Unix Copyrights Belong to Novel

Lots of good news here in relationship to Novel this morning in that a US Judge in federal court has determined that Unix Patents really belong to Novel, the question is going to be is will Microsoft keep on harping on patent infringement now in regards to their relationship with Novel. Or will Microsoft then rather than suing the whole Unix eco-system and go after Novel for patent infringement.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 10 — In a decision that may finally settle one of the most bitter legal battles surrounding software widely used in corporate data centers, a federal district court judge in Utah ruled Friday afternoon that Novell, not the SCO Group, is the rightful owner of the copyrights covering the Unix operating system. In the 102-page ruling, the judge, Dale A. Kimball, also said Novell could force SCO to abandon its claims against I.B.M., which SCO had sued. Judge Kimball’s decision in favor of Novell could almost entirely undermine SCO’s 2003 lawsuit against I.B.M. Source: NY Times

What influence this will have on the spats between Microsoft and everyone who makes any form of variant of Unix/Linux will have to be seen. In the mean time though, if Novel owns the patents to Unix, then Novel’s business should start booming, and SCO will have to pay back all the money that they got from other companies as they attempted to assert patents that they didn’t own. SCO is most likely out of business at this point, so if you own stock, we recommend dumping it Monday. (Note we own no shares of Microsoft, Novel, or SCO at this time).

This should also expand the adoption of Linux, because this has been a cloud hanging over the head of folks who want to use Linux, but are not sure as to its survivability in a world of lawsuits. Linux has been making steady gains over the last few years, and is giving the competition a real run for its money. If this frees up Linux, and clears some of the liability around using Linux, then the business should start booming bigger than it has been.

For all you Linux fan boys and fan girls, this is a good day.