SCOsource is a business division of
The SCO Group
The SCO Group (often referred to SCO and later called The TSG Group) was an American software company in existence from 2002 to 2012 that became known for owning Unix operating system assets that had belonged to the Santa Cruz Operation (the o ...
that managed its (now
legally voided)
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
. The term SCOsource is often used for SCO's licensing program that allowed corporate users of
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
to buy licenses to proprietary Unix technology that SCO claimed exists in the Linux
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
. A single
CPU license costs $699 (USD).
On July 21, 2003, SCO announced that it intended to sell binary-only licences to use the free Linux operating system which would remove the threat of litigation from licence-holders. Linux advocates reacted by stating that SCO had no basis for this action, as their claims were still disputed in court, and that the terms of the GPL seemed to indicate that doing this may cause SCO to forfeit their rights to distribute Linux or Linux-derived code in any form.
EV1Servers.net
On March 1, 2004, SCO announced it had reached a license agreement with
EV1Servers.net, which allowed EV1Servers to use some of SCO's "intellectual property
SCO's Blake Stowell claimed the deal was worth upward of "seven figures" ($1,000,000) while a few days later EV1Servers CEO Robert Marsh claimed the amount was much lower. The exact amount was required to remain secret under terms of the agreement.
Computer Associates
During discovery of the
SCO v. IBM case, SCO attorney Mark J. Heise wrote a letter answering some questions raised by IBM's attorneys. In this letter, sent on February 4, 2004 and published on
Groklaw
''Groklaw'' is a website that covered legal news of interest to the free and open source software community. Started as a law blog on May 16, 2003 by paralegal Pamela Jones (''"PJ"''), it covered issues such as the SCO-Linux lawsuits, the EU ...
on February 10, 2004, Heise revealed that Computer Associates bought a Linux intellectual property license from SCO. On March 4, 2004 Computerweekly.com published an extensive article in which SCO CFO Robert Bench confirmed this. Computer Associates later denied buying licenses from SC
{dead link, date=April 2018 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes :
:''CA senior VP of product development Mark Barrenechea says that Bench's claim is nonsense. CA has not paid SCO any Linux taxes, he said. Drawing up short of calling SCO a liar, Barrenechea claims that SCO has twisted a $40 million breach-of-contract settlement that CA paid last summer to the Canopy Group, SCO's biggest stockholder, and Center 7, another Canopy company, and has turned it into a purported Linux license.''
:''As a 'small part' of that settlement, Barrenechea said, CA got a bunch of UnixWare licenses that it needed to support its UnixWare customers. SCO, he said, had just attached a transparent Linux indemnification to all UnixWare licenses and that is how SCO comes off calling CA a Linux licensee.''
See also
*
SCO–Linux disputes
In a series of legal disputes between SCO Group and Linux vendors and users SCO alleged that its license agreements with IBM meant that source code IBM wrote and donated to be incorporated into Linux was added in violation of SCO's contractual rig ...
*
Groklaw
''Groklaw'' is a website that covered legal news of interest to the free and open source software community. Started as a law blog on May 16, 2003 by paralegal Pamela Jones (''"PJ"''), it covered issues such as the SCO-Linux lawsuits, the EU ...
External links
Groklaw– An online community dedicated to following the progress of the various lawsuits and investigating the claims SCO makes
SCO–Linux disputes