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GPL will not pass the legal test -SCO

Stalking SGI

The SCO Group is extending its royalty campaign to encompass Silicon Graphics Inc. The company says it will revoke SGI's Irix license on October 14. It's no surprise, as SCO CEO Darl McBride has explicitly mentioned SGI over a month ago. SGI signed the license with AT&T in 1986.

SGI's response is exactly the same as IBM's, when threatened with revocation. The Mountain View systems company says the license is paid for and irrevocable. When SCO revoked IBM's license, IBM countersued and simply carried on selling AIX.

Is SCO serious? The news emerged from of a SEC filing by Silicon Graphics. SCO didn't trumpet its intentions in a press release.

On Monday, however, SCO responded to IBM's amended case, which explicitly cites SCO's violations of the GPL, the General Public License. SCO's press release with a line which will seem very familiar to Register readers. "The GPL has never faced a full legal test, and SCO believes that it will not stand up in court. We are confident that SCO will win the legal battle that IBM has now started over the GPL."

Eben Moglen responded to our concerns on this last month, observing that Richard Stallman - who drafted the GPL - had created a license "more elegant and robust than he could have foreseen." We'll belatedly publish your thoughtful responses to this later today. ®

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