Well, I don't think anybody really understands whats going on with this - it seems to be some sort of poli-techinal "fireman's contest", to put it politely.

There's a short article on it here:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...nixsuit08.html

I don't think they've hit it quite on the head, though. Just as a further evidence on the misunderstandings of this issue, below is a link to a comment posted on Slashdot by Bruce Perens ( for those who have not heard the name before, Bruce Perens is an adamant Open Source advocate, and I believe he still works for HP):
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=...=56225&tid=123

As for the trademark name, X/Open {(r)(t) and so on} does acknoledge the use of the Unix name to companies who have "bought" the name before they had it - one of them being SCO (the current owner of the direct descendent sysVr4 code). Heck, you can browse true Unix code online now: http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/ . I've even gotten SystemV and older versions running on a linux box using PDP-11 emulators...

And then again, maybe Bruce (and the rest of the world) is way off... Hey, being that I'm up here in Cupertino for a while for training at HP (Their campus is across the street right now - in fact I can see it out the window), maybe I could track down Mr. Perens and ask him whats going on