When GNU / Linux is said to be an operating system of the Unix family of systems, many people tend to think that the former was developed using code from the latter, from the original Unix developed by AT&T. But this is not the case: Linux (what we properly call ‘Linux’, that is, the system’s kernel) has the same relationship with Unix as ReactOS with Windows …
…it is a clone, written from scratch to work very similar to the original (which makes it easier to port applications), but it is not a derivative. In fact, to be precise, Linux is the clone of another clone, since its immediate reference when it was created was another Unix-based operating system: MINIX.
Thanks to this, we could deduce that none of the multiple legal issues surrounding the ownership of rights to Unix operating system code today it would have to spill over into Linux in any way. However, the reality is a bit more complex.
When IBM opted for Linux … and the ‘brown mess’
Let’s position ourselves. 1993: the Novell company purchases from AT&T Unix Systems Laboratories (along with the intellectual property of the products developed there). At the end of the same year, Novell resells said resignation to Santa Cruz Operation. However, the latter does not buy all of its intellectual property rights, but part of them remain in the hands of Novell.
1998: Santa Cruz Operation joins other large companies, including the giant Intel and IBM, to form the ‘Monterey Project’, with the aim of jointly developing a version of Linux capable of running on multiple hardware platforms.
2001: IBM (owner of a Unix derivative called AIX) checks that the Linux community is having more success in carrying out the task of the Monterey Project that he himself, so he decides to abandon it and go on to support Linux. As part of this support, collaborates with some parts of the AIX code to kernel development Linux.
Problem? That IBM had developed these parts of AIX after starting its collaboration with the Monterey Project, so Santa Cruz Operation felt that its former partners were using their own contributions to bolster a commercial Unix rival.
Bankruptcies, divisions, and fragmentation of rights on Unix
That same year, Santa Cruz Operation decides to divest itself and sells its rights to Unix to an independent subsidiary company called Caldera, who will be the one to initiate a lawsuit against IBM and RedHat in 2003 claiming to be the owner of the code contributed by IBM and already included in the Linux kernel.
For four years, the Linux community has feared the possible legal consequences of this labyrinthine lawsuit. Until Caldera, then renamed the SCO Group, Goes bankrupt in 2007, loses first Linux lawsuit, another against Novell related to your Unix rights and also receives defamation lawsuits from RedHat and SUSE.
Another four years later, in 2011, SCO Group’s rights are sold to UnXis (currently Xinuos), but the first (renamed again as TSG Group) continues its lawsuit against IBM and co, achieving that in 2013 a judge reactivated the case.
At this point, we have the old Unix rights scattered among three companies that we know of: a big technology company (Novell), a bankrupt company (SCO / TSG Group) and a developer of Unix systems for servers (Xinuos).
In all this time, the case has remained lethargic … but I live in the courts, while the Linux community continued to develop its operating system and the lawyers continued to collect thanks to the stubbornness of each other. A stubbornness that is not unusual in view of the prize at stake…
… The ability to claim partial ownership over a kernel that not only now has many more desktop users than in 2003… but is present at the heart of the predominant operating system in the mobile sector (Android), installing millions of new copies of it every year.
Let’s imagine for a moment how much royalty income could be that is if any of the heirs of Santa Cruz Operation finally achieve a victory in court.
One door closes, but recently another opened
Today we learned, however, that the legal path has come to an abrupt end for TSG Group: the bankruptcy trustee appointed by the state of Delaware to oversee the company has recommended reach an agreement with IBM to close the matter in the face of “the uncertain final success of the claims” of TSG against it. In return, IBM will contribute $ 14.25 million that will provide some liquidity to its dying rival.
Business closed? Well, no! Because let’s remember that TSG Group sold its rights to Unix to Xinuos, who in March of this year filed its own lawsuit against IBM, who rejected its allegations as “unfounded” … but that keeps a door open to a possible earthquake in the software world when it could have been completely closed.
Main Image | Excerpted from the BBC documentary ‘Seven Worlds, One Planet’