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Appeals Court Overturns 2007 Unix Copyright Decision
snydeq writes "A federal appeals court has overturned a 2007 decision that Novell owns the Unix code, clearing the way for SCO to pursue a $1 billion copyright infringement case against IBM. In a 54-page decision (PDF), the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said it was reversing the 2007 summary judgment decision by Judge Dale Kimball of the US District Court for the District of Utah, which found that Novell was the owner of Unix and UnixWare copyrights. SCO CEO Darl McBride called the decision a 'huge validation for SCO.'" The case over who owns Unix will now go to trial in Utah.
SCO released a Linux distro, thereby waving any rights to pursue Linux vendors for copyright violations [at the time]. If people inserted UNIX code *after* SCO was involved then maybe there is a case...
But you can't try and release a distro, profit from it, then sue later saying the distro which you licensed under GPL included your copyrighted [non-gpl] code...
Hardly. Considering SCO still owes Novell, and that this ruling only overturns a summary judgement, doesn't make Novell's copyright claim much weaker.
This case is not about end-users, but about whether SCO even has standing to begin to sue Linux end-users. Which it doesn't (the nature of their copyright deal with Novell was pretty clear, but apparently not enough for a summary judgement).
In the very unlikely event that SCO wins this case, big end-users like IBM may again have to begin to worry about defending against SCO's bizarre claims.
Until then, this case has about as much impact on Linux users as one of the many claims against Apple, Microsoft or Sun have on their respective products' end users.
Regardless of where this one goes, I'm not sure that opening up the path to renewed litigation against IBM could ever be seen as a good thing.
They'll be ripped to pieces the moment that starts. They're called the Nazgul for a reason.
Not to mention the fact that SCO might not survive long enough to persue the case against Novell. They're in Chapter 11 already and McBride & co have been kicked out in favor of a bankruptcy trustee who is likely to move SCO into Chapter 7. There it will be taken apart and the pieces sold off. Even if SCO avoided Chapter 7, the $3 million SCO payment to Novell was upheld. So SCO would have huge debts to pay off while fighting a legal battle against Novell. Even if they somehow survived that, IBM's Nazgul... I mean lawyers are waiting on the other side. The average Linux shop won't have anything to worry about from SCO for *years* even under SCO's best case scenario.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
It's trivially easy to make up cases where violence cannot be avoided.
For example, Bob the bomber is about to press a button that will caused hundreds of deaths. Sam the sharpshooter is in position to kill Bob. Should Sam shoot? Either way, violence is committed.