SCO names Linux licence buyer

The SCO Group has revealed the name of a Fortune 1000 company which has signed up to the SCO Unix licensing programme: US internet hosting provider Everyones Internet (EV1.Net).

The SCO licence is with EV1.Net's hosting division, EV1Servers.Net, which runs a choice of Windows, BSD Unix and Linux servers for its users, providing them with an indemnity.

EV1.Net chief executive Robert Marsh said in a statement: "The SCO agreement eliminates uncertainty from our clients' hosting infrastructure.

"Our current and future users now enjoy the peace of mind of knowing that their websites and data are hosted on a SCO IP compliant platform."

Under the terms of the agreement, SCO will provide EV1Servers.Net with a site licence that allows the use of SCO IP in binary form on all Linux servers managed by EV1Servers.Net in each of its hosting facilities.

SCOsource vice president Chris Sontag told vnunet.com that the total number of licensees was still no more than about 20, comprising Fortune 500, mid-tier and a few very small companies. "SCO is pleased with the results," he said.

But Sontag was still not able to give a date for when SCO would start proceedings against large companies which had not signed up for a licence.

"I still think we are very close. We had some additional information and we wanted to take advantage of that. We will take action when everything is in place," he said.

A judge has also allowed SCO's requested changes to its lawsuit against IBM, which raises SCO's damages claim to a minimum of $5bn.

IBM agreed last week not to oppose SCO's motion to amend its claims, which the company raised at a hearing on 6 February.

At that time, presiding magistrate Judge Brooke Wells stated that she would give a written judgement on whether to allow it within a week.

The amended claim drops SCO's allegation that IBM misappropriated trade secrets, but adds breach of copyright by making parts of its Unix variants AIX and Dynix available in Linux.

Commenting on the amended lawsuit, Sontag said that the trade secret violation claim was "probably the least significant allegation, and it will allow us to focus on the most significant complaints".