Below you will find a timeline of important events in the SCO case with the most recent appearing first. To better understand some of the terminology and to get an idea for who the major players in the case are, we have prepared a glossary and who's who page with more information on the people involved and the terminology used.

February 2008
February 29 2008	SCO files a reorganization plan in US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. The plans calls for the removal of Darl McBride as CEO.
February 14 2008	Stephen Norris Capital Partners agrees to provide up to $100 million USD to reorganize the SCO group and help it emerge from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy situation.
November 2007
November 27 2007	U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Kevin Gross lifts the stay on the Novell vs SCO trial so that the suspended litigation may proceed.
November 20 2007	In a surprise reversal, SCO withdraws, for the time being, the planned sale of its Unix assets. (see October 23 and November 16, 2007)
November 16 2007	It is reported that York Capital Management plans to continue funding SCO litigation if the bankruptcy court allows them to purchase SCO's Unix assets. (See October 23, 2007)
November 12 2007	SCO is found guilty in German courts of spreading false information about Linux.
November 1 2007	Novell and IBM file objections to the proposed sale of SCO's Unix assets.
October 2007
October 23 2007	SCO files a motion to sell its Unix business to York Capital Management for a reported $36 million (US). The court sets a date of November 6, 2007 for approval of the sale.
September 2007
September 18	SCO receives notice from NASDAQ that due to its bankruptcy filing, its stock is to be delisted on September 27, 2007. SCO is entitled to a hearing to lift the suspension of trading of its stock.
September 14	SCO files for bankruptcy under chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
August 2007
August 29	SCO files an appeal challenging Judge Dale Kimball's August 10 ruling that Novell is the owner of the UNIX copyrights. (see August 10, 2007)
August 13	SCO stock (NASDAQ:SCOX) plummets to a 52 week low as investors abandon a company which has based most of its future earnings on the favorable outcomes of its lawsuits.
August 10	Judge Dale Kimball rules that Novell is the owner of the copyrights to UNIX and UnixWare. The ruling also states that Novell has the power to "direct SCO to waive its claims against IBM". Legal pundits point out that this decision effectively ends SCO's ability to pursue its various lawsuits with hopes of success.
July 2007
June 2007
June 5	SCO announces its results for the second quarter of 2007. They report revenues of just over $6 million US, which means a loss of just over $1 million compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
May 2007
May 31	A deposition of Darl McBride, taken on March 27, 2007, is released. In it, the SCO CEO talks about projections of revenue from their "Linux license" sales in the billions of dollars.
May 29	SCO avoids delisting from the NASDAQ as it price trades above $1.00 US for the first time since early March 2007. (see April 23, 2007)
April 2007
April 23	SCO receives a warning from the NASDAQ. Its listing may be removed from the tech exchange for having its share price trade below $1 US for too long. SCO has been previously threatened with delisting (see February 17, 2005) .
April 20	Based on a declaration by Tor Braham, attorney for Novell during its negotiations with pre-Caldera SCO during the sale of their Unix division, SCO was never transferred copyright or patent rights pertaining to Unix. This argument is being used in Novell's latest request for summary judgment
April 9	SCO files a motion for summary judgment of Novell's suit for Slander of Title. (see February 9, 2004 and January 18, 2004)
March 2007
March 7	During a hearing on summary judgment, IBM lawyer David Marriott points out that of a million lines of code that SCO has claimed belong to them, the actual amount SCO may legitimately use in their allegations is 326 lines. Of these 326 lines, most of it is header files and therefore not copyrightable, argues Marriott.
March 5	In its attempt to impede IBM's motion for summary judgment, SCO argues that IBM pressured companies to drop SCO, causing them to lose revenue.
March 1	SCO announces that the company's revenue for its quarter ending January 31 is down $1 million (US) compared with the same quarter in 2006.
February 2007
February 13	It is reported that SCO has tried unsuccessfully to subpoena Groklaw editor Pamela Jones in order to take a deposition from her.
February 12	Blake Stowell resigns his position as SCO's PR chief.
January 2007
January 18	Judge Brooke Wells throws out SCO's claim that IBM destroyed evidence. Judge Wells cites in her ruling that the evidence that IBM was supposed to have destroyed in fact still exists and was provided to SCO.
January 17	SCO CEO Darl McBride reports that the company has posted a US $3.7 million loss for the 4th quarter of 2006. Despite these losses, McBride dismisses Novell's claims that the company is headed for bankruptcy, though he admits the company's financial situation is "not a real pretty picture."
January 8	Novell files papers seeking $26 million (US) in fees it claims SCO owes them under a 1995 Asset Purchase Agreement. Novell also claims that for SCO "bankruptcy is imminent" and it has asked the court to place a hold on any future Unix fees paid.
December 2006
December 1	Investors react to SCO's courtroom woes. SCO stock loses 40 percent of its market worth. Novell files for partial summary judgment alleging that their 1995 purchase agreement with SCO gives them certain rights to the Unix operating system. In theory, this would invalidate SCO's claims against IBM.
November 2006
November 30	Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells rules that SCO cannot insert new allegations and evidence via its expert reports after protest by IBM.
November 29	U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball affirms and adopts Magistrate Brooke Wells' June 28, 2006 ruling which threw out two-thirds of SCO's allegations. (See June 2006)
October 2006
October 9	Ray Noorda, former Novell CEO and a founder of the Canopy Group, dies at age 82.
October 8	It is revealed in an IBM court filing that Lawrence Goldfarb, a partner at BayStar Capital, discussed ways of indirectly funding investments in The SCO Group with Richard Emerson, a Microsoft senior vice-president.
September 2006
September 29	Novell files for a partial summary judgment against SCO. It claims that fees paid to SCO by Microsoft and Sun were not properly remitted to Novell as per a 1995 agreement.
September 25	IBM files several motions for summary judgment. They ask for SCO's case against them to be dismissed as well as summary judgment for their counterclaims against SCO.
September 6	SCO announces that its third quarter revenue has dropped over twenty percent compared with the same quarter of 2005. It blames the decline on competition from Linux distributors.
August 2006
July 2006
July 13	SCO files an "objection" to Judge Brooke Wells' June 28 decision (see below) throwing out two thirds of SCO's claims against IBM.
June 2006
June 28	Judge Brooke Wells throws out two-thirds of SCO's claims of infringement against IBM. In her ruling, the magistrate compares SCO's strategy to a improbable shoplifting case. Instead of the police confronting the thief with the actual stolen goods, they inform him that he must pick out the items he stole from the store catalog.
June 8	The SCO Group reports a first quarter loss of almost $2 million US compared with performance in the first quarter of 2005. According to CEO Darl McBride, their SCO Unix business is still a revenue generator - the company's main expenses coming from the IBM case litigation and other related legal actions.
February 2006
February 24	Judge Wells rejects SCO's motion to depose Intel representatives again. Upholds Intel's argument that subpoenas were filed with inadecuate time for response (see Feb. 7, 2006) SCO, however, has 30 days to refile a motion asking for more documents from IBM.
February 21	IBM attorneys issue subpoenas to BayStar Capital, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems in order to depose them in March 2006. Big Blue's legal team hopes to shed some light on the relationship these companies have with SCO. Microsoft's subpoena lists more than a dozen demands including an order to reveal all communications between SCO and the software giant.
February 13	IBM files a motion that asks the court to limit the number of claims that SCO can use in their case. IBM alleges that SCO has failed "to provide even the most basic specificity" for two thirds of its claims of alleged misuse of SCO's intellectual property.
February 7	Intel files a response to SCO in Utah District Court alleging that the chip maker's failure to appear at a third party deposition was due to SCO's serving the summons at the last minute. They point out that SCO's claim that they were given adecuate time to respond to the summons is "at best a half-truth".
January 2006
January 22	Oracle attorneys ask a California court to "quash" a request presented to them on January 11, 2006 to be deposed a fourth time by SCO attorneys.
December 2005
December 30	SCO files a motion to amend its original copyright infringement suit to include a claims against Novell. They also allege that Novell violated non-compete provisions signed in 1995.
November 2005
November 30	SCO has raised $10 Million (US) by selling stock to "existing SCO institutional shareholders and a member of the company's board of directors", according to a press release issued by the company.
November 6	Groklaw reveals that in an October 27 filing, SCO asked for IBM to turn over materials related to development on Linux kernel 2.7. A kernel with this version number does not exist.
October 2005
October 28	SCO reveals in court what it alleges are 217 instances where IBM has violated their Unix contract. This evidence, however, has been sealed and is not available to the public. SCO has until Dec. 22 to present more evidence.
October 7	SCO has been denied a motion to compel IBM to turn over still more internal documents to their legal team. Judge Brooke Wells rules that SCO is not entitled to more documents on IBM's conversion to Linux after IBM attorney David Marriott argues that SCO is looking for "every scrap of paper" from his client.
October 6	Citing their desire to speed up a resolution on their case with SCO, IBM has dropped its counterclaims of patent infringement. They also point out the limited monetary award that they could hope for, even if successful, given SCO's financial situation. Pundits also see this as IBM removing ways for SCO to continue delaying a resolution to the case.
September 2005
September 16	New information surfaces regarding the SCO's purchase of Unix assets from Novell. It would appear that the then Santa Cruz Operation had reached a compromise with Novel due to the elevated purchase price. This compromise is now at the center of a dispute.
September 7	SCO reports a net loss of $2.4 million USD compared with the same quarter of the previous year.
September 5	MySQL and SCO have agreed to collaborate on a version of the open source database for SCO's OpenServer 6 Unix
August 2005
August 17	At their annual SCO Forum in Las Vegas, CEO Darl McBride tries to distance the company somewhat from their legal maneuvers. Due to legal fee caps, he claims, they are now more focused on product.
July 2005
July 29	Novell files a countersuit against SCO for breach of contract. Novell alleges, first, that it did not transfer the copyrights to the Unix "asset" purchase that took place in 1995. Secondly, it claims that under the 1995 agreement, Novell is entitled to 95 percent of any revenue acquired from Unix System V license sales. Therefore, it has requested that revenues from licenses purchased by companies including Sun Microsystems and Microsoft be put in a 'trust'. Most observers agree that the request is designed to deprive SCO of funds to continue their legal battles.
July 14	Groklaw publishes an internal SCO email from August, 2002 in which SCO employee Michael Davidson, requested to audit Linux kernel code for possible infringement, reports that he had found no evidence of Unix code in Linux. SCO issues a statement saying that using the email to claim there are no problems with Linux would be "inaccurate" and "misleading". They later release a 1999 memo from outside auditor Robert Swartz which SCO claims indicates that there was "cause for concern" about code copied from Unix.
July 1	Judge Dale Kimball denies SCO's motion to file a third amendment to their suit against IBM. Judge Kimball does grant SCO's request to require a deposition from IBM CEO Sam Palmisano, however. The date for the 5 week jury trial to begin is set for February 26, 2007.
June 2005
June 27	Judge Dale Kimball refuses a second motion to dismiss SCO's slander-of-title suit against Novell. (see January 20, 2004)
June 7	Accounting firm KPMG has announced that they will no longer be providing accounting services for SCO. SCO has stated that KPMG's resignation is not related to its problems with restatement of earnings for 2004. (See March 3, 2005)
June 1	SCO reports more losses for the second quarter of fiscal 2005. However, the nearly 2 million USD loss turns out to be a far better result than the same quarter in fiscal 2004 when the company lost nearly 15 million USD.
May 2005
May 18	Groklaw spots what it believes to be ominous warnings in SCO's most recent filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The posting sets off rumors that SCO may be investigated by the regulatory agency. Blake Stowell later claims the warnings have appeared in their filings for quite some time and do not imply an imminent investigation. Groklaw later researches past SEC filings and posts an update to dispute Stowell's claim about previous mentions of "foreign regulators" initiating legal action against SCO.
May 14	The senior editorial staff of LinuxWorld Magazine resigns in protest over comments made by Fuat Kircaali.
May 10	Sys-Con, parent company of LinuxWorld and Linux Business News, has announced that it will no longer run pieces by Maureen O'Gara
May 7	Linux Business News writer Maureen O'Gara claims she's discovered details of the life of Pamela Jones, the Groklaw website maintainer. She publishes these personal details in an article for the Sys-Con Media owned publication. The article is subsequently pilloried in the Linux-oriented media. James Turner, editor of another Sys-Con publication, LinuxWorld Magazine, threatens to resign, along with Dee Ann LeBlanc, a well-known writer.
April 2005
April 21	SCO resumes trading again on the NASDAQ under the symbol SCOX. The company was forced to trade for several weeks as SCOXE after the technology exchange threatened them with delisting due to a late filing of its annual report (see February 17). SCO has asked Judge Dale Kimball to accept a third amendment to their suit against IBM. They have also requested that the judge order IBM CEO Sam Palmisano to submit to questioning about the code they claim ended up in Linux, citing that, at the time, Palmisano was a vice president in charge of that area of development.
April 19	Judge Brooke Wells has ruled that IBM no longer has to submit documents from 3,000 AIX and Dynix developers as was ruled in January. The judge has cut the number down to 100, reducing substantially the paperwork that IBM must submit to SCO.
April 15	SCO reports more losses for the first quarter of 2005. The company reports that both "SCOSource" licensing fees and income from the sales of Unix licenses were both down. During the presentation of the company's quarterly results, CEO Darl McBride takes the opportunity to criticize Groklaw website maintainer Pamela Jones. He calls into question her real identity and claims that SCO is doing a background check on her.
March 2005
March 21	Canopy Group executive Val Noorda Kreidel, daughter of Ray Noorda, founder of the group, commits suicide. Her death comes less than two weeks after reaching a settlement with ousted Canopy CEO Ralph Yarro which allowed the Noorda family to regain control of the company. (see March 11, 2005)
March 11	The Canopy Group reaches a settlement with Ralph Yarro and two other fired Canopy executives, Darcy Mott, and Brent Christensen. (see January 30, 2005) It is reported that Mott and Christensen have received a cash settlement and Yarro will obtain all of Canopy's shares in The SCO Group. The settlement makes Yarro the principal stockholder in SCO. Yarro, seen by many as the architect of the SCO vs. IBM suit, will also remain as SCO's chairman.
March 3	SCO is forced to restate its earnings for the first three quarters of 2004. The restatement is due to an error in handling dividends on preferred shares and stock-based compensation expenses. These accounting problems are related to its possible de-listing from the NASDAQ exchange. (see February 17)
February 2005
February 17	SCO has not still not filed its 2004 annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission and may be removed from the NASDAQ listing.
February 8	SCO is given a Pyhrric victory. U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball has refused to grant IBM's motion for dismissal. In his finding, however, he took the opportunity to declare that he found it "astonishing that SCO has not offered any competent evidence to create a disputed fact regarding whether IBM has infringed SCO's alleged copyrights through IBM's Linux activities". He further went on to point out other shortcomings in SCO's presentation of its case.
January 2005
January 30	It is revealed that there are more legal troubles at the Canopy Group, SCO's parent company. Ralph Yarro, ex-chairman of Canopy, and other executives fired in December with him, are suing Canopy for a reported 100 million US dollars. Canopy has launched a countersuit against the executives alleging they illegally received compensation.
January 27	IBM has subpoenaed chip-making giant Intel for information related to their relationship with SCO.
December 2004
December 21	SCO reports dismal 4th quarter results. The company posts losses of $6.5 million and sees its revenue cut in half compared with results for the same period in the previous year. In order to cut costs, they have cut their workforce in the past year by almost a third. Ralph Yarro and Darcy Mott have been ousted from their positions at The Canopy Group, a venture capital firm that owns 50% of SCO. Yarro and Mott, who also serve on SCO's board of directors, will reportedly stay there.
November 2004
November 30	G2 Computer Intelligence Inc, a New York based company that publishes the LinuxGram newsletter and employs reporter Maureen O'Gara, files a motion in Utah district court asking the court to unseal any protected documents related to the case. (See Oct. 26).
November 27	SCO's website is defaced during the US Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend. The defacer alters the page to announce that SCO was also planning on suing Microsoft.
November 10	Novell presents documents in its case that purport to show that they retained their Unix copyrights when they sold their operating system rights to the old SCO in 1995. The documents are in the form of minutes of a Novell board meeting prior to the sale.
November 3	SCO puts plans on hold to offer a website with information on their side of the IBM suit. The site is talked about as SCO's counter to the popular Groklaw web site.
October 2004
October 31	SCO signs an agreement with the two lawfirms representing them, Boies, Schiller & Flexner and Kevin McBride and Berger Singerman, to cap their legal fees. (Kevin McBride is the brother of SCO CEO Darl McBride.)
October 26	A controversy emerges over a story written by Maureen O'Gara in Linux Business Week. Groklaw maintainer Pamela Jones posts a piece calling into question the veracity of O'Gara's reporting. According to Jones, the details in the story are supposed to be included in court sealed records. Jones also calls on LinuxWorld to correct the story. LinuxWorld, though sharing the same parent company with O'Gara's publications issues a statement distancing themselves from the reporter and her story.
September 2004
September 28	Erstwhile investor BayStar Capital has begun selling its stock back to SCO.
September 15	IBM has asked U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball for a ruling that IBM code contributed to Linux does not infringe SCO's copyrights. Such a ruling would effectively dismiss the case.
September 12	SCO alleges that IBM has not provided all the necessary documents for discovery and requests the decision on summary judgment be postponed until February. 11, 2005. SCO points out that it needs IBM to turn over more documents to prove that IBM incorporated SCO code into Linux.
August 2004
August 31	SCO announces a third quarter loss of $7.4 Million US. Due to the loss, they have also announced a cap on legal fees paid out of $31 million US.
August 25	SCO and BayStar Capital have reportedly reached an agreement to end BayStar's investment in SCO. The terms of the agreement were undisclosed.
August 10	In an apparent effort to entice end users to purchase their 'Linux license', SCO announces that they may raise the price of the license in the future.
August 4	SCO, at there annual SCO Forum, announces that, for the time being, they aren't planning on filing any more lawsuits. They plan on focusing on the pending cases, according to company spokesman Blake Stowell.
July 2004
July 23	It has been revealed that the deal SCO claimed they had struck with BayStar Capital (see June 1, 2004) to buy back their shares was never actually approved by BayStar. Now the venture capital company has threatened to sue SCO claiming SCO has mislead them on the possible success of their licensing scheme.
July 21	It what is sure to be seen as a tremendous blow to SCO's general strategy,Michigan Judge Rae Lee Chabot dismisses the lawsuit brought against automaker DaimlerChrysler. Judge Chabot finds, however, that DaimlerChrysler did not meet a deadline in certifying that it hadn't been using SCO's Unix product.
July 12	A judge in the U.S. District Court of Nevada has granted AutoZone a 90 day stay in its case against SCO. A request to move the trial to Tennessee, the headquarters of the auto parts retailer, has been denied. SCO filed suit against AutoZone and Daimler-Chrysler for copyright infringement in March. (see March 3, 2004)
July 9	SCO files arguments in the US District Court in Utah in order to avoid a summary judgment dismissing their case against IBM. They also state that IBM has not handed over all the documents they have requested.
June 2004
June 11	SCO discovers that their stock is being traded on German stock exchanges, according to them, "without their consent". They ask that the stock be de-listed. German brokers claim trading in stock without the company's direct knowledge or consent is apparently a common practice on the their country's exchanges.
June 10	SCO reports disappointing financial results for the 2nd quarter of 2004. SCO's revenue has been cut in half and the company has reported a loss of $14 million US. In the report, SCO also reveals that it has only earned $11,000 US on its Linux licensing program. SCO also suffers a setback on the legal front. Their request that the suit against Novell be moved to a Utah state court has been rejected.
June 1	SCO has struck a deal with BayStar Capital to buy back BayStar's investment. The venture capital firm recently announced publicly that it was not happy with SCO management (see April 16).
May 2004
May 18	The Free Software Foundation, subpoenaed by SCO, makes the subpoena document available to the public. Chief counsel Bradley Kuhn decries the broad nature of the information requested and states that it would violate the confidential relationships between clients and contributors and the FSF. IBM's lawyers ask that SCO's copyright claims be dismissed. The filing in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City alleges that SCO has produced no evidence to support the copyright infringement claims.
April 2004
April 30	Despite the fact that court filings show that SCO has dropped its claims that the GNU General Public License (GPL) is unconstitutional, SCO spokesman Blake Stowell says that SCO still maintains, in essence, that the GPL violates the US Constitution. It would appear, based on Stowell's statements, that the company is maintaining one line of argument in court filings and another distinct line in public regarding the GPL.
April 29	It is reported that SCO has removed its claims that the GNU General Public License (GPL) is unconstitutional in the most recent filing in the US District Court in Utah.
April 28	DaimlerChrysler, who along with AutoZone is being sued by SCO (see March 3, 2004), has asked a Michigan court for dismissal of the suit. SCO alleges that the automaker had violated its Unix agreement but the filing for dismissal reveals that they had not been using the software for a number years and had sent letters on two occasions to prove it. DaimlerChrysler is also seeking court costs and attorneys' fees.
April 27	AutoZone, who is being sued by SCO, (see March 3, 2004) has filed for a stay in their case. They have asked the court to put the suit on hold until the results from the IBM, Red Hat and Novell suits are known.
April 16	SCO investor Baystar Capital announces that it's not happy with the way in which SCO management is pursuing the company's intellectual property litigation. They threaten to pull out their investment, estimated at $50 million US, alleging SCO has breached their agreement. SCO stock (Nasdaq: SCOX) begins a sharp decline due mainly to the news.
April 6	SCO has been denied a motion to dismiss RedHat's complaint in Delaware. Red Hat filed suit in a Delaware court in August, 2003 accusing SCO of deceptive practices and interference with their business among other counts. (See August 4, 2003)
March 2004
March 30	SCO files a motion in the Federal Court of Utah asking that its claims of copyright infringement and breach of contract be heard in two separate trials.
March 9	Computer Associates is named as another of SCO's "Linux license" holders. CA flip-flops on the issue, but finally admits to having obtained the licenses as part of a separate legal settlement. CA is quick to distance itself from SCO's actions against Linux. A company spokesmen states: "CA stands in stark disagreement with SCO's tactics, which are intended to intimidate and threaten customers."
March 8	SCO CEO Darl McBride reveals that, fearing for his life, he often carries a gun and checks into hotels under assumed names. He reportedly was protected by an armed guard at a recent speech at Harvard University. McBride compares the Linux situation to one when, as a youth, he fought cattle thieves on the family farm. Sources at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have confirmed that they have received complaints about SCO. One SEC official commented that such complaints are not taken "lightly". NewsForge reports that the complaints include stock-kiting, insider trading and money laundering that possibly involve Microsoft or companies related to the software giant.
March 5	Both Blake Stowell, SCO spokesman and CEO Darl McBride accuse Groklaw's Pamela Jones of being on IBM's payroll, so to speak. Jones denies the accusations and calls Groklaw "a labor of love". This is reminiscent of a similar situation where Eric S. Raymond was also accused of the same. (see August 21, 2003)
March 4	Open Source luminary Eric S. Raymond posts internal SCO documents that he claims shows that Microsoft is helping to fund SCO's legal battles.
March 3	SCO files suits against auto parts retailer AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler for using Linux. These are apparently the long-awaited legal actions that SCO has been threatening since late 2003. SCO announces its first quarter results. SCO reports losses of over 2 million USD, three times more than they had lost in the same quarter a year earlier.
March 1	SCO identifies hosting company EV1Servers.net as one company that purchased "Linux licenses" from them. In the wake of criticism from EV1Server customers, CEO Robert Marsh defends the purchase of licenses stating that it does not mean that they endorse SCO or defend their claims.
February 2004
February 27	Fyodor, author of the popular Nmap network security utility, invokes a clause in the GNU General Public License to terminate SCO's right to redistribute the application in their products.
February 22	A webpage appears at SCO's website where individuals can directly purchase SCO's Linux licenses.
February 21	German computer magazine c't would seem to confirm speculation that the MyDoom virus' programmed attack on SCO's website was probably a smoke screen to hide the virus' real intentions. c't (via Groklaw and Heise) points out that arrests were made in several countries when IP addresses of infected machines were sold to spammers for use as "zombie" machines for relaying spam. Several security experts have speculated since the virus appeared (see January 28) that the virus authors were only interested in using a DDoS against SCO's website to hide their actual motives - that of creating a spam-relaying zombie network of Windows machines.
February 20	An almost two decades old AT&T (the original developer of Unix) newsletter surfaces that contains information that could damage SCO's case considerably. A newsletter from August 1985 informs licensees that AT&T would not make claim to code they developed independently. Citing the newsletter, Novell counsel Joseph LaSala sends a letter to SCO pointing out that their claims against IBM would tend to contradict the terms of AT&T, the original developer and owner of Unix.
February 19	Red Hat uses threatening letters sent by SCO to financial services company Lehman Brothers to reinforce their case against SCO. (See August 4, 2003) A letter sent on January 16 threatens Lehman Brothers, a Red Hat client, with legal action. Lehman Brothers advises SCO to direct all further correspondence to Red Hat.
February 18	Linux and Open source advocacy group Open Source Victoria asks the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate SCO's offer of Linux licenses. The group claims that SCO makes "false or misleading representation" of its claims of Unix ownership. SCO's deadline for suing a company using Linux expires today. On November 18 2003, SCO warned they they would bring a lawsuit against a high profile company using Linux. To date, no lawsuit has been filed.
February 9	Novell asks the US District Court of Utah to dismiss SCO's "Slander of Title" suit against them. In the filing Novell argues that SCO can neither prove they own the specific copyrights to Unix nor show that they have suffered damages or lost money due to Novell's assertions.
February 7	Novell continues its efforts to undermine SCO's legal position. The newly converted Linux company sends a letter to SCO to argue that they believe the 1995 SCO purchase of Unix from Novell excluded the right to control works based on Unix.
February 5	SCO adds a copyright infringement complaint to its list of claims against IBM
February 2	PC's infected with the MyDoom virus launch a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack and render SCO's website inoperative Darl McBride argues the SCO case at Harvard University in Massachusetts. The SCO CEO reportedly receives a cool reception - the presentation being attended by mainly Linux enthusiasts.
January 2004
January 27	Email virus MyDoom epidemic hits. MyDoom is reported to be an exploit aimed at attacking SCO's website. Some anti-virus experts point out that the virus also installs a back door in machines running Microsoft Windows operating systems.
January 22	The Open Source and Industry Alliance has published a letter that SCO CEO Darl McBride sent to the US Congress. The letter touches on some of the points McBride recently tried to make in a previous open letter in December (see December 4), which was attached to the letter send to congress. McBride claims that Linux and Open Source development "undermines our basic system of intellectual property rights, and it destroys the economic reason for innovation".
January 21	CyberKnights, an Australian based Linux/Open Source firm may bring about the second case of legal action against SCO in Australia. Leon Brooks, director of CyberKnights, has written to the regional office of SCO and asked them to detail their alleged copyright violations. Brooks points out that if they refuse, he will assume that SCO is "making fraudulent claims" and his company will pursue legal redress in the matter.
January 20	SCO has announced that is is suing Novell for Slander of Title. SCO alleges that Novell's claims that they own Unix copyrights is a bad faith effort to harm their business. They also state that Novell has tried to interfere with their attempts to enforce their copyright claims to Unix.
January 14	SCO announces that they will offer their "Linux license" worldwide. With the new licensing offer, they company sends a message that they are free to sue, on a worldwide scale, whomever they consider to be infringing.
January 13	Novell, has announced that they will offer indemnification for their Linux customers in the event of any legal action by SCO. The plan is reportedly similar to Hewlett-Packard's (see September 24). In related news, Novell has also announced that their acquision of SuSE Linux is complete.
January 12	Processor giant Intel is the latest company to contribute to the legal defense fund aimed at protecting individuals from SCO's legal activities.
January 9	SCO spokesman Blake Stowell claims that SCO has had "low level" talks with search engine company Google about getting licensing fees. Google reportedly uses 10,000 servers running Linux to provide their search services. Rumors have been floating about for some time that Google was going to be one of the companies that SCO was planning on suing.
December 2003
December 22	SCO sends out more warning letters to many of the same companies to whom they sent out previous letters. The letter lists the header files in the kernel sources that they claim were misappropriated from their proprietary Unix offerings. They have also sent a warning to 6,000 Unix customers which requires them to certify in writing that they are in compliance with their license with SCO. Later in the day, Linus Torvalds responds to queries on the kernel mailing list about SCO's latest letter and their claims. Linus does an historical analysis, claiming authorship of several of the files listed in the letter. Linus writes: I think we can totally _demolish_ the SCO claim that these 65 files were somehow "copied". They clearly are not. It is revealed that Novell has been applying for copyright registration for the same Unix source code that SCO has filed for. CNET reports that SCO lost money in its fourth quarter "based largely on hefty legal fees".
December 10-13	Controversy surrounds a third distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against SCO's servers. The attack, apparently of the 'SYN Flood' type, is reported to have begun overwhelming SCO's servers on Wednesday, December 10. Some security analysts in the Linux community where quick to point out that parts of SCO's network were still reachable and their analysis of the availability of SCO's network showed inconsistencies with what SCO was reporting. Further, they pointed out that SCO's main interest seemed to be in generating press coverage of the attack, with assessment of damage and restoration of connectivity apparently being of lesser importance. However, according to independent group CAIDA, which assesses Internet security matters, SCO was in fact at the receiving end of multiple SYN Flood attacks on Wednesday through Friday. After attacks renewed on Saturday, members of the Linux community were again skeptical. Some have pointed out that defense against this type of attack are well-known and that it is easily preventable. SCO's most vocal critics have pointed out that SCO will obviously garner valuable press coverage as they try to link the attacks to members of the Linux community. Some see it as an attempt to distract the public from news about their recent legal setbacks. (See Dec. 5)
December 9	SCO has filed papers with he SEC reporting an amendment in the contract with investors The Royal Bank of Canada and BayStar Capital. They will now have the power to veto SCO's compensation agreement with law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner (see Nov. 18).
December 5	SCO suffers its first legal setback in a Utah federal court. SCO, which has resisted showing IBM exactly what code it alleges was stolen from them and placed in Linux, is now required to do so. Judge Dale Kimball has given SCO 30 days to produced the alleged infringements. Apparently, David Boies, head of SCO's legal defense was not present. SCO was represented by Kevin McBride, brother of SCO CEO Darl McBride.
December 4	Darl McBride issues another "open letter" on copyright and patent issues. In it, he argues that the GNU General Public License is incompatible with the US Constitution. He implies that the the Founding Fathers wrote explicit copyright protection into the constitution and that the GPL violates that clause. He cites the recent case of Eldred v. Ashcroft to back up his arguments. Legal scholar Lawrence Lessig, who argued in the Supreme Court on behalf of Eric Eldred, calls SCO: "a failed company using a failed legal system to make money rather than producing great software."
November 2003
November 21	Technology research company Gartner has issued sobering report warning SCO's customers that the Utah software company's legal crusade may damage their core business. It urges companies that use SCO products to have a "contingency plan" for migrating to other platforms. Were SCO to lose its case, the report points out, it would likely leave SCO customers' support and maintenance in doubt as the company would have to cease operations or be acquired.
November 20	The Salt Lake Tribune has reported that SCO has hired bodyguards to protect their execs after receiving what CEO Darl McBride specified as "personal threats to our lives". Groklaw reports that Jonathan Berr of Bloomberg News contacted local police in charge of patrolling Lindon, Utah, where SCO is headquarted. He reports that they had not received any complaints from SCO of any threats.
November 19	Novell responds to SCO's claims. Novell releases a statement refuting Darl McBride's assertions. Novell claims there is no non-compete provision in the 1995 SCO-Novell contracts that transferred some Unix rights to the then Santa Cruz Operation (aka "old" SCO).
November 18	SCO claims that Novell's acquisition of SuSE will violate a non-compete agreement it supposedly has with Novell. SCO CEO Darl McBride claims that the non-compete agreement can be invoked when the SuSE-Novell deal is completed and again threatened another company with a future lawsuit. SCO has also made public its method of paying its legal fees. Law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner will receive 1 million USD in cash for their services. In addition, SCO will issue 400,000 shares of common stock to the law firm.
November 12-14	It would appear that SCO has responded tit for tat to IBM's issuance of subpoenas. Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman have reportedly been sent subpoenas along with Stuart Cohen, CEO of the Open Source Development Labs and John Horsley, general counsel of Transmeta. The Open Source Development lab announces that it will be paying Linus Torvalds' legal fees as well as those of anyone at OSDL who might become a target of SCO.
November 11	It's been reported that IBM has issued subpoenas to companies on the periphery of the SCO case. The companies, which include Baystar Capital, Deutsche Bank, Renaissance Ventures and Yankee Group, are either investors in SCO or have been publicly bullish on the Utah software company's chances for success. Analysts speculate that IBM is trying to get information that SCO is not providing during the discovery process. Some analysts have even gone so far as to theorize that IBM may be trying to reveal facts about possible deals between SCO and Microsoft via third parties.
November 6	Not content to fight just IBM, Red Hat and the Linux community in general, Darl McBride has now turned the spotlight on Hollywood. McBride comments: "They're using a ton of Linux in Hollywood, so they've become a lightning rod for us". The SCO CEO claims that the Hollywood special effects industry, which relies on Linux more and more, should be paying fees to SCO. McBride expects there will be a lawsuit before the end of the year.
October 2003
October 27	Mark Radcliffe has written about a little-known provision in the SCO Unix contract with Novell. According to Mr. Radcliffe, when Novell sold its Unix licenses to SCO, Novell secured a provision that allowed them "amend, supplement, modify or waive any right" with respect to licensing Unix. When SCO announced they were going to revoke IBM's AIX license, Novell apparently exercised its rights and overruled SCO. Radcliffe points out that this provision undermines the main part of SCO's case - IBM's supposed breach of contract.
October 24	In a filing in US district court in Utah, SCO asks for dismissal of IBM's countersuit (see August 2003). They further argue that the GNU General Public License (GPL) violates US copyright, antitrust and export control laws as well as the US Constitution. Free Software Foundation attorney Eben Moglen calls SCO's legal arguments "rubbish". Many in the Linux community are quick to point out that SCO was itself until recently distributing Linux under the terms of the GPL.
October 17	SCO receives 50 million dollars in venture capital funding from BayStar Capital. Some are quickly able to link Microsoft to BayStar, though a spokesman for the venture capital firm denies that Microsoft is participating in this transaction.
October 15	SCO has announced that it is not going to send invoices to Linux users after all. It would appear, according to legal experts, that the prospect of having to sue thousands of customers who might refuse to pay would be too much to bear for SCO's legal fund. Ironically, other SCO funds seem to be doing well. On Deutsche Bank's recommendation to buy, SCO stock hit a three year high. Others are not so bullish. Dion Cornett of Decatur Jones Equity calls Deutsche Bank's analysis "a bad call".
October 9	Groklaw reports that RedHat is pushing its lawsuit against SCO in Delaware pretty hard. The North Carolina Linux distributor has initiated discovery and wants some answers to important questions about SCO's claims on source code and about licenses that SCO has sold to Microsoft, Sun and others. SCO has responded by requesting a delay in the discovery process.
October 1-3	SGI also faces revocation of its Unix license, despite their assurance that they have removed possibly questionable code they contributed . Subsequent statements by Blake Stowell confirms that SCO feels the changes are not sufficient to prevent it.
September 2003
September 26	IBM files new counterclaims against SCO. IBM alleges that SCO violated the GPL and IBM's copyright on Linux code by claiming its own copyright on Linux code. IBM reiterates its policy of not offering indemnity for its Linux customers despite the fact that HP had offered it to their customers a day earlier. SCO stock drops more than 17 percent on the news.
September 24	Hewlett-Packard announces a plan to indemnify customers who buy its hardware along with Linux. SCO wastes no time in spinning this news to its supposed advantage by releasing a statement saying that HP's actions affirm their claims over Linux code. The head of HP's Linux division, Martin Fink, later comments on the SCO statement saying that HP had no official position on SCO's claims against Linux and that it was up to the courts to decide.
September 15	SCO files a motion in a US District Court in Delaware to dismiss Red Hat's lawsuit against them.
September 10	Linus Torvalds issues an open letter to Darl McBride, in which he asked the SCO CEO to please grow up.. Linus notes the irony of the situation, pointing out that SCO is looking for money because it squandered what it earned on its initial public offering of stock as a Linux company. This comes after another noteworthy open letter from Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond. In it, the two Open Source luminaries accuse McBride of publishing "falsehoods, half-truths, evasions, slanders, and misrepresentations".
September 9	Darl McBride releases an "open letter" to the Open Source Community. He says "counter-cultural ideals" are behind the Linux, Free Software and Open Source movement. Urges the communities to "respect and follow the rule of law".
September 8	SCO has spent months urging people to buy licenses, but apparently interested parties are finding out that they won't sell you one. Other trouble on the SCO licensing front has SCO's representative in Australia, Kieran O'Shaughnessy, apparently at odds with the home base in Utah over the wisdom of billing customers.
September 2	A German court imposes a 10,000 Euro fine on SCO's subsidiary in Germany. SCO failed to comply with an earlier court order prohibiting them from making statements claiming that Linux is an unauthorized copy of Unix. CNET points out that though SCO removed these claims from their German website, they still provided this information through other channels.
August 2003
August 29	SCO representatives from Sydney, Australia tell Melbourne's newspaper The Age that there have never been any plans to sue Linux companies or users. Utah tech magazine Connect publishes an article about the SCO controversy with the gloomy title: Is This the End of Linux. In it, former CEO Ransom Love comes out of exile and speaks out about the case, saying "This isn't the way I'd go about it" and laments the Canopy Group's growing reputation as a "litigation shop". The Canopy Group's president Ralph Yarro defends their actions: "I'm in the business of growing tech companies, and if I need to litigate to protect them, I'll do that.". He claims he's not worried about the bad press: "I've never worried about public image."
August 26	CommentWire reports that SCO is actually sending out invoices to companies for Linux "licenses". According to the article, SCO has said that it has no plans to refund IP license fees should they lose their case. It would appear that the Japanese government is not happy with SCO's actions. A report by the Japanese Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry pointed out that "unnecessary Fear" about development of products using Linux would lead to "loss of opportunities" and would "hurt the people".
August 23-25	SCO's website is apparently the victim of another distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) making it unreachable for the weekend into Monday morning. Eric S. Raymond claims he spoke to an associate of the person who had coordinated the attack.
August 22	Eric S. Raymond responds to Darl McBride's charges (see August 21) that he's on IBM's payroll. ESR publishes an open letter to defend himself and the Linux, Open Source and Free Software communities' responses to SCO's tactics. He points out how the only thing that's fueling the response to SCO is the "common interest in preventing the open-source community from being destroyed by SCO's greed and desperation." He calls the people who support IBM's case "willing allies" and those who support SCO "lackeys". In what seems to defy logic, SCO's stock closes the week at nearly $14.00 US per share.
August 21	Darl McBride claims IBM is behind the anti-SCO movement. He implies that Big Blue enticed Red Hat and Novell to sue and affirms that Open Source luminary Eric S. Raymond is "on their payroll" . He laments that "the whole world is coming against SCO". Linux Journal publisher Phil Hughes invites SCO to sue him.
August 20	Linus Torvalds joins the growing number of developers who scoff at the evidence offered by SCO. He is quick to back up others' claims that the code snippits reflect code that is in the public domain. When asked what he thought of SCO's claims that the amount of stolen code is near 1 million lines, Linus replies: "They are smoking crack".
August 19	Some screenshots from a presentation at SCOForum 2003 in Las Vegas find their way onto German website Heise. These were part of a presentation of SCO's "evidence" of the stolen Unix code. The Linux community wastes no time in tracking down the code. It is traced back to Unix code which has been reportedly in the public domain since 1979. Some point out that in a worst-case scenario it might be under a BSD license. Bruce Perens sets up a website with more information about the code. Though Mark Heise, the lead attorney for SCO is in attendance, high-profile litigator David Boies has apparently skipped his date with the SCO crowd.
August 18	SCO kicks off its SCOForum 2003 in Las Vegas. eWeek's Peter Galli writes that Hewlett-Packard, listed as one of the sponsors of the event, has gotten cold feet and cancelled its keynote address. In a separate article, Galli reports that SCO has "identified by name" a number of companies using servers running Linux. Darl McBride says that they are in the process of contacting these companies about buying a license. He warns them that if they refuse, "we will sue them directly and see them in court". He also mentiones that they have set aside $10 million US for legal fees. That is, ironically, the same amount that Microsoft reportedly paid SCO for their Unix license (see May 19).
August 15	It's revealed that a major argument of the SCO case will be that the GPL is invalid. Mark Heise of Boies Schiller & Flexner (The law firm representing SCO) tells the Wall Street Journal that, in his opinion, the GPL is incompatible with US copyright law owing to the fact that it permits unlimited copying and modification. Law professor Eben Moglen is quick to dispute the claim, calling the GPL "simple form of copyright permission, entirely within the scope of the powers exclusively reserved to the copyright holder under the Act"
August 14	SCO feels the need to explain its insider stock trades. SCO also reports a profit of $3.1 million on revenue of just over $20 million US. This is its second profitable quarter since 2000 (and since filing suit against IBM). Compared with their previous quarter however, (See May 29, 2003) both revenue and net profit have dropped slightly. Intel's name disappears from the list of sponsors of SCO's SCOForum in Las Vegas. A SCO company spokesman reveals that the CPU maker was actually never a sponsor - claims its listing was a "mistake". Other "mistakes" include listing Intel as a sponsor in an April press release. Hewlett-Packard, which is actually a sponsor receives some criticism from the open source community for its support of SCO.
August 13	SCO announces that it has pulled a second license. SCO terminates Sequent's (a company IBM had acquired in 1999) Dynix/ptx operating system license. IBM spokeswoman Trink Guarino points out that IBM doesn't even use the system in question anymore. She calls SCO's announcement an attempt to "generate press coverage".
August 12	Linux community talk about SCO executives stock trades reaches a fever pitch. Utah's own Salt Lake City Tribune re-prints a story from the Wall Street Journal which points out that SCO execs have sold over $1.2 million US since the company announced it was suing IBM. It also points out that the amount of short selling of stock has increased spectacularly. This would indicate a lack of investor confidence in SCO for the long term. The article points out that SCO has only had one profitable quarter since issuing stock to the public in 2000. SCO stock has actually come down somewhat from its earlier high of 15.00 USD due primarily to the negative publicity generated by RedHat and IBM's counter-suits.
August 11	A mystery licencee appears. SCO announces that they have sold a Linux license. What they don't announce is to whom they sold it and how much was paid. VP Chris Sontag will only say that it was a Fortune 500 company. CNET reporter Stephen Shankland writes: "One down, 499 to go.". It is also reported that SCO will begin sending invoices to companies they think are violating their intellectual property rights. One of them might be Tivo, whose television set top box runs Linux. Apparently paying SCO is not high on their 'to do' list. A spokesperson at Tivo remarks: "From observing what's a priority and what's talked about at Tivo, this has not been one of those things,"
August 8	Oracle seems unconvinced by SCO's arguments. The company announces that it's aggressively moving everything to Linux. A spokesman says they have "seen nothing to date that has caused us to question our tremendous commitment to Linux as a customer, promoter, supporter, and developer". Chris Sontag, apparently inspired by the RIAA, announces that SCO will go after individuals if need be. The SCO VP says: "If necessary we will start picking end users to enforce our rights."
August 7	Another huge bombshell drops in the counter-offensive against SCO. IBM announces that they have filed suit against SCO. Apart from the predictable claims of interference with business, IBM adds claims that SCO software violates 4 IBM patents for which include use of data compression and cluster technology. SCO reacts to the news by releasing a press statement calling IBM's Linux business "flawed". Their newly-minted catch phrase "value of intellectual property in an Internet age." appears again in the statement. SCO invites IBM to move away from the GPL and for others to buy their Linux "licenses".
August 6	SuSE announces its support of Red Hat and urges SCO to "stop the fear, uncertainty and doubt"
August 4	The first major battle in the long-awaited counter offensive against SCO kicks off. Red Hat announces that it has filed suit against SCO in the U.S. District Court of Delaware. Red Hat accuses SCO of unfair competition, false advertising, unfair and deceptive practices and interference with their business. Red Hat CEO Matt Szulik also announces that the company has set up a fund to help defray potential legal costs incurred by open source developers. Red Hat pledges 1 million USD to the fund. Red Hat states that they have not discussed their suit with IBM and IBM also declares that it was "surprised" by it. SCO wastes no time in responding. Darl McBride attaches a letter to Red Hat CEO Szulik to a press release. In it, the SCO CEO expresses his "surprise" and "disappointment". He also threatens to counter-sue for "copyright infringement and conspiracy". Speculation abounds as to what McBride might mean by the word "conspiracy". In other semi-related news, Novell announces plans to buy Linux desktop application developer Ximian.
August 5	SCO goes public with their Linux "licensing" fees. Preliminary licensing prices range from $199 for a desktop PC to $699 for a server. The prices jump to $1,399 on October 15. Developers that use embedded Linux would have to pay a $32 fee for that type of system. David Becker of CNET writes: " Prices are steep, for a free operating system". McBride, never lacking in colorful metaphors, says "IBM and Red Hat have painted a Linux liability target on the backs of their customers" McBride also waxes philosophical: "[The] issue here is whether intellectual property rights will have any value in the age of the Internet." Red Hat's Matt Szulik also talks about rights at LinuxWorld Expo. He compares the fight for digital rights to the civil rights struggle in the US in the 1960's. "If the '60s was the generation that fought for civil rights, what is going to be the generation that is going to be looking after digital rights?" That's the generation I want...When you can see the code and not be arrested."
July 2003
July 31	Linus Torvalds calls SCO "extortionists". He disputes SCO arguments that IBM has no right to create derivative works from Unix code. "... if that same IBM code shows up in Linux, then SCO has zero rights to that code (even though it is line-for-line identical) as it exists in Linux--because that's a different work than the one that they hold the collective copyright to." The Open Source Development Lab releases a position paper on the SCO case. Eben Moglen, counsel for the Free Software Foundation is the author. Professor Moglen points out that "users can go to the SCO even today and download Linux with a GPL license. Hence, users of Linux already have a license - from SCO". He calls SCO's refusal to come forward with evidence as "suspicious".
July 30	IBM speaks up again. Al Zollar, a senior sales manager for IBM says in a conference in Australia that there are "forces at work" trying to put the brakes on the Linux movement. He said that the effort was "mostly located in Redmond". He also indicated that SCO was a willing accomplice in the effort. SCO denies that it's receiving any help from Microsoft.
July 29	Though a lot has been said about SCO stock price in the community and in forums the first articles in the press appear about SCO executives dumping their stock.
July 25	IBM once again breaks its habitual silence. Bob Samson, vice president of IBM's systems sales, writes in one of IBM's messages to its sales force that SCO can't possibly defend its claims in light of the fact that it distributed Linux under the terms of the GPL. Bill Gates comments on the SCO case at a meeting of financial analysts at Microsoft's Redmond, Washington headquarters. He claims that Microsoft code also exists in open source projects. He says the whole case has come about because of "the fundamental weakness of Linux", namely the GPL.
July 24	Still more evidence comes out that SCO's actions aren't dissuading anybody from running Linux. Netcraft, a company famous for their surveys on operating systems running at websites, releases data that shows that Linux deployments are increasing, especially at large companies. Stephen Shankland of CNET points out that this would indicate that companies are "unfazed by SCO threats". The stock market would also appear to be similarly unfazed by the general lack of credence given to SCO's claims. The company's stock hits a new high of 15.02 USD per share.
July 23	SCO proves unpopular down under. Open Source Victoria, an Australian open source advocacy group, files a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. It claims SCO is using "unsubstantiated claims and extortive legal threats for money" which could adversely effect "hundreds of thousands of Australians".
July 22	SCO announces that they have acquired web services company Voltius. Interestingly, SCO and Voltius share the same investor, namely the Canopy Group.
July 21	SCO confirms that they are preparing to offer a Linux license. Mark Radcliffe, an intellectual property attorney, is skeptical. In Radcliffe's opinion, "Unix is now a patchwork of stuff that's in the public domain and stuff that isn't in the public domain" Analyst Gordon Haff sees the move as being bad for everybody: "It seems to me that either someone ends up buying SCO, or SCO basically succeeds in destroying Linux.". Haff calls the licensing scheme a "tax" on Linux. McBride won't give the specifics of the licensing scheme. This also marks the first appearance of David Boies, SCO's lawyer. SCO's stock ends the day at a record price of just over $13.00 US. Normally silent IBM comments on the scheme. IBM's Trink Guarino says: "SCO needs to openly show any copyrighted Unix code which they claim is in Linux. SCO seems to be asking customers to pay for a license based on allegations, not facts." SCO is also awarded U.S. copyright registrations for UNIX System V source code making the already murky legal waters surrounding the case a little murkier.
July 18	InfoWorld reveals that SCO is working on a Linux license that companies and individuals can buy which will save them from future litigation. Pamela Jones who maintains Groklaw, a weblog devoted to the SCO controversy, provides some revealing information about the aforementioned kernel contributor Christoph Hellwig (see May 19, 2003). It seems he was working for Caldera and cooperating with IBM on the same code that's the basis of the whole SCO/IBM dispute, namely journaling files systems (JFS).
July 10	Darl McBride arrives in Tokyo and denies that he is there to talk to members of the CE Linux Forum. He claims he came to talk to "Linux vendors" about infringement issues. McBride refuses to reveal what companies he is planning to talk to. Meanwhile, back in the US, details of a deal between Sun Microsystems and SCO come to light. The pact, actually signed before the Microsoft-SCO deal gives Sun increased rights over its own Unix variant. It also grants Sun the right to purchase 210,000 shares of SCO stock at $1.83 USD.
July 9	It seems the SCO suit is having no effect on Linux deployments. InternetWeek polls over 2000 IT managers and finds that 91% say that SCO is having "no effect on our plans". One manager quoted in the article calls SCO's claims "absurd". Another manager points out that the only winner in a worst case scenario (one in which SCO wins) would be Microsoft.
July 8	Linus Torvalds tells CNET that he's not particularly worried about the SCO case. The Linux creator calls SCO's talk about intellectual property "blathering". He reiterates that the case really isn't about Linux that it's about SCO and IBM's contracts. He says that he hasn't changed the way he accepts code in light of the SCO case. One of Linus' comments will resonate through the tech community and will later be spun by SCO: "It is a fact that I do not encourage engineers to look up patent information, for example. You ask any lawyer about it, and they will tell you that I'm right. It's not the job of an engineer to try to find out about other peoples patents, since that just taints them, exactly something you do not want to happen."
July 6	EE Times reports that Darl McBride is going to Japan to talk to members of the newly formed embedded Linux consortium, CE Linux Forum (CELF). The group includes big name electronic firms like Toshiba, Hitachi and Philips to name but a few. The EE Times article says that he's going to show them the stolen source code (whether or not these companies have to sign their NDA is not mentioned). The Linux community is surprised to learn that the SCO CEO speaks fluent Japanese. Laura DiDio, analyst at the Yankee Group and one of the few to actually see the "stolen" source code, makes one of her periodic appearances as the purveyor of common sense and advocate of caution: "The real question customers should be asking [their software suppliers] is, 'Will you indemnify us if SCO prevails?' "
July 1	The first real-live fallout from the SCO case occurs in New Zealand. The director of a CD copying company refuses to make 500 copies of Linux Live-CD distribution Knoppix destined for use at a Linux "install-fest". The New Zealand Herald reports that a company executive refused the request saying that their "wariness of Linux was due to legal action between SCO and Linux over intellectual property issues.".
June 2003
June 27	Darl McBride grants a long interview to VNUNet. He claims that IBM is the one who's dragging the case out - that he would rather have it settled and done with. He says that Linux kernel developers just took Unix System V code, removed the copyright notices and incorporated it into the kernel verbatim. Claims this even includes "humor elements" in the comments. McBride implies that IBM enticed Novell to dispute SCO's ownership of Unix: "[IBM] threw Novell out in front of the bus a couple of weeks ago and Novell got run over". He backtracks on previous lawsuit speculation and claims that SCO has no plans to sue anybody else.
June 26	Anupam Chander, Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis writes an article for FindLaw on the SCO case. The crux of his argument is that SCO's claims lack true merit. He points out that SCO's ownership of Unix code is in doubt. Due to the history of Unix development, IBM may actually enjoy the same rights SCO claims only for itself. He further points out that SCO's distribution of Linux under the GPL may invalidate SCO's prior rights due to the open nature of that license.
June 25	Eben Moglen, counsel for the Free Software Foundation, releases the FSF's position paper on the SCO suit. Points out that owing to the fact that SCO release Linux under the GPL, their case is fundamentally flawed. Moglen points out that "SCO itself has continuously published, as part of its regular business, the material which it claims includes its trade secrets. There is simply no legal basis on which SCO can claim trade secret liability in others for material it widely and commercially published itself under a license that specifically permitted unrestricted copying and distribution."
June 24	Darl McBride sends a letter to SCO Source customers to inform them that they will be held harmless for any damages if they are using SCO Linux and (Caldera) OpenLinux. Linux advocates quickly point out that these terms would violate the GPL. On the subject of the GPL, Richard Stallman pens an article for ZDNet about the SCO case. He talks about SCO muddying the waters with vague notions of intellectual property. Stallman also implies that kernel contributors could have plagiarized code, but gives a "that happens" explanation and says that the solution is to remove it. He points out that a few lines of code shouldn't taint the rest of the GNU/Linux system, but that's what SCO obviously wants us to believe.
June 20	'What if SCO is right?' themed pieces begin appearing in the tech press. Whether these articles are simple examples of trying to get the other side of the story, facile attempts at playing devil's advocate or covert advocacy of SCO and its backers is up to the reader to determine. Linux Journal runs a piece about Ian Lance Taylor, who signed SCO's NDA and looked at the code. He is, as the custom for SCO, shown 80 lines of code. Taylor describes what he sees as code "that appears suggestive but that also apparently is inconsequential". When he asks to see the revision history of the code, SCO refuses, citing legal issues. Though Taylor doesn't find SCO's evidence compelling, he doesn't rule out the possibility of "careless" Linux developers misappropriating copyrighted code. Linux user groups in Utah stage a protest at SCO's headquarters. SCO is apparently ready for them and has prepared a counter-protest. Employees place signs on the grounds. One of them reads "I [heart] Software Piracy" with a picture of Tux the penguin in the heart. Others compare Linux to communism and Linux users to marijuana smokers. The affair is amicable. Some of the protesters have their pictures taken with Darl McBride.
June 18	Sun Microsystems takes advantage of the climate of uncertainty and runs an ad in the Wall St. Journal aimed at IBM's AIX customers. The ad warns them that in light of SCO's dispute with IBM, running AIX could get "very expensive". A article by Daniel Lyons at Forbes talks about the Byzantine structure of the Canopy Group, the venture capital firm that owns almost 50% of SCO. He also mentions Darl McBride's history of being involved in lawsuits.
June 17	Linus Torvalds announces that he has taken a leave of absence from his job at Transmeta and will join the Open Source Development Lab, a non-profit entity funded by major companies (including IBM). This organization, which provides facilities for Open Source software development, will now be billed as "the home of Linus Torvalds". Speculation arises in the Linux community as to whether the move is related to the SCO controversy.
June 16	SCO announces that it's revoking IBM's license to sell AIX. The first public criticism of Linus Torvalds comes in the text of an amendment to the IBM suit. SCO also raises the amount they're seeking in damages to 3 billion USD. The suit also adds claims that IBM is illegally exporting technology that can be used to carry out "weapons research" to countries on the US export restriction list. They claim that Linus' management style is flawed and that he is either not able or unwilling to vet the code that goes into the Linux kernel. Mike Fay, and IBM spokesman says that SCO has no right to revoke their license. In a public statement, Fay says: "Our Unix license is irrevocable, perpetual and fully paid up. It can't be terminated". Sontag says that IBM's customers must "destroy" their copies of AIX. SCO applies for a permanent but not a preliminary injunction against IBM regarding the AIX license. Legal analysts point out that a preliminary injunction would require a cash bond be placed by SCO in the event that their claims were unfounded. Others point out that a permanent injunction is indicative of lack of evidence to support a quicker preliminary judgment. In other words, SCO's actions would indicate that the company has little cash and a weak case. Linus is not amused with SCO's description of him. He remarks: "I personally manage more valuable IP rights than SCO has ever held, and I take it damn seriously".
June 15	An anonymous kernel developer sends cease and desist letter to SCO's German subsidiary. He claims they're violating his copyright. Urges other kernel contributors to do the same.
June 13	Friday the 13th turns out to be an unlucky day for SCO. It's the deadline for IBM to comply with SCO's demands or to stop distributing AIX. IBM does nothing and SCO announces that they're going to wait until Monday to announce what they're going to do.
June 10	Someone comes forward to backup Maddog's theory. Peter Galli of eWeek gets an anonymous tip from a source "who spoke on the condition of anonymity". He/She claims that code did in fact go from Linux to SCO. To add insult to injury, SCO didn't even make the changes available as they are obligated to under the conditions of the GPL.
June 6	SCO shows Bill Claybrook of the Aberdeen Group 80 lines of code. He opines that the "Linux community should be very concerned". Laura DiDio, who is not a developer but an analyst with the Yankee Group of Boston claims that she saw identical comments in both SCO code and Linux kernel code. She claims that a coder's comments are like "DNA". Jon 'Maddog' Hall, the guardian of the Linux trademark is unimpressed. Hall says: "Can SCO prove that this code came from SCO to Linux, and not from Linux to SCO? Or did the code that's in SCO Unix come from a third source? Show me the facts". Linux advocates are quick to point out that the Linux kernel contains over 2 million lines of code.
June 5	SCO comes across a 1996 amendment to Novell's contract with the "old" SCO company transferring ownership rights to SCO. A paralegal discovers it in a filing cabinet. The amendment backs up SCO's claims of copyright ownership. Novell somewhat grudgingly accepts the validity of the document and states that the language, though "convoluted", supports a transfer of some copyrights.
June 4	Linux Journal publishes SCO's now infamous non-disclosure agreement. Dan Ravicher, an attorney interviewed by Linux Journal, points out that the agreement allows SCO to only show those parts that they want to, implying that they would show only those favorable to their case. He raises other objections about the broad scope of what is considered confidential by SCO. Ravicher comments: "If someone wants to enter this despite all those bad parts, it's a free country"
May 2003
May 30	Darl McBride, in aninterview with Computer World, claims he's "not trying to screw up the Linux business". He also seems to entertain the possibility of a buyout by IBM. He also talks about SCO's problems with Linux in the late 1990's. The article doesn't point out the fact that Darl McBride wasn't with either Caldera or the "old" SCO at the time nor the fact that Caldera had yet to acquire SCO's Unix business. In other statements that day, McBride accuses Novell of making their announcement to coincide with SCO's earnings statement in order to "screw that up". Says that they'll settle Novell's claims "in court". Thus Novell joins Red Hat and SuSE on SCO's lawsuit waiting list. He also announces that June will be "show-and-tell time" for the "stolen" code. More details come out about the conditions for seeing the code. Those analysts who wish to see it must sign a non-disclosure agreement. Under those conditions, most quickly rule out the idea. Linus Torvalds compares the whole controversy to "white trash" battling it out "on the Jerry Springer show".
May 29	CEO Darl McBride announces the first net income "in the company's history". SCO's quarterly balance sheet shows earnings of 4.5 million USD for revenue of just over 21 million USD. According the the press release, almost 15 million comes from licensing and "protection of their intellectual property".
May 28	Novell enters the fray. CEO Jack Messman claims that"SCO's purchase of UNIX from Novell does not convey to SCO the associated copyrights". He further reveals that SCO has been trying to get Novell to turn over the copyrights for months. SCO issues a cryptic press release later in the day to say that they own the "contract rights" to Unix. They further state that their IBM suit " does not involve patents or copyrights" but is about "breach of contract". SCO's stock, which has been enjoying an amazing upward climb, drops somewhat on the news. Darl McBride threatens to sue Linus Torvalds for patent infringement. Later, McBride tries to downplay his threats by implying that while the his earlier remarks where "overstated". He still didn't rule out the possibility of suing Linus, however.
May 25	Eric S. Raymond asks for information from people who may have seen Unix source code on his page. Creates a page at his website called No Secrets. Ironically, he claims that he can neither disclose to whom he is going to give this information nor for what purpose.
May 23	German company LinuxTag, organizers of the synonymous Linux conferences, goes to court to seek an injunction against Germany's SCO subsidiary. LinuxTag asks the court to demand that SCO " retract its claims regarding ownership of Linux kernel code" by Friday, May 30, or "make its evidence public".
May 23	Business Week calls Darl McBride "Linux's New Public Enemy No. 1". In an interview for the mainstream business publication, SCO's CEO reiterates his claim that the suit is motivated by IBM's alleged desire "destroy the value of Unix". He dodges a question about Hewlett-Packard's Linux development. He claims the stolen code is "not just a line or two, it's an entire section -- and in some cases, an entire program". McBride also states his desire to sit down and work the whole thing out, but then he demurs, saying that after the attack on SCO's website, he doesn't know how to work with the community. The statement that resonates most is McBride's belief that Open Source development "has some fundamental flaws".The Open Group feels the need to clarify that "SCO has never owned 'UNIX'. SCO is licensed to use the registered trademark UNIX"
May 22	Erik Hughes, SCO's product management director reveals that SCO is no longer participating in development of UnitedLinux but did not know whether or not the other partners (SuSE, Conectiva and TurboLinux) had been formerly notified. Hughes also fields questions about the growing belief that SCO's distribution of Linux under the GPL invalidates their intellectual property claims. Linus Torvalds also answers some questions for CRN and compares SCO's promise to show the stolen source code to the Raelians claim that they had cloned a human. He chalks up the lawsuit to SCO who "can't make it in the market" and then must sue and go after the "deep pockets".
May 19	Microsoft, who up to this point has remained silent on the issue of SCO vs. IBM, buys a Unix license from SCO. VP Chris Sontag praises Microsoft's "respect [for] the intellectual property of software". Many in the Linux community find this lack of historical perspective amusing and point out how in 2000 SCO, in their Caldera days, had settled out of court with Microsoft over the DR-DOS debacle. It's also ironic that the DR-DOS suit also arose after Caldera acquired code "second hand" as was its acquisition of SCO Unix. Tech pundits immediately speculate on the motives behind Microsoft's purchase of a Unix license. Most agree that the reported $10 million US in licensing fees that SCO received for essentially doing nothing ensure that SCO can at least claim a profit for that quarter's operations. Microsoft, perennial foe of Linux and Open Source, gets to inject capital into SCO's anti-Linux machine for an amount that is practically pocket change for the Redmond software giant. SCO now becomes a another purveyor of FUD and a surrogate target of Linux community barbs for a relatively modest investment.Linus Torvalds suggests Open Source luminary Chris DiBona as a good candidate for SCO's panel. Linus also mentions the opinion of Christoph Hellwig, a former Caldera employee, that code from SCO's Unix offerings wouldn't get past the tough critics on the Linux kernel mailing list due to technical difficulties in making it work with the Linux internals.
May 15	VP Chris Sontag announces that SCO will reveal the "stolen" code to a panel of "respected analysts and respected third parties". Sontag claims both "pre-IBM" and "post-IBM" infringement.
May 14	SCO announces that they are suspending sales of their Linux products. According to their statement, "Linux is an unauthorized derivative of UNIX". They also send a letter to "1,500 top international companies" warning them of legal consequences if they continue to use Linux. Tech analyst Gordon sums up the action by saying: "SCO has lobbed its dirty bomb into the user community".
May 13	SuSE states that they will honor their commitments to UnitedLinux despite SCO's actions. The German Linux distributor further states that they have not heard anything from SCO on the matter of SuSE Linux possibly containing the code in question. According to SuSE, requests for clarification from their partner in UnitedLinux have gone unanswered. SCO VP Chris Sontag's statements would tend to contradict this. He states in an interview with ComputerWorld's John Blau that Darl McBride "has had numerous conversations with the other CEOs within UnitedLinux". When asked if they were going to abandon UnitedLinux, Sontag refuses to answer the question. The most important part of the interview comes when Blau asks Sontag what motivated the suit. He claims that he heard IBM executive Steve Mills say at LinuxWorld Expo that IBM's plans were to phase out AIX in favor of Linux and "obliterate Unix".
May 2	SCO's website suffers a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS), which takes it off line for most of the day. SCO will imply in later statements that they believe it was the work "some of the Linux community who are hostile toward SCO". SuSE releases a statement that claims that they are immune from future legal action against them by virtue of their agreements with SCO related to UnitedLinux.
May 1	Darl McBride begins to talk about SCO's source code appearing in the Linux kernel, albeit without getting into specifics. This is going to become their general modus operandi with respect to the code in question: talk about it but don't show it. When asked why SCO is holding back on revealing the allegedly stolen source code, McBride remarks that if SCO did release it, the Linux developers would have it "laundered by the time we can get to a court hearing".The interview shows that the CEO of what is still technically a Linux company is ignorant about how kernel development takes place. It also reinforces the general belief that the "stolen" source code may be non-existent.
April 2003
April 24	Darl McBride gives an interview to CRN. Throws out the first hint that the suit will go beyond just IBM: "There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done.". Tries to calm Linux advocates: "We're not trying to destroy the Linux industry".
April 7	SCO, seemingly oblivious to the controversy they have created, releases SCO Linux Server 4.0. The new product is designed to be used on the Itanium processor The press release still mentions their relationship with UnitedLinux and the fact that their64 bit offering runs on Linux kernel version 2.4.19.
March 2003
March 10	MozillaQuest scores a coup by getting Linus Torvalds' first public statements on the case. Linus dismisses the lawsuit as a contract dispute between IBM and SCO and says it effects Linux only "peripherally". As far as SCO's claims that Linux wouldn't be where it is today without IBM's help, Linus disputes that by saying: "IBM has certainly been very helpful, and I like the IBM engineers I work with, but Linux was running on 16-cpu Sun sparc computers long before IBM really got into it.. Eric S. Raymond and Rob Landley release the Open Source Initiative Position Paper on the SCO-vs.-IBM Complaint written as an amicus curae (friend of the court) brief in favor of IBM. The paper outlines some fundamental errors in fact and interpretation regarding SCO's ownership of Unix code, copyrights and other claims.
March 7	The Linux, Open Source and Free Software communities take little time to react. Eric S. Raymond calls SCO's actions "deeply stupid". Bruce Perens calls the lawsuit "a prelude to [SCO's] acquisition". IBM spokesman Mike Fay comments on the suit by saying that SCO's filing is "full of allegations with no supporting facts". IBM will not comment further. SuSE CEO Richard Seibt announces that the German Linux developer is re-evaluating its relationship with the SCO Group. SCO's stock price leaps 40% and trades at just over $3.00 US. Ironically, IBM's stock also goes up.
March 6	SCO drops a somewhat pre-announced bombshell. The company files suit in the 3rd District Court of Utah against IBM for "misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, breach of contract and tortious interference with its business". Most analysts chalk the move up as a last ditch attempt to salvage something from a dying company. SCO senior vice president Chris Sontag doesn't rule out suing SuSE (who is still a partner in UnitedLinux at this time) and Red Hat. SuSE seems to be caught off guard by Sontag's statements. An IBM spokesperson will not comment on the suit.
January 2003
January 22	It turns out that SCO has retained David Boies' services after all. SCO claims they want to find out if there is SCO intellectual property in Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and versions of BSD. There's no specific mention of Linux yet, but McBride singles out Mac OS X: If you pull down (Mac) OS X you'll see a lot of copyright postings that point back to Unix Systems Laboratories, which is what we hold."
January 13	SCO issues a statement about the validity of the O'Gara story. They deny that they have retained Mr. Boies and state that SCO "has no desire to take legal action against fellow Linux vendors". While they do claim ownership of "core Unix IP" they further state: "we've made no decisions, formed no programs and announced nothing about this."
January 10	Maureen O'Gara of LinuxGram posts a story that SCO is planning on suing Linux vendors for using proprietary Unix intellectual property. The story cites anonymous sources and claims that SCO is planning on charging per CPU and that it has retained David Boies as their attorney. In retrospect, the details in the piece end up being a fairly accurate prediction of the course the SCO case is going to take during the first half of 2003.
September 2002
September 18	During a press conference to announce the upcoming beta of UnitedLinux, reporters ask about former Caldera CEO Ransom Love's duties for the joint distribution. Paula Hunter, the new general manager of UnitedLinux, suprises everyone with the revelation that Love "has never worked for UnitedLinux".
August 2002
August 26	Caldera announces that they're changing their name to the SCO Group.They state that they are going to concentrate on their Unix development. The first cracks begin to appear in UnitedLinux's foundation.
June 2002
June 27	Ransom Love is ousted as CEO of Caldera and is replaced by Darl McBride, a former Franklin Covey executive. Caldera's stock, already trading below $1.00 US drops to $0.60 on the news. McBride says that Caldera's business strategy would change very little.It is announced that Love will stay on at Caldera as the liaison to the other partners of UnitedLinux.
May 2002
May 29	Caldera, SuSE, Turbolinux and Conectiva sign an agreement to form UnitedLinux and jointly develop a Linux distribution for servers. When asked how Caldera's SCO products fit into the picture, CEO Ransom Love replied "The message to developers is to develop Linux applications -- that is develop UnitedLinux applications so they can deploy to either OpenUnix or OpenLinux or any of the other UnitedLinux distributions out there."
January 2002
January 24	Paul Hatch, PR director of Caldera announces the release of the "Ancient Unices" under a BSD-style license. Hatch apologizes for the delay of the release, stating "we must depend upon you UNIX enthusiasts, historians, and original authors to help the community of interested parties figure out exactly what is available, where, and how." He goes on to praise his then boss Ransom Love, CEO of Caldera whose "vision for Caldera International prescribes cooperation and mutual respect for the open source communities.
August 2000
August 23	The part of SCO not purchased by Caldera is renamed Tarantella
August 2	Linux distribution developer Caldera acquires the Santa Cruz Operation's (SCO) Unix server division. SCO receives 28% of Caldera's stock, 7 million USD in cash and 18 million USD in loan guarantees from The Canopy Group, a venture capital firm and Caldera's major shareholder.