In a document lodged with the US District Court for the State of Utah, IBM said it has not engaged in any wrongdoing, contrary to Caldera’s unsupported assertions. SCO Group was called Caldera International Inc before a name change in August 2002.
SCO Group launched a $1bn lawsuit against IBM in March, identifying three areas where it said IBM had acted against the company. SCO claimed IBM deliberately damaged its business, citing cancellation of Project Monterey, for a 64-bit version of IBM’s AIX on Intel, and IBM’s subsequent support for Linux on Intel.
Secondly, SCO alleged that IBM’s open source strategy breached agreed licensing of SCO’s Unix technology in AIX. And, finally, SCO claimed IBM had undermined and destroyed the entire Unix-on-Intel business through IBM Global Services.
The motives for SCO Group’s case have, though, come under scrutiny. Chris Sontag, vice president and general manager of the SCO Group’s business unit pressing the case, SCOsource, hinted that executives are willing to consider acquisition by IBM, to make the suit disappear.
In its briefly worded filing IBM yesterday dismissed SCO’s claims paragraph by paragraph. IBM summed-up saying it had not: misappropriated any trade secrets; it has not engaged in unfair competition; it has not interfered with Caldera’s contracts; and it has not breached contractual obligations to Cladera.
IBM has the irrevocable, fully paid-up and perpetual right to use the ‘proprietary software’ that it is alleged to have misappropriated or misused, the filing said.
Source: Computerwire
