Novell Win in Unix Suit Is Victory for Open Source Advocates
A federal jury in Utah has found that Novell Inc. owns the copyright to the Unix operating system, ending a longtime legal battle with the SCO Group Inc.
The Novell victory creates problems for SCO in a related lawsuit against IBM that claims SCO owned Unix code that was improperly used for changes in the Linux operating system, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
Open source advocates criticized the IBM suit as an attempt to destroy Linux, a free software system built with codes that are also free. They cheered when Novell claimed the Unix copyright and said SCO had no right to pursue the IBM litigation.
At issue in the Utah case was whether Novell retained its Unix copyrights when it sold the Unix operating system to SCO in 1995, the Wall Street Journal Law Blog reported last year. The original sales agreement was unclear on the copyright, according to the Salt Lake Tribune report, and an amendment intended to clear up the confusion then became a battleground as SCO and Novell argued over its meaning.
Novell was represented by Morrison & Foerster and Workman Nydegger, the Recorder reports in its coverage of the verdict. SCO, a Utah company in bankruptcy proceedings, was represented by Boies, Schiller & Flexner.
Prior coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “10th Cir. Nixes Novell Win in Unix Case, Puts $1B IBM Copyright Claim on Track for Trial”
