A federal court in Utah ruled that Novell Inc., not SCO Group Inc., is the rightful owner of the copyright in the Unix operating system.

The ruling is a boon to the "open source" software movement and to Linux, the freely available computer operating system that has become an alternative to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.

In the aftermath of federal district judge Dale A. Kimball's recent ruling, which determined that Novell, not SCO, is the rightful owner of the UNIX copyrights, the once-mighty proprietary UNIX vendor is on the verge of annihilation.

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."

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.

Fans of open-source software are breathing easier after a ruling reduced the legal threats against their most pervasive product, the Linux operating system.

Part of what Groklaw is doing is making an historical record of the SCO litigation. Since the August 10th ruling by Judge Dale Kimball that found that Novell did not transfer the Unix and UnixWare copyrights to Santa Cruz Operation in the 1995 Asset Purchase Agreement, there has been a flurry of media coverage.

As The New York Times writes: "The ruling could remove the cloud over open-source software like Linux, an operating system loosely modeled on the proprietary Unix."

While many of us have been preoccupied with the OOXML vote, the rest of the world has naturally been continuing to go about its business. One piece of business that took an interesting turn in the last few days is a ruling by a Federal Appellate Court in the United States that breaks new ground in protecting the integrity of the standard setting system.