SCO v. Novell
This was a lawsuit that made it up to the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. Novell bought the rights to the original Unix source code from AT&T in 1993. A couple of years later, Novell created an Asset Purchase Agreement with a company known as Santa Cruz Operation, or "Santa Cruz." The APA they created stated that Santa Cruz was allowed the rights to create new versions of UnixWare, Novell's version of Linux, and the right to license SVRX Unix either unintentionally or with Novell's permission.
A few years after this, a company known as Caldera became the successor to Santa Cruz and took over the APA. However, Caldera legally changed their name to "The SCO Group", or SCO. This company decided that they were the owners of the Unix source code. They then filed a suit against IBM for violating rights; Novell intervened.
In 2004, SCO filed a claim against Novell stating that Novell was falsely claiming ownership to the Unix source code.
Later, in 2005, Novell filed a suit against SCO for not following the APA agreement.
In 2007, a judge ruled in favor of Novell, stating that Novell was the owner of the original UNIX source code and had copyrights to UnixWare.
In 2008, a trial was held to determine how much money SCO owed to Novell in damages.
In 2009, another trial ended in a partial reversal of the 2007 judge ruling. Novell petitioned this decision in 2010 and requested that the Supreme Court of the United States intervene. Later in 2010, the court ruled in favor of Novell, expelling all the claims against Novell made by SCO. This decision closed the case.
The court's decision in favor of Novell came as good news to not only Novell, but also to Linux and the open source community.
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