Red Hat files lawsuit against SCO

The Linux legal war has taken another twist this week with Red Hat filing a lawsuit against SCO Group demanding a judgement that it has not violated SCO's copyrights or trade secrets.

Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik said: "We have asked the courts to declare that no violation of intellectual property and trade secrets have occurred. We've been patient, we've listened, but when our customers and the whole open-source community are threatened with innuendo and rumour, it's time to act."

The action is the most serious attempt so far to seize some of the initiative from SCO, owner of key Unix copyrights, in its legal actions against Linux. But SCO isn't relaxing and CEO Darl McBride warned Szulik in a letter to expect counterclaims.

The letter said: "We will prepare our legal response as required by your complaint. Be advised that our response will likely include counterclaims for copyright infringement and conspiracy."

In addition, SCO rebuffed Red Hat's assertions. The company said in a statement: "SCO's claims are true, and we look forward to proving them in court. SCO has not been trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt to end-users. We have been educating end-users on the risks of running an operating system that is an unauthorised derivative of Unix. Linux includes source code that is a verbatim copy of Unix and carries with it no warranty or indemnification."

The open-source community will likely welcome the legal strategy, which Red Hat announced on the first day of the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo that's taking place here. SCO asserts that some of the underlying code in Linux was unlawfully copied from Unix, the decades-old operating system to which SCO claims some intellectual property rights.

Earlier this year, SCO filed a $3 billion lawsuit against IBM for alleged copying of proprietary Unix intellectual property into Linux. It has also sent letters to about 1,500 Linux customers, warning that they may be infringing on SCO's intellectual property.

In the latest development Red Hat called SCO's actions "unfair and deceptive" and said Red Hat's software does not infringe on any of SCO's intellectual property.

Mark Webbink, Red Hat's general counsel, said in a statement: "We filed this complaint to stop SCO from making unsubstantiated and untrue public statements attacking Red Hat Linux and the integrity of the open-source software development process. Red Hat is confident that its current and future customers will continue to realise the significant value that our Red Hat Linux platform provides without interruption."

Red Hat filed the complaint in the US District Court of Delaware. The suit describes SCO's assertions about Linux as wrong and says the company's moves grew out of financial desperation.

The suit said: "SCO's claims are not true, and are solely designed to create an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and doubt about Linux. SCO's campaign is designed to both slow the growth of Linux and to reverse its failing fortunes by convincing Linux users they need to pay SCO a licence fee to use the lower-cost Linux operating system."

Red Hat is also seeking a preliminary injunction to bar SCO from continuing its assertions that Red Hat's Linux violates SCO's intellectual property.

The suit also seeks to require SCO to triple the financial damages caused to Red Hat "for harm caused by SCO's unfair competition and false advertising...unfair and deceptive (trade) practices...as well as for violations of common law, including trade libel, unfair competition and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage."

But Forrester analyst Stacey Quandt said the suit will not be enough to reassure customers fully, because the legal case extends well beyond Red Hat. She said: "It's not adequate to fully address the concerns of customers around the issues of the IBM lawsuit."

Stephen Shankland and Michael Kanellos write for CNET News.com