Seatlle, June 17: SCO Group Inc. said it had revoked International Business Machines Corp.'s right to use and distribute software based on Unix, intensifying a legal dispute over the rights of companies worldwide to the popular Linux operating system. IBM immediately rejected SCO's attempt to block the world's largest computer company from working with Unix-based software, which is used to run corporate and government computer systems for serving up Web pages, accounting, manufacturing and storing information.
"As we have said all along our license is irrevocable, perpetual and cannot be terminated," IBM spokeswoman Trink Guarino said.
Chris Sontag, a general manager in charge of SCO's Unix licensing efforts, said that IBM's liability would increase after it failed to respond to an initial deadline in a $1-billion lawsuit that expired on Friday.
"We gave IBM notice that they're in violation of the contract that they had," Sontag said.
"If they continue to ignore the termination order and with the damages that will rack up every day, we're not in a hurry to settle anymore."
At the heart of the legal wrangling is the widespread proliferation of various versions of Unix over the past 20 years or so.
Unix, originally developed by AT&T Corp. for computers that are networked together, and its various versions are used to power much of the Internet, manage corporate payrolls, monitor the US nuclear arsenal and create animated movies.
Lindon, Utah-based SCO came to own the rights to Unix after several complicated changes in ownership.
Meanwhile, IBM had developed a version of Unix called AIX.
SCO said that a significant part of the original Unix source code, or underlying software blueprint, was transferred from Unix to AIX to yet another version of Unix called Linux, which can be modified and copied freely. That makes it hard for SCO to collect licensing fees for Linux, which is becoming increasingly popular among corporations seeking to cut their technology costs. Bureau Report