I was delighted to wake up this morning. I’m delighted to wake up every morning, but this is a particular beautiful sunny Saturday in Boulder, Colorado which means I can cuddle up to my computer and catch up a little (ok – and go for a long run.)
My inner feeling of delight was improved even more when I was scanning headlines online and saw the NY Times article Judge Says Unix Copyrights Rightfully Belong to Novell. This has been a long time in coming and finally puts a stake in the ground around (or in the heart of) SCO’s ridiculous copyright suit against IBM around Unix.
Unlike patents, I’m a big supporter of copyright (and trade secrets, GPL, and copyleft) as a mechanism for addressing and protecting software innovation. However, SCO’s behavior around Unix has cast a pallor over the legitimacy of copyright and open source since 2003. Once again, a Federal judge stepped up (this time it was Judge Dale Kimball – Federal District Court – Utah) with another important decision around intellectual property rights and software.