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The SCO Group, reviled among open-source software aficionados for lawsuits alleging that Linux is filled with proprietary Unix technology, announced on Monday a new open-source software collection called SCAMP.

SCAMP is the Lindon, Utah-based company's take on a widely used open-source software collection called LAMP. LAMP combines Linux with the Apache Web server, MySQL database and the PHP, Perl or Python scripting languages; SCAMP substitutes SCO's Open Server version of Unix instead of Linux.

The product costs $999 for a license permitting five users to access the server, a price that includes one year of support for SCO OpenServer and MySQL database. SCO signed a support partnership with MySQL in September, a partnership that contrasted with its legal assertion that the General Public License (GPL) that governs MySQL is unconstitutional and violates various United States laws.

AIX, IBM's version of Unix, celebrated its 20th birthday this month.

The operating system was first introduced in January 1986, a time when there were numerous variations of the operating system initially developed by AT&T but widely licensed to others. In the two decades since, Unix has penetrated mainstream businesses, and the major Unix options have consolidated to AIX, Sun Microssytems' Solaris and Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX.

IBM's Unix version is under fire, however, because of the SCO Group's lawsuit against Big Blue. SCO, which inherited the AT&T Unix contract with IBM, argues IBM moved code into open-source Linux from AIX and Dynix--another Unix version IBM acquired in 1999. As a result, SCO tried to revoke IBM's Unix licenses in 2003.

IBM says SCO's claims are bogus and that its Unix rights are perpetual. In the years since SCO's suit began, IBM has increased its Unix server market share and, by IDC's measurement, reached No. 1 in revenue in the second quarter of 2005.

Big Blue also is a major backer of Linux, and Sun delights in accusing Big Blue of being conflicted in its priorities. Indeed, one top IBM server executive called Linux the "logical successor" to Unix. However, IBM persists in developing AIX. In December, for example, it announced the opening of its AIX Collaboration Center in Austin, Texas, and said it would spend $200 million there to test software on AIX and encourage innovation atop the operating system.

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.

It took more than two and a half years, but the SCO Group finally has disclosed a list of areas in which it believes IBM violated its Unix contract, allegedly by moving proprietary Unix technology into open-source Linux.

In a five-page document filed Friday, SCO attorneys say they have identified 217 areas in which the company believes IBM or Sequent, a Unix server company IBM acquired, violated contracts under which SCO and its predecessors licensed the Unix operating system. However, the curious won't be able to see for themselves the details of SCO's claims: The full list of alleged abuses were filed in a separate document under court seal.

The Lindon, Utah-based company did provide some information about what it believes IBM moved improperly to Linux.

"Some of these wrongful disclosures include areas such as an entire file management system; others are communications by IBM personnel working on Linux that resulted in enhancing Linux functionality by disclosing a method or concept from Unix technology," SCO said. "The numerosity and substantiality of the disclosures reflects the pervasive extent and sustained degree as to which IBM disclosed methods, concepts, and in many places, literal code, from Unix-derived technologies in order to enhance the ability of Linux to be used as a scalable and reliable operating system for business and as an alternative to proprietary Unix systems such as those licensed by SCO and others."

District Judge Dale Kimball, overseeing the case in U.S. District Court in Utah, has expressed skepticism for SCO's claims. He said in a February ruling, "Viewed against the backdrop of SCO's plethora of public statements concerning IBM's and others' infringement of SCO's purported copyrights to the Unix software, it is astonishing that SCO has not offered any competent evidence to create a disputed fact regarding whether IBM has infringed SCO's alleged copyrights through IBM's Linux activities."

SCO, whose Unix business continues to struggle, said it will file a final report on the alleged abuses on Dec. 22.

Months late, the SCO Group has unveiled a Web site set up to detail its claims against Linux, which the company argues in court cases violates its own Unix intellectual property.

SCO said in October it planned to set up the Web site--something of a counterbalance to the Groklaw site that frequently takes potshots at SCO's claims. Initially expected to be called ProSCO and upon launch in November, the site ended up with the name SCO IP.

The site is "designed to provide you with factual information around litigation related to the SCO Group," it said. So far, it contains only legal filings from the five major legal cases. SCO sued IBM, Novell, AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler, and Linux seller Red Hat sued SCO.

More information is planned, spokesman Blake Stowell said. "We hope to add a legal calendar in the future so people can track deadlines for discovery and know when upcoming filings and hearings are due to take place," he said. "We also plan on some helpful legal links and a brief Q&A."

Some of the legal documents came from Groklaw and another site that details the legal case, Tuxrocks. Stowell acknowledged that the rival sites supplied some of the documents.