The news about SCO is truly excellent news. Novell's UNIX copyrights, however, leave some room for thought. When the deal with Microsoft was struck, several prominent voices in the community said that Novell was "the next SCO". On numerous occasions, people speculated that, some time along the line, Microsoft might actually acquire Novell and use it as its Linux provider. The direction Novell is taking certainly favours .NET and makes its Linux desktop dependent on it.

We are not trolling, but we only ask. Is it safe to let Novell hold the UNIX flag? Could the flag be inherited and then used to attack Linux again? A few days ago, Microsoft's financial filing described Linux as a system that is "derived from UNIX". Was it an accident? Some people already cast doubt on claims that this was not deliberate.

This is all far fetched, but this mind dump might prove useful in the future.

Here is Novell's statement about the court's decision.

“In the spring of 2003, Novell set out to ensure that SCO’s groundless claims would not interfere with the development of Linux. Today’s court ruling vindicates the position Novell has taken since the inception of the dispute with SCO, and it settles the issue of who owns the copyrights of UNIX in Novell’s favor. 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. We are extremely pleased with the outcome.”

Update (14/08/2007): a more elaborate statement from Novell has just been posted.