An internal investigation at SCO in August 2002 reported that not a single line of code in the Linux kernel was found that violated SCO's copyright, according to an e-mail obtained by legal Web site Groklaw.

Much of this was reported in Forbes online, and Forbes also notes that "although the e-mail obtained by Groklaw pleads against SCO, it does not suggest that the company has no other evidence that incriminates Linux and IBM. When contacted IBM declined to comment."

Here is what Forbes has reported:

Michael Davidson, an outside consultant, spent between four and six months comparing Linux with the so-called AT&T Unix code. "SCO was sure that it was going to find evidence of copyright violations," the author of the message wrote.  An outside consultant spent between four and six months comparing Linux with the so-called AT&T Unix code.

"At the end, we had found absolutely nothing: no evidence of any copyright infringement whatsoever," the e-mail said.  In cases where there was an overlap between SCO's Unix code and Linux, both software suites obtained the code legitimately from some third party, the e-mail stated.

The message was addressed to SCO Senior Vice President Reg Broughton, who forwarded it to Chief Executive Darl McBride.

SCO made a statement in response to the posting:

"This memo shows that Mr. Davidson’s e-mail is referring to an investigation limited to literal copying, which is not the standard for copyright violations, and which can be avoided by deliberate obfuscation, as the memo itself points out.

"Even more importantly, this memo shows that there are problems with Linux. It also notes that additional investigation is required to locate all of the problems, which SCO has been continuing in discovery in the IBMand Autozone cases.

"Thus, even aside from the fact that SCO’s central contract claims in the IBM litigation involve later Linux versions and different conduct, it would simply be inaccurate--and misleading--to use Mr. Davidson’s e-mail to suggest that SCO’s internal investigation revealed no problems."