SCO’s latest actions on its Linux intellectual property claims were the highlight of last week. The company concluded an agreement with EV1Servers, started lawsuits against two Linux end-users and announced several other intellectual property agreements.
The SCO Group announced on March 1, 2004 that it had concluded an intellectual property licensing agreement with web hosting provider EV1Servers. According to the agreement, EV1Servers received a site license that allowed it use SCO intellectual property in binary form on all Linux servers situated in EV1’s hosting facilities. Robert Marsh, CEO of Everyones Internet, said that the agreement was intended to eliminate the uncertainty from the operations of EV1’s clients. Representatives of the SCO Group claimed that the agreement was worth a seven-digit number. Many EV1’s customers expressed their dissatisfaction with the deal stating that it provided apparent support of SCO’s claims and effectively contributed money to SCO legal campaign.
Marsh defended the deal in a posting to EV1’s online forum on March 2, 2004, stressing that protecting customers from a potentially expensive legal action was a key factor in the decision. He added that EV1Servers continued to support the open source movement. On the same day, SCO announced that it had started its first lawsuit against a Linux end-user for allegedly violating its intellectual property rights. The user was not identified at first. The news followed an announcement that SCO made in January, which stated that it had sent 6,000 letters to UNIX licensees, asking them to prove their compliance with all UNIX source code agreements.
On March 3, 2004, SCO identified the target of the lawsuit as Autozone, a US dealer of car parts, claiming that its use of Linux operating system violates SCO’s intellectual property rights. SCO also said that it would file a lawsuit against DaimlerChrysler, claiming that it had violated its UNIX software agreement with SCO. According to SCO, DaimlerChrysler declined to provide certification that would prove its compliance with provisions of its UNIX software agreement.
Netcraft, a research and analysis company, said on March 4, 2004 that the majority of Autozone’s web servers were using Sun Solaris as an operating system with the exception of just one of its ten visible web servers, which was using Linux. According to Netcraft, Autozone’s Linux web server appeared to be the front end of an intranet connecting its retail stores that included more than 3,000 Linux machines, based on a 1999 agreement with Red Hat.
In another post to EV1’s forum on March 4, 2004, Marsh refuted SCO’s claims that the intellectual property licensing agreement was worth a seven-digit number. On the same day, SCO announced that another three users have bought intellectual property licenses from the company, the software company Computer Associates, the natural gas supplier Questar and the manufacturer Leggett and Platt.
On March 5, 2004, Sam Greenblatt, Computer Associates senior vice president, said that Computer Associates did not purchase an intellectual property license from SCO, but bought a large number of licenses for SCO’s UnixWare operating system as a part of a $40 million breach of contract lawsuit settlement reached in August 2003 with SCO investor The Canopy Group. According to Greenblatt, the UnixWare licenses indemnified Computer Associates against a potential Linux lawsuit from SCO.
The CEO of Everyones Internet, Robert Marsh said on March 5, 2004 that the company’s decision to pay the licensing fee to SCO was misinterpreted and EV1 did not intend to harm the open source movement. Marsh said that the accusations that EV1 had sided with SCO were a huge disappointment and added that EV1 had never admitted that SCO’s intellectual property was used in Linux. According to Marsh, SCO exaggerated the financial details of the contract and was in violation of the agreement, which prohibited the two companies from revealing financial information about the deal.
