The Auburn Hills, Michigan-based US branch of DaimlerChrysler AG has moved to dismiss SCO’s breach of contract claim based on its position that SCO’s claims are moot, that SCO is not a party to its License Agreement, and that Novell Inc has moved to waive SCO’s right to enforce the License Agreement, among other things.
Lindon, Utah-based SCO’s case against DaimlerChrysler focuses on the breach of an enterprise Unix source license agreement. SCO wrote to Unix users late in 2003 asking them to certify that they are keeping to the terms of their agreements.
SCO did not hear back from DaimlerChrysler, enough to represent a violation of the agreement, according to SCO CEO Darl McBride.
The requirement that we have with DaimlerChrysler is that they certify with us that they are living up to the obligations in the agreement itself, said McBride announcing the lawsuit in March 2004. They’ve had access to our source code. To the extent that they have or have not had a clean room environment in their development with Linux, they need to certify that.
Among its 10 affirmative defenses DaimlerChrysler claims that SCO’s claims are moot because it has provided SCO with a proper certification under the License Agreement. It also claims that SCO is not a party to the License Agreement in question.
DaimlerChrysler also states that SCO is unable to sue it because Novell has waived SCO’s rights to enforce the Unix License Agreement. Waltham, Massachusetts-based Novell has claimed that it retained copyright over the Unix System V code when it sold its UnixWare and OpenServer business to Santa Cruz Operation Inc, which later sold it to Caldera, before it changed its name to SCO Group.
SCO’s claims against DaimlerChrysler are separate from its breach of contract case against AutoZone’s Inc, which is based on the auto part retailer’s use of the Linux operating system, which SCO claims contains elements of its Unix System V code.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
