A US judge has ordered IBM to hand over 2 billion lines of its in-house software code to rival SCO Group as part of its long-running intellectual property dispute over the Linux computer operating system. The disclosure could help SCO establish whether any of its own code was improperly included in the open-source Linux software, as it alleged in a lawsuit filed nearly two years ago.
IBM has backed Linux, which it sees as a defence to counter the advance of Microsoft's Windows. Any evidence that Linux breaches other companies' intellectual property rights could discourage users from adopting it or force them to pay licence fees. Last week IBM was ordered to turn over code from its AIX and Dynix operating systems. Both are are versions of the Unix system, the rights to which are held by SCO.
24-Jan-2005
