SCO is suing, so IBM sues it

The legal battles over the Unix and Linux computer operating systems featured another volley Thursday as International Business Machines Corp. countersued Lindon-based SCO Group, saying SCO has hurt IBM business.

The action follows SCO's suit against IBM filed in the spring, and since amended, seeking several billion dollars for what SCO alleges are IBM's breach of a licensing contract by putting parts of SCO's Unix into Linux, a free and changeable operating system for which IBM and other companies are making products.

IBM papers filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Utah called SCO's claims baseless and accused SCO of a pattern of misrepresenting SCO's rights to Unix and disparaging Linux and the "open-source" movement. IBM has licensed with SCO to produce its own Unix version called AIX.

IBM is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, an assertion that SCO has violated IBM's rights, and an injunction that restrains SCO from misrepresenting the companies' rights to Unix technology, publishing false and disparaging statements about and misrepresenting that IBM no longer can distribute AIX and IBM's Linux-related products, among others.

New York-based IBM also alleged that SCO has misused its supposed rights to Unix as a way to "threaten destruction" of AIX and Linux "and to extract windfall profits for its unjust enrichment."

IBM's countersuit was the second legal action against SCO this week. On Monday, North Carolina-based Red Hat Inc. sued in Delaware federal court to stop SCO from making what Red Hat considers "unsubstantiated and untrue public statements attacking Red Hat Linux and the integrity of the open-source software development process."

SCO has accused Red Hat as being among the culprits illegally placing Unix System V source code into Linux.

"We view IBM's counterclaim filing today as an effort to distract attention from its flawed Linux business model," SCO said Thursday in response to the IBM action. "It repeats the same unsubstantiated allegations made in Red Hat's filing earlier this week."

SCO also said IBM urges customers to use non-warranted, unprotected software that violates SCO's intellectual property rights in Unix "and fails to give comfort to customers going forward in use of Linux."

SCO CEO Darl McBride has criticized Red Hat and IBM for failing to legally protect end users of its products. "The continuing refusal to provide customer indemnification is IBM's truest measure of belief in its recently filed claims," SCO said.