Friday 13th deadline looms for SCO to slash AIX

SCOry movie

By Andrew Orlowski • Get more from this author

Posted in Software, 12th June 2003 14:24 GMT

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Darl 'Jason' McBride has reminded IBM that it has until tomorrow, Friday the Thirteenth, to comply with its claim that Big Blue's AIX compromised SCO's UNIX™ IP, or else. Jason, as SCO Group CEO, has notched up the pressure by reminding IBM that SCO could revoke its UNIX™ licence.

"If we don't have a resolution by midnight on Friday the 13th, the AIX world will be a different place," he warned darkly this week.

The evidence that SCO has presented to date hasn't exactly been compelling. It has shown market researcher the Aberdeen Group 80 lines of code under a non-disclosure agreement - a move that infuriated rival analysts, who had been reluctant to accept the condition - but 80 lines doesn't represent the leap from "bicycle" to "luxury car" that SCO says represents the value of IBM's contribution to Linux - code that it claims rightfully belongs to SCO.

But it's worth remembering that SCO doesn't have to prove anything yet. The real trial hasn't even begun. And that's the only one that matters. ®

Bootnote See also: The Pirates of Penguinance