IBM's countersuit against SCO inspected

LWN.NET has obtained a transcript of Big Blue's countersuit against SCO that it made last week, and has put the text on its web site, here.

IBM is slow to anger, but it's obviously got a phalanx of lawyers sharpening quill pens ready for a fight to the finish.

Some of them might even have a sense of humour, because the document even accuses SCO of creating fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) - something which IBM has been accused of itself many times in the past.

But the document also accuses SCO of orchestrating a press campaign, and "misusing" its purported rights to Unix to "threaten destruction of the competing operating systems known as AIX and Linux, and to extract windfall profits for its unjust enrichment".

It also claims that the "scheme" SCO devised included bringing baseless legal claims against Big Blue, threatening to sue companies and individuals, and conducting a far-reaching publicity claim to create a "false and/or unsubstantiated" impression that SCO has rights to Unix and Linux it didn't have.

SCO just launched its legal campaign without any prior notice to IBM and without notice sent letters to 1500 large corporations threatening legal action against them".

A press campaign not only included press releases and interviews, IBM alleges, but held non public meetings with analysts to disseminate its "misleading" message about Unix, AIX and Linux, "and to damage IBM and the open source movement".

Big Blue alleges that a Deutsche Bank luncheon hosted by an analyst included a false statement that IBM transferred NUMA code from Sequent to Linux without any legal basis.

IBM claims that SCO's egregious misconduct has artificially inflated its stock price, and resulted in damage to both IBM and the open source movement. And it claims it's done that with reckless disregard that it doesn't have the rights it claims.

The Big Blue lawyers have thrown the whole book at SCO. It all gets more and more interesting.... µ

See Also
Novell accuses SCO of extorting money from Linux community
IBM countersues SCO as war heats up
IBM starts anti-SCO stealth counter attack