SCO seeks to shut down Novell Linux
The SCO Group's long-running legal fight against Linux took a new turn at the very end of 2005. In a Dec. 30 filing, the company sought to expand its lawsuit against Novell, a prior owner of Unix intellectual property and a current seller of the Linux operating system, which SCO argues is tainted with its own Unix intellectual property.
In the filing, SCO proposes amending its claims against Novell. The new claims, if the court permits them to be added, directly target Novell for distributing Linux.
"Through its Linux business, Novell...continues to infringe SCO's copyrights in Unix, by copying, reproducing, modifying, sublicensing and/or distributing Unix intellectual property without authority to do so," SCO said in the proposed amended claims.
In a new breach of contract claim, SCO argues that "Novell has materially breached section 1.6 of the asset purchase agreement...by distributing the licensed technology as part of a product (Linux) that is directly competitive with SCO's core server operating systems." (The asset purchase agreement is the document under which Novell sold some Unix assets to SCO's predecessor, the Santa Cruz Operation.)
SCO also accuses Novell of copyright infringement and unfair competition in the proposed claims.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
