On September 27, 1983 Richard Stallman announced the birth of the GNU project. This acronym stands for “GNU’s Not Unix” and indicates a willingness to create a Unix-compatible operating system but with the fundamental characteristic of being free. The point was that no one had to pay for permission to use the GNU system.

Last November news came about Novell being sold. Now the U.S.A. and German antitrust authorities have published their decision to change the terms of the acquisition of Novell’s patents by Microsoft and its partners in CPTN Holdings LLC.

UnXis, Inc. completed the acquisition of SCO’s Unix assets but it claims it got Unix and Unixware trademarks while at the end of the various lawsuits in the last years it was established that Novell own those trademarks while SCO had a license.