The man who claims there are Unix copyright violations within the Linux open source operating system is taking his fight to the Berkeley Software Design (BSD) (define) community, which maintains an open source "genetic" version of Unix (define). SCO Group (Quote, Chart) CEO Darl McBride said his company is currently comparing source code awarded in a 1994 settlement between AT&T's (Quote, Chart) Unix Systems Laboratories and BSD, in which Berkeley's version of the Unix source was severed from the proprietary version. The Lindon, Utah-based SCO claims its copyrighted Unix code was incorporated into Linux without authorization or appropriate copyright notices. It has sued IBM over the issue and said this week other lawsuits are planned against major users of Linux. "I agree that the more yarn you pull out the more you see," McBride said during a press briefing at the inaugural Enterprise IT Week at cdXpo Conference here. "We have enough sorted out, but we are so focused on the [IBM litigation]. With our limited energies and what our guys are going through, we probably won't file any suits against BSD until sometime in the first half of next year."
But that has not precluded SCO from announcing Tuesday that it plans on firing off another round of legal maneuvers in the next 90 days aimed at a major user of the Linux operating systems. McBride said SCO warned the Fortune 1,000 and the Global 500 earlier this year, in the form of an open-letter, that said legal action could be possible if they don't pay a licensing fee on parts of the Linux operating system that SCO alleges are infringing on its copyright. McBride said his legal team has compiled a list of about 24 companies, including some international firms, that it is contacting over its copyright infringment claims. "SCO is contacting customers to either license or litigate," McBride said during his keynote. "As we go forward we will continue to do battle, but we hope for a position where we can settle this amicably." During the past seven months, the company said it has uncovered a number of substantial software code issues as they pertain to SCO's Unix intellectual property and Linux. The company has already filed a lawsuit against IBM (Quote, Chart) last March alleging that Big Blue made its proprietary version of the Unix operating system, AIX, available to the open source community.
News source: @NewYork.com
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