Linked by Roberto J. Dohnert on Tue 10th Jun 2003 01:06 UTC
On March 7th 2003, the SCO Group filed a lawsuit against IBM for misappropriation of tradesecrets and contractual agreements. The scope of SCOs complaint is that IBM introduced parts of Unix System V and Project Monterey into the Linux kernel. Project Monterey was a effort to port IBM's AIX 5L onto the Intel Itanium platform, IBM withdrew from that project for reasons unknown according to the press, I believe that it was because the Itanium is a bomb. 
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...for a non-lawyer. This seems to be a fair, reasonable account of the SCO situation.
Here's how it breaks down, IMHO:
Could SCO be right? Maybe. Probably just a pile of BS FUD.
Would it matter to users if they were? Nope.
Would it matter to distributors if they were? For a month or two, yes. After the alleged code is removed and replaced, nope.
Does SCO pose a threat to OSS? Not a chance. Worst Case Scenario, Goddess forbid, The tainted code is critical to the Linux kernel's function, and people start making GNU/FreeBSD distros with nearly the same hardware support, and no appreciable difference in the interface. Open-Source will endure this fiasco, and be the better for it.
Note that this is all my personal opinion, and should be taken as such.