How the Pending SCO Open Source Software Litigation May Affect Your Organization

Litigation currently pending in Utah relating to open source software has the potential to drastically affect your organization, both financially and legally. In March 2003, SCO, a small Utah software development company, sued IBM, the information technology leader, for trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract. SCO alleged that IBM misappropriated SCO's UNIX operating system and released it for incorporation into Linux, the freeware operating system currently running on many corporate computer systerms. While only IBM has been named in the current litigation, the outcome may directly affect any organization that utilizes Linux or other open source software. Most organizations use some type of open source software, such as the Linux operating system, SendMail for e-mail message delivery, BIND for domain name services, OpenSSL for secure Internet communication, or Apache Internet server software. If SCO is successful, there may be a large number of cases to follow involving numerous organizations and demands for large retroactive licensing fees, not just relating to Linux, but possibly other open source software as well.