SCO wins Unix copyright appeal. Trouble for Linux?

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From the ‘It’s Not Over, Until It’s Over’ files:

Bankrupt Unix vendor  SCO now has a new leg to stand on. A U.S Federal Appeals court judge has overturned part of a 2007 ruling which gave ownership of the Unix copyrights to Novell. The appeals judge upheld the monetary portion of the 2007 judgment which awarded Novell $3 million in royalties, but the issue of who owns Unix is now back on the table.

Shocking isn’t it?

So after years of SCO arguing that they owned Unix, losing a 2007 judgment and going bankrupt, SCO now is back.

They now have the basis on which they can have another trial, and they now have the basis on which they could potentially move forward against IBM and Linux. To be sure, it’s still a sliver of a basis, but no doubt SCO will do everything they can to make the most of it.

Later this morning, I’ll be on a call for something I likely would have never guessed would happen. SCO is holding a conference call (remember those from years past?) to talk about what they are doing next.

This is not SCO the dead company that had been limping along. This is SCO renewed with the hope of legal victory thanks to an appeals court judge. Had this appeal been struck done, we finally could have nailed the SCO saga closed. Now it begins anew.

Will SCO win? Not likely, but the fact that it is going back to court, yet again, means that there is always a chance.  If SCO can find some big money backers to help foot its legal bills and ongoing operations, they could still drag this ordeal out deep into 2010 and beyond.

Personally I had though that SCO was done in 2007. To see them still make news, and more importantly actually win an appeal is astounding. I don’t think that Linux users need worry much though, SCO in 2009 is a shell of its former self and doesn’t have the ability to be the massive FUD-monger it was in 2005. Still they do still exist and they do still represent risk.

I think a safe way to think of it is like being struck by lightning. Sure it can happen, but what are the odds?

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