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A federal judge's ruling over a week ago that Novell, not The SCO Group, legally owns the copyrights for Unix thrust the intellectual property battles begun by SCO in early 2003 back into the IT spotlight.

The SCO Group 's US$5 billion threat against Linux is effectively finished. On Friday, Aug. 10, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball ruled that SCO doesn't actually own the copyrights that it was using to threaten -- and in some cases, sue -- Linux users.

Now that it has scored a major win for Linux in its legal battle with The SCO Group, Novell has no interest in becoming like the company it's just defeated and won't mount any copyright-infringement claims over Unix, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Environmentalists have been urging consumers for decades to wake up to impending disaster and change their buying, driving and living habits to reduce pollution, cut energy consumption and help reverse global warming.

As we close out the year, it is instructive to ponder last month's pro-Linux announcement by Microsoft. It tells us a lot about how the company's thinking is evolving with respect to competition. And, more importantly, what that might mean to customers in the coming year.

At the beginning of the year I predicted that SCO Group would: 1) get its case against IBM thrown out by the judge; 2) fail to show any examples of protected code; and 3) declare (financial) bankruptcy, but not edge closer to a 2007 trial date.

StreamServe, helmed by the former second-in-command at Novell, has announced its software now supports Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server 9. The move is part of StreamServe's revamping of its image put in place since the Novell executive joined the company in April and a way to garner more business, particularly in Europe.

Like many companies, National Semiconductor is looking for ways to cut costs and has Linux and open source high on its list. While the company already is making the move to Linux, the big project this year is to take a close look at open source databases to figure out where less-expensive data management products could fit in its infrastructure.

The SCO Group's slander lawsuit against Novell is now set to enter the discovery phase after Novell's attempts to again halt proceedings failed. The judge in the bitter legal battle denied Novell's second motion to dismiss the case late Monday.

The SCO Group is reconsidering its plans to launch an alternative to the Groklaw.net Web site that had been scheduled to go live this week, a company spokeswoman said Monday.

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer addressed a gathering of software industry leaders in Boston Wednesday, touting his company's vision for a bright future, while casting doubt on alternatives to his company's Windows operating system, in particular Linux.