As Groklaw has reported, Novell won big on its motions for summary judgment. No doubt, we're in for a lengthly appeal. However, until and unless that happens, SCO v. Novell and likely SCO v. IBM is all but dead.

From the ruling:

• "[T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights."
• "Novell is entitled . . . at its sole discretion, to direct SCO to waive its claims against IBM and Sequent, and SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and Sequent."
• SCO's ridiculous, and now very costly, slander of title claim, which started this whole action, is dead.
• Novell's cross-claim of slander of title lives on.
• SCO is in breach of its fiduciary duty to Novell, because it failed to properly remit funds to Novell from the licensing of UnixWare to Microsoft and Sun. The amount is still a factual matter.

This likely won't be over for a long time. But this is a huge first step.