well, gee

[dep]

Microsoft to Buy Unix License
>From SCO, Helping Campaign

By DON CLARK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Microsoft Corp. has agreed to buy rights to Unix technology from SCO
Group Inc., a boost to SCO's controversial campaign to exact royalties
for a predecessor to the Linux operating system.

No financial terms are being disclosed in the deal, under which
Microsoft will license SCO's Unix patents and underlying technology
called source code. But Microsoft's move suggests that the software
company's lawyers view SCO's patents as important, and could encourage
other companies to strike similar pacts.

SCO also says it recently reached another licensing agreement with a
major technology vendor it hasn't identified. "The deals we've signed 
so
far are significant contracts," said Darl McBride, SCO's chief
executive.

Unix was invented by AT&T Corp. in the 1960s. Most major computer
vendors later licensed and adapted the software. Novell Inc. bought 
the
technology in 1992, and in 1995 sold it to SCO, which was already
selling a version of Unix for computers that use Intel Corp. chips.
Caldera Systems Inc., a vendor of Linux software, bought the bulk of
SCO's operations in 2001 and recently changed its name to SCO.

In recent years, Unix has been supplanted on Intel-based server 
machines
by Linux, a free offshoot of Unix that was refined by a cadre of
volunteer programmers. SCO contends that those programmers --
deliberately or accidentally -- borrowed major chunks of Unix code. To
protect what it regards as its intellectual property, SCO hired the 
law
firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner, whose lead attorney, David Boies, 
played
a major role in the government's antitrust case against Microsoft.

In March, SCO sued International Business Machines Corp., accusing the
computer maker of violating a contract associated with a joint
development project with SCO, and transferring SCO trade secrets to 
the
Linux community. IBM has denied the charges. Last week, SCO suspended
shipments of its own version of Linux, calling the operating system an
"unauthorized derivative" of Unix that could subject future customers 
to
liability, though it promised not to sue existing users.

Linux backers have reacted angrily, stating that SCO hasn't identified
any offending parts of the software. SCO says doing that would let
programmers change the software to hide evidence of copying. "That's
like saying, 'show us the fingerprints on the gun so you can rub them
off,' " Mr. McBride says.

Microsoft competes fiercely with both Unix and Linux. But the company
was a longtime minority stockholder in SCO before Caldera took over 
the
Unix business. Indeed, some people in the Linux community have
speculated that Microsoft is secretly bankrolling SCO's litigation to
help slow the Linux threat.

A Microsoft spokeswoman flatly denied that Microsoft is helping SCO's
legal efforts. She said it opted to buy a license from SCO to make 
sure
its products can exchange data with Unix software without violating 
any
patents.

After IBM, the biggest company backing Linux is Hewlett-Packard Co. 
Mr.
McBride and an H-P spokeswoman declined comment about whether H-P is 
the
unidentified licensee SCO has discussed.

Write to Don Clark at don.clark at wsj.com <mailto:don.clark at wsj.com>1

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