“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.”

Dale A. Kimball was the Utah judge that made the decision that settled one of the largest legal battles that surrounded the widely used software in corporate data centers. Unix is a is an open source software that can be modified and shared by any software developer or end user. Judge Dale A. Kimball also said, “that Novell could force SCO to abandon its claims against I.B.M., which SCO had sued.”

The Unix operating system was developed in 1969 by AT&T researchers at Bell Labs. In the 1970’s Unix became popular in the computer science departments, but didn’t explode until the late 1990’s when Steve Jobs brought Unix with him when he returned to Apple in 1997.

“Several legal experts said that minor legal questions might still remain in SCO’s suit against I.B.M., related to promises that I.B.M. may have made in a failed joint development effort.”

[via NYTimes]

Tags: Unix, Linux, SCO, Novell, Open Source, Computer Software, Open Source Software

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