I needed a pick-me-up today, and I got one from, of all places, groklaw.net.  (Actually the initial notice came from my colleague Ian Shields.)  Groklaw just posted a story:  Novell Wins Again – Jury Rules Copyrights Didn’t Go to SCO!

The SCO war against Linux has quietly been waged in the legal system while the rest of us have been getting on with our lives.  Finally, something that we can be pleased with.  The owner of the relevant UNIX copyrights appears to be Novell, and since they are the owners of Suse Linux the aren’t likely to be doing anything to take it down.  In general, to my understanding, the entire anti-Linux lawsuit asserted that Linux infringed on the copyrights of SCO because of SCO UNIX, which was derived from previous editions of UNIX.  The ultimate decisions says that SCO didn’t own the copyrights of these items anyway, Novell did.  Barring something strange in an appeal that should bring everything else toppling down like a house of cards.

I’m sure that some lawyers will do something unpleasant to make it complicated again.  Lawyers seem to be amused by that sort of thing.  (I am, of course, not talking to the kind and good lawyers that help me with the things that I need.)  However, today, it looks like Linux can enjoy the light and all of us who felt that this whole thing was just a mess can take a breath and feel that the world makes a little more sense.

Hooray!  Of course, I’m sure the games aren’t over.  I talk to people regularly who feel that Linux and open-source software are threats.  They don’t like the changes that are occurring to the technological landscape and they want to just make it all go away.  There is a lot of anger and resentment there.  I don’t get it.

To celebrate, grab a copy of Linux and play with it today.  Heck!  I’m more of an Ubuntu guy, but I just may buy a copy of Suse for the heck of it to say thanks!