SCO Threatens to Revoke SGI's Unix License Rights

Computerworld - Add Silicon Graphics Inc. to the list of technology companies that have been dragged into The SCO Group Inc.'s Unix copyright infringement dispute.
In an Aug. 13 letter addressed to SGI's legal department and released to the media last week, SCO CEO Darl McBride claimed that SGI's contributions to Linux put it in breach of its 1986 Unix licensing agreement, originally signed with AT&T Corp. but subsequently transferred to SCO.
According to McBride's letter, "SGI flagrantly permitted the copying and use of our proprietary information without any knowledge of the identities of the recipients" and "subjected our source code to unrestricted disclosure, unauthorized transfer and disposition, and unauthorized use and copying."
The letter threatens to terminate SGI's Unix license as of Oct. 14 should SGI fail to "remedy all violations."
Terminating SGI's Unix license would affect SGI's Irix operating system, which uses SCO's System V Unix code, according to SCO spokesman Blake Stowell. "It would mean that they would have to either stop shipping it, or either destroy or return all copies of Irix to SCO," Stowell said.
Meritless Allegations
Mountain View, Calif.-based SGI responded to SCO's letter in early September with a letter claiming that SCO's allegations were without merit, said SGI spokeswoman Marty Coleman. "Our license is fully paid and nonterminable. They can't terminate it," she said. "We don't believe that their allegation of breach of contract has any merit."
SGI appears set to follow in the footsteps of IBM, which in June had its license to distribute its AIX operating system revoked by SCO following similar allegations. IBM continues to distribute AIX, and the question of whether it breached its System V Unix agreement is now the subject of a $3 billion lawsuit.
Prior to revoking IBM's Unix license, SCO sued the company for breach of contract. Stowell declined to say whether or not Lindon, Utah-based SCO was planning similar legal action against SGI.
Two users of SGI hardware in the scientific community said they have no concerns about the escalating legal fight between SGI and SCO.
Thomas Quinn, a professor of astronomy at the University of Washington in Seattle, said the SCO case against IBM has been in his mind for months because he has other machines running Linux in his lab. But he said action by SCO against SGI won't affect the use of his two SGI Altix 3000 systems. "I'm assuming that SGI is just going to continue to support my machines," he said. "I don't have too much reason to be concerned.
"At the moment, just from what I read [about the SCO lawsuit against IBM] ... as far as I can tell, the SCO case is essentially baseless," Quinn said. "I'm going with the assumption that this case is really not going to come through, and even if it does, it's going to take such a long time, it's beyond my horizon."
Thomas Zacharia, an associate lab director at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., agreed.
"These kinds of things always happen in industry," as companies have disagreements and battle issues out in the courts, Zacharia said. "We try to stay out of these external activities. These things don't really come into our realm." The lab uses an SGI Altix 3000 supercomputer with 256 Intel Corp. Itanium 2 processors.
McMillan writes for the IDG News Service. Todd R. Weiss contributed to this report.

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