In another follow-up story today, it appears that the DOJ (Department of Justice), has stepped in and made some changes to the Novell patent sale.  The DOJ has decided that the 822 patents that were to go to a consortium of investors was not in the best interest of open source software.  In particular, the Linux operating system could have been severely hindered had this deal of gone through.  

Check out the article to see who is getting what, and how the DOJ may have just saved Linux from the clutches of some of its biggest competitors.