Seven-Year Fight over UNIX Operating System Turns into Victory for Novell - and Free Software Movement in General
- Finland
- 05/18/2010
- Roschier, Attorneys Ltd. - Finland
A seven-year fight over the ownership of copyrights to the UNIX operating system (OS) has been adjudicated by the court of first instance. A unanimous jury issued a verdict in a trial before the District Court of Utah stating that Novell – and not SCO – owns the copyrights to the UNIX OS.
The dispute originates all the way back from 2003, when SCO sought to collect revenue by selling binary licenses to the UNIX code and by suing companies using the Linux OS derived from UNIX. Novell stepped up on the plate and alleged publicly that the UNIX code actually would belong to it. The claim was based on Novell’s sale of assets to SCO’s predecessor in the early 1990’s which sale, according to Novell, excluded copyrights to UNIX.
Following Novell’s claim, SCO filed an action against Novell seeking specific performance of Novell’s alleged duty to transfer the ownership to the UNIX code to SCO. The District Court of Utah issued a summary judgment in favor of Novell ruling the company to be the owner of the UNIX copyrights. Following SCO’s appeal, the Court of Appeals of Tenth Circuit concluded that summary judgment was inappropriate on the question of ownership to UNIX copyrights. Therefore, the court took no position on the issue of ownership and remanded the case for trial.
The jury before the District Court of Utah decided the case in Novell’s favor. Despite SCO having already appealed the verdict, the jury decree is a remarkable victory for Novell. The company will be able to continue its business for the present, while SCO is said to be close to bankruptcy. The verdict is also a victory for the free software community in general as, if it is upheld, there should no more be danger of SCO’s attack on Linux users. Invalidation of SCO’s claims due to lack of copyright ownership should mean that allegations of copyright infringement by Linux OS would most likely be tossed out – permanently.
