The SCO Group has asked a US court to dismiss a legal
action against it by Red Hat. The move is the latest round of its
legal fight over Linux.In its motion filed in the US District Court
in Delaware, SCO contends that Red Hat's grounds for its lawsuit
are baseless, in part because Red Hat is seeking to defend its
open-source Linux operating system against a non-existent legal
challenge from SCO.
"Red Hat's legal action does nothing more than
seek general guidance for the marketplace as to the legal rights
SCO has with respect to Linux software," the company said in its
motion to the court. "This is an impermissible use of the
Declaratory Judgment Act."
Unix developer SCO launched a legal battle
against IBM in March with a lawsuit seeking at least $1bn in
damages, claiming that IBM had illegally used the Unix operating
system, owned by SCO, to build its Linux software source code.
IBM strongly denied the charges in a
countersuit, saying it had not misappropriated any trade secrets,
engaged in unfair competition, interfered with SCO's Unix contracts
or breached any contractual obligations to SCO.
In August, Red Hat filed a formal complaint
asserting that its technologies do not infringe on SCO's
intellectual property and accusing SCO of attempting to discredit
Linux and harm those promoting the free open-source software.
Red Hat's suit asked for a declaratory
judgment from the district court that would rule SCO's claims
regarding copyright infringement as untrue, while also asking the
court to hold SCO accountable for "unfair and deceptive
actions".
In Monday's motion for dismissal, SCO said Red
Hat was not defending itself against legal action - because SCO has
not filed any lawsuit against Red Hat - but rather was trying to
defend itself against SCO actions that are, in themselves,
protected by law, including the First Amendment.
"Red Hat's real motive for filing suit against
SCO was to somehow vindicate the entire Linux industry," SCO
contends in the motion.
A spokesman for SCO said its move was simply a
logical response to an unwarranted lawsuit. "We're just denying the
things that Red Hat has claimed in its complaint," said Blake
Stowell, a SCO spokesman on Monday.
"We've never publicly stated that we planned
to sue Red Hat or threatened to sue Red Hat… it's never been our
intention to sue Red Hat and we have no plans to do that."
Representatives from Red Hat could not be
immediately reached for comment.
Laura Rohde writes for IDG News Service