Gotta love these guys. According to Slashdot, SCO is claiming that they own the ELF executable format, and Linux is infringing. According to LinuxWorld:

SCOsource chief Chris Sontag, the SCO VP in charge of the company’s hate-inducing IP push, claims TISC, which folded immediately after the spec was published, exceeded its rights even though both Novell and the old SCO - as well as Microsoft, IBM and Intel - were on the committee.

Sontag also says that any entities that ignore SCO’s ELF copyrights are infringing. Such a claim is likely to put SCO on a war footing, if it isn’t already, with the Free Software Foundation, whose GNU operating environment makes broad use of ELF.

Can someone please take SCO aside and explain what copyright means? I mean, this is just too much–copyright doesn’t protect processes or abstract information. That’s a patent or trade secret. Unless Linux copied SCO’s ELF code or is illegally copying copyrighted standards documents, then Linux isn’t infringing on any of their ELF copyrights. Assuming that they even have any.

Since SCO’s suit against DaimlerChrysler is probably going to get hammered in court tomorrow, this is probably just another attempt to prop up their stock price by making wild and unsupportable claims in court. I really need to stop getting all worked up about SCO.