The legal battle by Novell and The SCO Group over Unix may have reached its conclusion. On Tuesday, a federal jury said the rights to the widely used open-source operating system do not belong to SCO.
Novell President and CEO Ron Hovsepian said the decision by the District Court of Utah “is good news for Novell” and for the open-source community. He added that he is “proud of Novell’s role in protecting the best interests” of the open-source movement.
‘An Attack on Linux’
In 1995, Novell sold its Unix technology to the Santa Cruz Operation, but has maintained that it retained ownership of the Unix intellectual property. Six years later, the technology was sold by Santa Cruz to a company that later became The SCO Group. In 2003, SCO announced lawsuits against Novell, IBM and others.
Ian Bruce, chief marketing officer at Novell, wrote on the company blog Tuesday that the lawsuit about Unix copyrights included an “attack on Linux” by SCO. He said Novell “remains committed to promoting Linux, including by defending Linux on the intellectual-property front.”
SCO’s case was built around a contested section of the contract that could be read as keeping Unix copyrights for Novell. SCO’s witnesses included former Novell CEO and Chairman Robert Frankenberg, who testified that the intent of the contract had been to sell all rights to Unix.
In 2008, The SCO Group lost a decision in a U.S. District Court, which awarded $3.5 million to Novell. That decision was upheld by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, but part of the case — the part that has just been decided — was sent back for a jury trial.
Impact on the Companies
The verdict could have an impact on the two companies. Novell recently turned down a unsolicited takeover offer from a hedge fund on the grounds that…