As SCO continues to issue dire threats against Linux users everywhere, they have also come to an out-of-court settlement with the German company univention (sic) in which they agree to pay a 10,000 euro fine each time they make any of the following claims:

a. Linux contains SCO's intellectual property, and/or

b. Linux end users might be liable for misusing SCO intellectual property, and/or

c. Linux is an unlawful derivative of Unix, and/or

d. Linux users might be sued by SCO, unless they bought SCO or Caldera Linux.

The last agreement is the most ironic, as it explicitly gives SCO permission to sue their own customers.

Here's the document from the univention site (in PDF), and a few excerpts:

"SCO verpflichtet sich gegenueber univention, es kuenftig zu unterlassen, im geschaeftlichen Verkehr die Behauptung aufzustellen oder zu verbreiten, dass

"a. Linux-Betriebssysteme unrechtmaessig erworbenes geistiges Eigentum von SCO UNIX beinhalten, und/oder

"b. Endanwender, wenn sie Linux einsetzen, fuer die damit verbundenen Schutzverletzungen der SCO Intellectual Properties haftbar gemacht werden koennen, und/oder

"c. Linux ein nicht autorisiertes Derivat von Unix sei, und/oder

"d. Kaeufer von Linux-Betriebssystemen Strafverfolgung zu befuerchten haetten, es sei denn, es handele sich bei den gekauften Betriebssystemen um SCO Linux oder Caldera Linux, sofern dies nicht erweislich wahr ist."

Others are taking action against SCO's behavior. France's JournalDuNet is reporting that Fyodor is denying SCO the right to use nmap under the fourth clause of the terms of the GPL, which states "...Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance." Nmap "is an open source utility for network exploration or security auditing".

We would guess that this is only the beginning of the backlash against SCO.