ZDNET UK says that "Microsoft is acquiring rights to Unix technology from SCO...According to a statement from Microsoft, the company will license SCO's Unix patents and the source code."

MS's atty Brad Smith said acquiring the licence from SCO "is representative of Microsoft's ongoing commitment to repecting intellectual property and the IT community's healthy exchange of IP through licensing."

The only questions I have are, Was SCO their running dog from the beginning? Is this whole lawsuit manufactured with the "higher" goal of destroying Linux in the enterprise market? And just how far do they hope to take this destroy-Linux strategy?

SCO, I found out, got just 2% of its income from its Linux offerings. It's a 98% UNIX company, which by definition puts it at odds with enterprise Linux shops like RedHat and SUSe, who target the previously Unix market and who are the two Linux distributors SCO has singled out as allegedly having SCO proprietary code in their distributions. The same link shows that SCO admits there is no proprietary code in the Linux kernel.

Here's the SCO announcement:

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SCO Announces UNIX Licensing Deal With Microsoft
SCO Licenses UNIX Patents and Source Code to Microsoft

LINDON, Utah, May 19, 2003 -- The SCO® Group (SCO) (Nasdaq: SCOX), the owner of the UNIX® operating system, today announced it has licensed its UNIX technology including a patent and source code licenses to Microsoft® Corporation. The licensing deal ensures Microsoft's intellectual property compliance across all Microsoft solutions and will better enable Microsoft to ensure compatibility with UNIX and UNIX services.

"There are many companies in the IT industry who acknowledge and respect the intellectual property of software," said Chris Sontag, senior vice president and general manager for SCO's intellectual property division. "With this announcement, Microsoft is clearly showing the importance of maintaining compatibility with UNIX and Microsoft's software solutions through their software licensing. This important step will better help their customers implement UNIX and Windows® solutions."

Microsoft joins thousands of IT companies, educational institutions and customers that have licensed the UNIX source code for the benefit of their organizations. UNIX is one of the most widely used operating systems in the industry for implementing highly scalable computing solutions for high-end computing.

About The SCO Group

The SCO Group (Nasdaq: SCOX) helps millions of customers in more than 82 countries to grow their businesses with UNIX business solutions. Headquartered in Lindon, Utah, SCO has a worldwide network of more than 11,000 resellers and 4,000 developers. SCO Global Services provides reliable localized support and services to all partners and customers. For more information on SCO products and services visit http://www.sco.com .

SCO, TeamSCO and the associated SCO logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Caldera International, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries. Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other brand or product names are or may be trademarks of, and are used to identify products or services of, their respective owners.