It seems that with the help of their lawyers from Boies, Schiller and Flexner (Boies of US v. IBM, US v. Microsoft, and Bush v. Gore fame), The SCO Group has decided to expand their legal action on copyright infringement considerably. In maneuvering that conjures up images of the RIAA, SCO has decided to file copyright infringement suits against several of the 1,500 firms that received notice earlier this year of SCO's claims. Blake Stowell, the spokesperson for SCO was obtuse about the specific targets:
The first legal target is unnamed at this point, but "it will be one of the companies that received one of the [1,500] letters we sent out back in May, although it would have to be in the Fortune 1000," Stowell said.
Clearly SCO is taking a similar tact to the RIAA in which they appear to be trying to induce settlements from firms by making an example out of a select few. SCO believes that these suits will be considerably less complicated than their suit against IBM, and will therefore reach resolution quickly. One can't help but wonder on precisely what grounds that would be, as SCO has yet to reveal anything specific which would lend them a legal leg to stand on.
Perhaps more startling though, is the new suggestion from SCO that not just Linux, but BSD as well is in violation of their copyrights and that furthermore, they are planning on pursuing litigation on that front as well. The incestuous relationship between (Unix) System V, BSD, and Linux seems to have provided SCO with the impetus to start examining the settlement that was made between BSD and Unix System Laboratories in 1994.
"As part of the settlement agreement that took place between BSD and AT&T and Novell, there were certain files that had to have the copyright attribution put back in," Stowell said. "Copyright attribution has been stripped away from certain code, and we're seeing that same situation taking place with Linux with those same exact BSD files," he said. "Those files have gone back into Linux, and the copyright attribution has been stripped away."Those BSD files must have their copyright attribution restored, Stowell said. Additionally, "there were Unix System V files within BSD that were not supposed to be there, and those files had to be removed from BSD," he said. "And we're claiming those files that were supposed to have been removed from BSD have made their way into Linux."
Between BSD and Linux, SCO has all but claimed everything Unix-y as falling under their copyright. It's not altogether clear who precisely SCO would go after in litigation over their BSD claims, but it's a safe bet that it will be someone. Presumably they are looking at all commercial organizations involved with the packaging and distribution of the major BSD flavors; and if their above strategy regarding Linux holds, they'll go after large companies that employ BSD-based systems as well. As an Aberdeen Group analyst observes though, it's not an insignificant burden of proof to show that just because there is BSD code in Linux, said code in Linux must be a derived work of System V simply because BSD code was in System V (or vice-versa). If you aren't confused yet, SCO has more to keep your head spinning. They are also suing Novell for competing with them. Last I checked, Novell isn't choosing new software companies to sue every week by throwing darts at a listing of companies on the NASDAQ, so it's hard to say how exactly they are competing with SCO, but as usual SCO asserts that it all comes back to Linux.
