SCO to claim IBM used unlicensed code in AIX 5L

The SCO Group Inc. may escalate its legal battle against IBM Corp. after having discovered documents that it says prove that IBM violated SCO licensing terms when it developed the latest version of its AIX operating system, a source close to the company said Thursday.

According to the source, IBM used Unix code in AIX 5L that SCO had licensed to IBM for "Project Monterey," an effort to build a version of Unix for Intel Corp.'s Itanium processor. IBM dropped Project Monterey for Itanium servers in 2001 in favor of Linux, but SCO has discovered e-mail that allegedly shows that IBM used code licensed from SCO for Project Monterey in the development of AIX 5L without a separate license, the source said.

Forbes.com first reported the AIX allegations Wednesday, attributing them to remarks made by SCO Chief Executive Officer Darl McBride earlier this week on the sidelines of the company's annual user conference. On Thursday, a SCO representative declined to comment on the licensing charges, and an IBM spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

"You can expect to see more on the issue from the company (SCO) in future legal filings," the source said.

IBM and SCO have tangled for over a year regarding charges that IBM violated its Unix licensing agreements with SCO when it contributed source code to the Linux development project. The new allegations against AIX were discovered as part of the exchange of documents in that ongoing legal dispute, the source said.