SAN FRANCISCO--The SCO Group plans to expand its Linux legal attack on Tuesday by filing a lawsuit against a large company using the open-source operating system.

SCO Chief Executive Darl McBride announced the plan Monday at the Software 2004 conference here, but he didn't identify the company beyond saying it would have a recognized name.

SCO, which owns a disputed amount of Unix intellectual property and claims some of the code was improperly used in Linux, threatened in November to sue Linux users, although it missed a self-imposed mid-February deadline.

"We missed by a couple weeks. The first one won't show up until tomorrow," McBride said. After his speech he said the company has two potential targets.

"We've been in communication with them" about the license issue, McBride said. "Now it's time to move to the litigation part of the enforcement."

SCO is seeking to charge companies $699 per single-processor server to use Linux, which is closely related to Unix. Thus far, only a "handful" of companies have taken up SCO on the plan.

SCO began arguing in March 2003 that IBM illegally moved Unix technology to Linux. The Lindon, Utah-based company now seeks more than $5 billion in damages from IBM.

SCO also sued Novell--a recent Linux convert and a prior owner of the Unix technology--over Novell's assertions that it still owns Unix copyrights.

In addition, Red Hat, the leading seller of Linux, filed a suit seeking a declaration that the company didn't violate SCO's copyrights or trade secrets.


Other suits are planned, McBride said Monday.

Source: C|Net News