IBM to hand code over to SCO
Publish date: 26 January 2005
Issue Number: 1065
Diary: Legalbrief eLaw
Category: Copyright
Last week IBM lost a round in its long-running intellectual property dispute over the Linux operating system when a US judge ordered it to hand over some two billion lines of the software code from its AIX and Dynix operating systems to rival The SCO Group.
Both these systems are versions of the Unix system, the right to which are held by SCO. The disclosure could help SCO determine whether any of its own code was improperly included in Linux, as it has alleged. Should this be the case, it would be in breach of the contract under which IBM has rights to use Unix, reports the Financial Times. In addition, the judge ordered IBM to give SCO information on the 3 000 software developers most directly involved in writing its own programs. The software code in question is at the centre of the lawsuit, which SCO filed in 2003 accusing IBM of violating its trade secrets by introducing part of its Unix code into Linux. Full report in the Financial Times And, a report in the New York Times
