SCO Group Readies New Platform

"If you go back into the 80s and 90s, Unix on Intel was on the SCO platform. Where is Linux playing out today? Its primarily a Unix on Intel variant. So, by taking our libraries and the compatibility standard we have called Linux ABI, and putting those two pieces in, you get backward compatibility with all of those apps, and thats important to a lot of folk," he said.

The notion of Linux IP was a hot potato issue in the open-source and Linux community, and he said SCO was also concerned about a number of other issues relating to IP it owned, like that which may have found its way into BSD.

As such, the company approached Boies to deal with the matter as "we wanted to find a guy who was used to dealing with complicated legal issues," McBride said.

Karen Smith, the vice president of Linux strategy and market development for IBM, told eWEEK that she is comfortable with the licensing terms of the GPL, which allows vendors to license value-added components of their technology.

"SCO remains a key member of the UnitedLinux consortium and they, like us, abide by the licensing requirements and terms of the GPL (General Public License), which allows vendors to license proprietary value-added components of their technology.

Michael Tiemann, CTO of Red Hat, told eWEEK in an interview that he was fairly certain that if it involved proprietary Unix technology, Red Hat had no concern. "But every time people get engaged in unproductive arguments, it slows things down.

"What the IT industry needs today is a direction forward and as long as were fighting these border skirmishes about this library and that thing there, is it Lindows, is it Windows, thats a distraction," he said.

(Editors Note: A portion of this story was edited for clarity.)

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