The Utah-based Unix vendor is also suing a Unix licensee, DaimlerChrysler, alleging that the automotive giant has violated its Unix software licensing agreement by refusing to provide certification of compliance with the provisions of that agreement.
The copyright infringement claim has been served against Memphis, Tennessee-based auto parts retailer AutoZone. SCO’s lawsuit alleges that AutoZone violated SCO’s Unix copyrights by running versions of Linux that contain its Unix System V code.
The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court in Nevada and seeks injunctive relief against AuoZone’s continued use or copying of any part of SCO’s copyrighted materials and also requests damages of an amount to be proven at trial.
AutoZone operates a network of about 3,000 Linux-based Intranet terminals in its stores locations across the US and in 1999 selected Red Hat Inc’s services organization to provide on-site consulting, services and support for the network. The New York Stock Exchange-listed company has yet to respond to SCO’s lawsuit.
SCO has been threatening to take legal action against a business running Linux since August 2003 and in November last year gave businesses running Linux 90 days to respond to its claims that they are responsible for copyright infringement and take out a license for the code in question.
Only one business has so far been named as a licensee for SCO’s Intellectual Property License for Linux. EV1Servers.net, the dedicated hosting division of Everyones Internet, announced that it had signed up to the scheme on Monday, the same day that SCO announced that it would launch its first lawsuit against a Linux business user tomorrow.
The announcement was delayed by a day as SCO tied up the details, according to the company, although that also meant that attention was attracted away from the publication of its first-quarter results, which saw a net loss of $2.3m on revenue down 16%.
Stuttgart, Germany-based DaimlerChrysler is also a Linux user, but SCO’s lawsuit against it focuses on the breach of an enterprise Unix source license agreement. SCO also wrote to Unix users late in 2003 asking them to certify that they are keeping to the terms of their agreements.
The case against DaimlerChrysler was filed in the Oakland County Court Circuit Court in the State of Michigan and seeks to force the company to keep to the terms of its license as well as requesting costs to be determined at trial. DaimlerChrysler is an IBM Unix customer and hit the headlines in 2002 when it used a cluster of Linux-based workstations to cut the cost of crash test analysis.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
