

[Paul Richards]

On Tue, Jun 24, 2003 at 01:14:32PM +0100, Frank Shute wrote:
> 
> My expectation is a countersuit from IBM saying "SCO stole some of our
> IP". IBM have to show to the world that stolen IP/code hassles don't
> just apply to the Linux world, if they're going to protect their Linux
> business. 

The patent issue might be something that raises it's head later and that
might make things a whole lot messier for everyone.

On the contract front though, SCO don't have to show that IBM stole any
code from Unix, what they have to show is that IBM has been developing
code that was covered under the contract and that that code ended up in
Linux in breach of the contract.

The Linux Journal article suggests that may be exactly what the original
AT&T contract prohibited. I speculated that might be the case when I was
discussing this with Greg. I think SCO may have  case in suing IBM for
breach of contract because they only had access to the Unix source code
in order to work on AIX. If they made use of the knowledge derived from
seeing that code to work on Linux then they've probably breached the
contract.

-- 
Tis a wise thing to know what is wanted, wiser still to know when
it has been achieved and wisest of all to know when it is unachievable
for then striving is folly. [Magician]