SCO's Real Motive... A Buyout?

psykocrime writes "Acccording to this article in ComputerWorld, CEO Darl McBride of SCO has finally discussed the possibility of a buyout by IBM in public. Among other things, McBride says: "I'm not trying to screw up the Linux business," he said. "I'm trying to take care of the shareholders, employees and people who have been having their rights trampled on." and "If there's a way of resolving this that is positive, then we can get back out to business and everybody is good to go, then I'm fine with that," McBride said today in an interview with Computerworld. "If that's one of the outcomes of this, then so be it." Also, yet another computerworld article indicates that most of the press and analysts who have been invited to take part in SCO's "public review of the infringing code" have declined... apparently due primarily to concerns over the terms of the non-disclosure agreement SCO is asking them to agree to. Linus in particular has said "no way" to signing their NDA to look at the code."

Comments

Re:teh ir0ny

[Baumi]

It's the source for SCO's brand of UNIX, not for Linux.

While SCO alleges that part of the Linux sources are copied from their OS, it's not like SCO's UNIX is Linux.

(It'll still be interesting to see SCO trying to prove that somehow someone copied the source of closed-source software to use it an a GPLd piece of SW. After all, they'd also have to disprove the far more likely alternative that one of their developers illegally copied Linux freely available GPLd code to use in their closed-source kernel.)

"Having their rights trampled on?!"

[aussersterne]

I know at least two people who bought Caldera stock around IPO time because it was a Linux company. They believed in Linux as a product, wanted to support Linux development, and thought there might be some future profit in it.

I've heard a lot from them over the last week. With Caldera/SCO's current action, they've ended up as pawns in a game to attack Linux -- not at all the reason they invested their dollars in the beginning. They have decided to sell out as a result of the SCO action, and have lost significant money in the process on Caldera/SCO shares alone. But they also realize that the dollars they had invested this company have supported action which may eventually reduce the value of their larger holdings in other Linux companies. I can understand the frustration that they must feel.

I'd venture to say a lot of Caldera investors may be in the same position. So what's this about "rights" of the shareholders?

Two pronged approach

[bstadil]

Best strategy is for IBM to make a public offer of $10M, state that they value to company around the same price that a prolonged court case would cost.

Let a few rumour slip to the press that the $10M is the price they estimate the court case will cost and thet they think they will be unable to collect the expected Damages against SCO they court will impose.

That would make their stock price crash to around $2 for a Capitalization of around $15M, then have a RedHat led consortium offer $20M or so, that will likely be accepted.

IBM can then buy some of the SCO contracts from RH and a later date.

That way there will be no impression left that IBM gave in to Blackmail.