SCO Group chief executive officer Darl McBride has
claimed that IBM is stage-managing the open-source community's
response to his company's $3bn lawsuit against IBM over
contributions to the Linux source code.
"We have absolute direct knowledge of this. If you go behind the
scenes, the attacks that we get that don't have IBM's name on them,
underneath the covers, are sponsored by IBM," he said.
When responding to criticism that his company is trying its case
against IBM in the press, McBride said that SCO has simply been
standing up for its rights when attacked.
However, SCO's public relations department has had a busy few
months. McBride proudly dumped two phone-book-sized binders of
press clippings on the stage during his SCO Forum keynote on Monday
as proof that his company had become more relevant in the
high-technology industry.
SCO has issued 46 press releases since filing suit against IBM
on 7 March. Last year, it issued only 29 press releases between
March and August.
SCO sued IBM in March, claiming it had inappropriately
contributed code to the Linux operating system in violation of a
Unix licensing contract that IBM had signed with AT&T but that
had later been transferred to SCO.
In May, Novell claimed that it, and not IBM, had the rights to
the Unix source code - a claim it later retracted.
Three months later, in August, Linux distributor Red Hat sued
SCO in connection with its Linux claims, and two days later IBM
filed a counterclaim against SCO, accusing it of ten charges,
including breach of contract, interference with prospective
economic relations and violation of a number of IBM's software
patents.
Since the IBM suit was launched, SCO has been blasted by Linux
enthusiasts and developers. The level of SCO criticism increased
this week as Linux enthusiasts analysed two snippets of code that
SCO presented as proof of intellectual property violations in
Linux.
McBride declined to reveal the sources of his allegations, but
he claimed that IBM was involved in Novell's and Red Hat's
responses to SCO's lawsuit.
"Even though IBM looks like they're not really involved in it,
they're very involved," he said. "From a PR standpoint, they're
able to extract themselves from the dispute, and so they throw Red
Hat at us, they throw Novell at us, they have [Open Source
Initiative president] Eric Raymond on their payroll. They have all
these guys that they fund and then they just step back and watch
the fracas go on."
IBM spokeswoman Trink Guarino declined to comment on McBride's
allegations other than to say, "the open community is completely
capable of reacting on its own to SCO's allegations."
Red Hat spokeswoman Leigh Day was even more taciturn, saying
only, "The suit was filed by Red Hat alone."
However, Raymond, who in March co-authored a position paper
criticising SCO's claims, was more forthcoming. "IBM had absolutely
nothing to do with the publication of that position paper," he
said.
"IBM's legal people have not been co-ordinating attacks on SCO.
. . Those attacks have been happening because our community is
outraged. IBM didn't have to talk to us or suborn us or bribe us or
anything else. They happened because we were outraged by SCO's
attempt to hijack our work."
After the position paper was published, Raymond was quizzed by
IBM lawyers on what he had written. "I'm proud to say that I think
it helped them," he said, adding that he has never acted as an
agent or spokesman for IBM.
McBride also pointed to the involvement in the dispute of the
Free Software Foundation, whose legal counsel, Eben Moglen, has
issued a position paper critical of SCO, and Linus Torvalds, who
has been increasingly vocal in his criticism of the Unix
company.
"You've got all of these guys and it looks like the whole world
is coming against SCO. It's really IBM that has wired in all of
these relationships," he said. "That's why it looks like they're
sitting back and not doing anything. It's us fighting a whole bunch
of people that they put on the stage."
Novell declined to comment on this story.
Robert McMillan writes for IDG News Service