The SCO Group frightened potential business users away from Linux with lawsuits demanding billions in royalties. But the litigious company's claims were shot down in a ruling that will likely boost uptake of the operating system.
U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball ruled late Friday that Novell (nasdaq: NOVL - news - people ) owns copyrights covering Unix, a computer operating system. In 1995, Novell licensed Unix source code to Santa Cruz Operation, which later became SCO. SCO argued it had also picked up Unix copyrights from the transaction. (See: "Big 'No' To SCO")
The ruling is a huge setback to SCO's claim it should be paid billions in royalties by International Business Machines. SCO says that International Business Machines (nyse: IBM - news - people ) took code from Unix for use in Linux, another operating system. Shares of SCO Group (nasdaq: SCOX - news - people ) plummeted 72.8%, or $1.13, to 43 cents. Practically all of SCO's business is Unix-related.
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