SCO v. IBM

On March 6, 2003, the SCO Group (formerly known as Caldera Systems) filed a $1 billion lawsuit in the US against IBM for allegedly "devaluing" its version of the UNIX operating system. The amount of alleged damages was later increased to $3 billion, and then $5 billion. SCO claimed that IBM had, without authorization, contributed SCO's intellectual property to the codebase of the open source, Unix-like Linux operating system. In May 2003 SCO Group sent letters to members of the Fortune 1000 and Global 500 companies warning them of the possibility of liability if they use Linux. Because of this, the stock price of SCO's stock (Nasdaq stock symbol SCOX) skyrocketed to around $US 20 in October of 2003, although as of February of 2005 it has since returned to $US 3 - $US 4, very near its original, pre-lawsuit level. For more information, see this table (courtesy Yahoo!), showing SCOX stock price history.

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Since then, the claims and counter-claims made by both sides have escalated, with both IBM and Linux distributor Red Hat starting legal action against SCO, SCO making threatening remarks toward Linux users who do not take out SCO UNIX licenses, and SCO starting lawsuits against Novell (see also Linux#Litigation), AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler.

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On September 30, 2003, Judge Kimball granted the SCO Group's request for a delay until February 4, 2004, "to file any amended pleadings or add parties to this action". The schedule was amended again on July 1, 2005. The trial is currently scheduled to begin in February 2007.

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This is just one of a series of lawsuits in which SCO is involved. Other lawsuits in which SCO is involved are Red Hat v. SCO, SCO v. Novell, SCO v. AutoZone, SCO v. DaimlerChrysler.

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March 6: March 6 is the 65th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (66th in Leap years). There are 300 days remaining....

2003: 2003(MMIII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. It was designated the:...

SCO Group: The SCO Group, Inc. (TSG, informally SCO), a former Canopy Group company formerly called Caldera Systems and Caldera International. After acquiring Santa Cruz Operation's Server Software and Services divisions, as well as UnixWare and OpenServer technologies, the company changed its focus to UNIX. ...

SCO v. IBM related Images and Photos (experimental)

Technician Manipulating 1 of Hundreds of Dials on Panel of IBM's Room Size Eniac Computer