August 15, 2007—In a decision with huge implications for schools and other users of the open-source Linux operating system, a federal judge has ruled that The SCO Group Inc. doesn't own the software it claims was misappropriated by Linux developers. In a 102-page ruling issued Aug. 10, U.S. District Court Dale Kimball ruled that Novell Inc., not SCO, owns copyrights covering the Unix operating system, the proprietary OS upon which Linux is loosely based. SCO makes a business licensing Unix software for corporate servers.
Kimball, however, ruled that SCO didn't acquire ownership rights to Unix when it bought the licensing and development rights to Unix from Novell in 1995.
Kimball's ruling could undermine a lawsuit SCO filed against IBM Corp. four years ago, claiming that IBM illegally dumped some of the Unix source code into Linux, making it more sturdy and reliable.
"The court's ruling has cut out the core of SCO's case and, as a result, eliminates SCO's threat to the Linux community based upon allegations of copyright infringement of Unix," said Joe LaSala, senior vice president and general counsel of Waltham, Mass.-based Novell, which has operations in Provo.
The ruling essentially removes a legal cloud that had formed over Linux ever since SCO first filed its lawsuit, observers say. Unresolved ownership of the source code that formed the basis for Linux has been seen as a limiting factor in the more widespread adoption of Linux, which can be adapted freely by software makers and can be legally shared or customized by users.
Lindon, Utah-based SCO suffered a setback in November when Kimball upheld a magistrate's earlier decision to throw out 187 of its 294 claims asserting that IBM misappropriated its intellectual property by donating Unix code for Linux.
Yet Darl McBride, SCO's president and chief executive, told analysts after that setback that he believed the company would ultimately prevail, and "the last thing we're going to do is back away from this case."
