Hot off the presses: Judge Dale Kimball has issued a 102-page ruling [PDF] on the numerous summary judgment motions in SCO v. Novell. Here it is as text. Here is what matters most:

[T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights.

Novell has moved to quell growing concerns that it has sold Linux out to Microsoft as part of its Attachmate deal. On Wednesday, Novell chief marketing officer John Dragoon issued a short statement saying that Novell – not Microsoft – owns the copyrights on Unix.

SCO's new position is that UnixWare is just another interchangeable name for UNIX and that SCOsource was about UnixWare, not Unix System V, but here's some more evidence that they are not the same thing and that SCOsource was primarily about UNIX System V. In this article, I'll restrict myself to things SCOfolk used to say about what SCOsource was about. As you will see, before the Honorable Dale Kimball ruled in August that the UNIX copyrights didn't pass from Novell to SCO, SCO said SCOsource was about UNIX System V source code. Now that it's time to pay Novell for those System V licenses, SCO says they were really UnixWare licenses.

It's been over a week since Judge Stewart ruled for Novell and against The SCO Group (or tSCOG, as it's known). The court had already concluded in August 2007 that Novell was the "owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights."

Novell wants the US Supreme Court to review its seemingly-never-ending legal tete-a-tete with SCO over the famous UNIX and UNIXware copyrights. As noticed by Groklaw, Novell has filed a motion with a federal appeals court asking for a 90-day stay in the SCO case so it can file a writ of certori petition with the Supremes.

Dave Yates had brought up on TLLTS and then later on LottaLinuxLinks Oggcast the possibility of Microsoft buying Novell now that the latter company is up for sale. He felt hat this would place Microsoft in an interesting position to own the Unix Copyrights and to have their own Linux distribution.

In SCO's reply to Novell's appellate brief, it tells the court: Contrary to Novell's allegations, Santa Cruz "did not add any Novell copyright notices to," or "remove any copyright notices" from, the source code it acquired from Novell. In fact, it was Novell that changed the notices to add the Santa Cruz notice. (Id.)

A federal judge's ruling Friday may help proponents of Linux open-source software sidestep a significant legal threat.

"So Novell really does now finally seem to own the Unix copyrights. Linux finds itself on a high-ground pedestal of long-term, low-risk use (unless Microsoft buys Novell [should have when they could have, eh?]). And IBM and Novell are closer than ever."