Unix developer sends letters to large Linux users charging them with violations of DMCA
By Joris Evers, IDG News Service December 22, 2003
SCO sent out letters to selected large Linux users charging them with violations of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The letter outlines what SCO claims are copyright violations related to Linux. Certain application binary interfaces have been copied from SCO's Unix System V code into Linux without proper authorization or copyright attribution, the Lindon, Utah-based company said in a statement.
The letter, dated Dec. 19 and posted to the www.sco.com Web site on Monday, includes the largest listing of alleged copyright violations provided by SCO to date. It lists 71 files from the Linux 2.4.21 kernel that, it claims, are identical to SCO's Unix System V code. These files were allowed to be re-distributed as part of a 1992 settlement agreement between AT&T Corp. and the developers of the Berkeley Software Distribution operating system, but they may not be used in Linux, SCO said.
"We have a clear-cut set of violations here," said Darl McBride, SCO's chief executive officer.
Removing the code in question would make it impossible to run current applications on Linux, he added. "This is very substantial in reach in that every application that's been written, you're going to have to rewrite," he said.
Linux advocates disputed McBride's interpretation, saying that the issues SCO brings up have already been addressed in the 1992 AT&T settlement. "This issue has actually been resolved in court quite a long time ago in that APIs (application program interfaces) are not copyrightable," said Bruce Perens, a founder of the Open Source Initiative.
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