Red Hat versus SCO fight will be riveting

Since then, more information has surfaced. In particular, Red Hat's Complaint in the US District Court for the District of Delaware is available here as a PDF file.

SCO's also released a last minute FAX to Red Hat along with an obviously posturing reaction letter from its CEO Darl McBride. Both of these are available here.

>From the initial reading of Red Hat's Complaint, it's clear that Red Hat is alleging several very serious charges against SCO in this action, and these are as follows (paragraphs of Red Hat's Complaint in parentheses, the roman numerals converted to arabic, and legal citations omitted):

(70-73) 1. For Declaratory Judgement of Non-Infringement of Copyrights
(74-77) 2. For Declaratory Judgement of No Misappropriation of Trade Secrets
(78-86) 3. False Advertising
(87-90) 4. Deceptive Trade Practices
(91-94) 5. Unfair Competition
(95-100) 6. Tortious Interference
(101-105) 7. Trade Libel and Disparagement

In the first two pleadings, Red Hat is asking the court to declare it is not infringing on SCO's copyrights and is not misappropriating SCO trade secrets. Once the court establishes these two points, then the remainder of Red Hat's pleadings gain foundation. SCO will then have to attempt to defend its outrageous behaviour laid out by the rest of Red Hat's claims in pleadings three through seven. So, if Red Hat wins on those first two points, SCO might be looking at damages, and treble punitive damages.

It's an extensive bill of civil charges that Red Hat has leveled against SCO. Moreover, given SCO's numerous public statements made in these last few months, Red Hat's complaints appear justified by SCO's behaviour.

If, as the Linux community believes, Linux does not contain source code that infringes SCO's copyright, then SCO might end up paying damages to Red Hat -- including trebled punitive damages as Red Hat's requested.

However, SCO remains defiant. In his reply letter, Darl McBride alleged not only copyright infringement but also conspiracy. But, SCO's vaunted copyright consists of only one 20-page printout of revisions to AT&T's Unix System V. The copyright to all of System V is still held by USL.

McBride's letter also foreshadows that SCO plans to paint itself as the victim of a some dark plot by the supporters of Linux (probably IBM and Red Hat) to deprive poor tiny SCO of customers and revenue. Aside from a few columns published by industry observers predicting that Linux would probably displace SCO's spavined UnixWare in low-end applications, one seriously doubts that SCO will be able to find any evidence supporting the second claim. And that might open up SCO to reciprocal discovery.

This lawsuit will be fought for blood. I doubt that SCO can prevail. µ

See Also
Red Hat sues SCO
OSDL questions SCO's license extortion
Legal commentators weigh SCO's chances