SCO to send out Linux invoices
C|Net | at | by Mike
Get your checkbook ready, its time to pay the piper!
The SCO Group is turning up the heat in its attempt to impose Unix license fees for Linux use: It plans to begin sending invoices to companies before the month is out.
Sending invoices, while a more-aggressive move, still stops short of the kind of legal action the company has threatened before. In July, SCO Chief Executive Darl McBride described the licensing program as "a solution that...gets you square with the use of Linux, without having to go to the courtroom."
SCO argues that Linux contains intellectual property from Unix, an operating system to which SCO holds copyrights and which it licenses to companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems. SCO argues that some Linux source code was copied directly from Unix. It also claims that other Linux source code stems from improvements made to Unix by IBM and others, which then illegally moved the changes to Linux.