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SCO Investor Changing the Deal
Kurt Wall writes "According to this story, recent SCO investor Royal Bank of Canada appears to be changing its tune. RBC, along with BayStar Capital, invested $50 million in SCO, but now has changed the deal to give it veto power over the payment of the 20% contingency fees SCO's IP lawyers will get. As to the wisdom of the investment itself, an RBC spokesman would only say that the 'investment in SCO is passive, made to hedge an economic exposure resulting from client transactions.' Such as the SCO case collapsing, perhaps?"
I'm sure SCO's lawyers are going to be upset about this.
SCO's lawyers: "That wasn't part of the bargain!"
RBC: "We're altering the deal, pray we do not alter it further..."
I think we'd all enjoy a nice cold beverage. -David Letterman
Why aren't people selling their SCOX stocks! They are going to crump. Sell now...
Charts...
Going down over the last 5 days
About the same over the last 3 months
Looks like the banks realize their "investment in SCO is passive, made to hedge an economic exposure resulting from client transactions." "The court gave SCO 30 days to provide IBM with information and source code to prove its allegations. SCO, the ruling stated, must give IBM "all source code and other material in Linux ... to which [SCO] has rights; and the nature of plaintiff's rights."
Take a dump or get off the pot!
...when SCO's lawyers turn around and sue them next. It'll go from being "SCO Sues World" to "World Sues SCO"...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Subject says it all.
Blame Canada!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Sometime late last fall I received a call from a local business. They had a Unix box that was on the fritz, but unfortunately only had MCSE's on their support staff.
After meeting up with my contact at the site, I tried to get a little more information about what kind of problem it was having. As we walked to the elevators he explained that no one really knew exactly what the box did, or if it was even in use anymore, but it was obvious that the machine was rebooting itself for no apparent reason.
We got out of the elevator at the basement level of the building. The server was sitting alone in a damp room with a concrete floor and concrete walls. I was already pretty sure it was going to be a hardware problem, since Unix boxes don't tend to reboot for absolutely no reason. I pointed out that the damp environment was undoubtedly bad for the machine.
He said, "The honest truth is, no one wants anything to do with this box. It's sitting down here because we're out of space in our server room, and the only guy that knew anything about this box quit three years ago, so we don't even know if it's doing anything useful." With that he turned and left me to figure out the problem.
The machine was plugged in, the power switch was on, but the console was blank and mashing on the keyboard didn't seem to have any affect.
As I was unscrewing the side panel from the case I started to notice that there was a really rank stench in the room. When I first entered the room I figured it was just mildew from the dampness or something, but it was really strong now. I really just wanted to get out of that dimly lit room and out into the sunlight and fresh air.
It was hard to see anything in the case, so I fumbled around inside it with my hands making sure all the internal cables were securely attached to their respective components. Suddenly I felt something squishy and slimy on my hand and jerked it out of the box.
At that instant the machine came on and began to POST. As the memory counted up, I turned the box so I could see into it by the light of the screen. Now I could see the cause of the problem. A rat had crawled into the case via an open drive bay and made a nest near one of the power supplies. She and several hairless newborns had died in there a week or two previous, and I had just stuck my hand in the middle of it all.
As I was wiping my hands off on my pants, I noticed the machine had finished booting. I was like "Ugh, gross! This thing is running SCO Unix!"
Needless to say, I marched right up to the IT offices and told them that the machine was undoubtedly no longer relevant to their business and that they should just throw the whole mess in the dumpster.
---
Raising the bar on Slashdot trolling since 2003
SCO has admitted that its action is designed to shore up sagging sales by wringing revenue out of its rights to Unix, an older operating system from which [something is missing here] Linux was derived.
Shouldn't the blank be filled in by the words "SCO contends"? As in, "Unix, an older operating system from which SCO contends Linux was derived."
I thought the whole point of the defense against SCO is that Linux is Unix-like, but *not* "derived" from Unix. Unless I'm wrong (a frequent situation), the newspaper article has swallowed a little too much FUD today.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
..doesn't appear impressed with SCO either!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
So RBC does business with Red Hat, and needs to hedge against them going bust when SCO wins? Or they are hedging short positions they already had in SCO because of selling call options or the like to clients?
It would make some sense if they said 'we have lots of Linux boxes, and we want to get cash if SCO wins to cover the licence fees'...
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Hmmm...what do they need $50MM for? If IBM (and the rest of the planet) are about to fold and have to pay huge bux to SCO, why do they need the invesment? Even if the IBM claim goes to trial, it will go to trial within a year or two so I would only imagine that SCO needs a couple of years worth of burnrate. It just seems to me weird that a company that only is losing a few hundred thou a year needs such a big investment.
I'm just watching SCO stock quotes and FINALLY they began running in the correct direction!
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Probably you! You support SCO if you have investments with any of these companies or mutual fund holders...
Capital Guardian Trust Company 1,177,800 8.51 $16,288,974 30-Sep-03
Integral Capital Management Vi, LLC 316,600 2.29 $4,378,578 30-Sep-03
Royce & Associates, Inc. 1,441,200 10.41 $19,931,796 30-Sep-03
Integral Capital Management V, LLC 246,730 1.78 $3,412,275 30-Sep-03
Empire Capital Partners LP 205,000 1.48 $1,961,849 30-Jun-03
Barclays Bank Plc 174,686 1.26 $2,415,907 30-Sep-03
Bjurman, Barry & Associates 160,000 1.16 $2,212,800 30-Sep-03
ING Investments, LLC 143,100 1.03 $1,979,073 30-Sep-03
Oberweis Asset Management Inc. 112,000 0.81 $1,548,960 30-Sep-03
Whitney Asset Management LLC 76,967 0.56 $1,064,453 30-Sep-03
Royce Technology Value Fund 105,000 0.76 $1,004,849 30-Jun-03
Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund 24,713 0.18 $236,503 30-Jun-03
Vanguard Extended Market Index Fund 17,875 0.13 $171,063 30-Jun-03
Marketocracy Masters 100 Fund 3,900 0.03 $53,937 30-Sep-03
Spartan Extended Market Index Fund 3,753 0.03 $54,831 31-Aug-03
Spartan Total Market Index Fund 3,132 0.02 $45,758 31-Aug-03
Vanguard Balanced Index Fund 2,125 0.02 $20,336 30-Jun-03
Quantitative Master Series Tr-Extended Market Index Seri 1,775 0.01 $16,986 30-Jun-03
Vanguard Institutional Index-Inst Total Stock Market Ind 705 0.01 $6,746 30-Jun-03
Manufacturers Investment Trust-Total Stock Market Index 349 0 $3,339 30-Jun-03
Ladies and Gentlemen, the rush of wind you just heard was the sound of SCOX stock deflating. Please brace yourself for the wailing and knashing of teeth of the SCO Group and their investors, followed by the lynching of Darl McBride. Torches and pitchforks will be available in the main lobby.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Where is a Golgafrincham Space Ark when you need one?
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
So did SCO just announce that intend to issue more stock? I'm confused by what they intend to gain from this statement.
And now, did then just announce their intent to sell the company?
Like I say, I'm not a lawyer, and this might be typical legalese, but if not, is this significant?
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
Well, it was fun bashing SCO while it lasted, but finally some investors have gotten some brains smacked into them and are wising up to SCO's ways. As I always said, the faster SCO goes bankrupt, the faster I can get SCO stuff at the bankruptcy auction for cheap....
Wonder if SCO would sell me some of their copyrights to UNIX....
Hopefully the stock keeps up this trajectory!
--
I am cool for a variety of reason, but mostly because I use Oddpost
BC spokesman would only say that the 'investment in SCO is passive, made to hedge an economic exposure resulting from client transactions.'
What he really meant to say was: "we don't really give a shit about this company, and this investment was the stupidest crap we've ever done."
Will code a sig generator for food
IBM scored a surprise legal victory in that court case when a judge ruled on Friday in favour of IBM in SCO's trade-secret violation lawsuit against the computing giant.
Huh? Even SCO wasn't surprised by what happened last friday in court.
-MDL
Happy meals fund terrorism
Is it just me or does this article seem to have a Pro-Sco slant towards it?
:-) (emphasis on surprise)
SCO has admitted that its action is designed to shore up sagging sales by wringing revenue out of its rights to Unix, an older operating system from which Linux was derived.
Derived is used rather loosely here. To a casual looker, it might sound like SCO is in the right.
IBM scored a surprise legal victory in that court case when a judge ruled on Friday in favour of IBM in SCO's trade-secret violation lawsuit against the computing giant.
Whoa!
SCO had been pressuring the courts to force IBM to reveal its Unix and Linux source code so SCO could prove that IBM was using stolen code. But the judge ruled that SCO would have to present its own Unix source code first and identify which software code had been stolen.
That does'nt make sense considering just about anyone can look at Linux source.
Bloomberg hasn't picked this up yet. Bloomberg is slipping. Yahoo Finance doesn't have it yet either.
This is an unusual investment for a bank. It's a pure speculative play. Their management is probably kicking themselves for buying in at the top.
They call the investment "passive", but they have control over SCO's biggest asset, the litigation division. They're watching this like a hawk, just as we are.
sigs, as if you care.
No, you do not understand what is going on here. RBC invested in SCO on behalf of a third-party. The investment was made by RBC on behalf of a client. The client gives RBC the money plus a fee, and RBC puts their money into the deal.
No, what is going on here is someone is trying to make a wager on SCO and they don't want anyone to know about.
SCO's lawyers: "That wasn't part of the bargain!"
RBC: "We're altering the deal, pray we do not alter it further...
They aren't altering SCO's deal with the lawyers.
What they're doing is getting agreement from SCO that SCO will not take an additional unilateral action (such as selling the company) that will trigger the CYA part of the deal (giving 20% of the company to the lawyers) - unless SCO first gets investor approval.
"You promised them 20% of the company if you sold it. That would dilute our investment. So don't do that without asking us first."
NO change to the deal with the lawyers. Just don't push the red button (and give away a fifth of the store) without asking the owners first.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
No, its a pipe deal. Somebody else is pushing money to SCO through RBC.
Unfortunately as a result, they're helping prop up the stock price of an really awful company.
Vote Quimby.
The investment has nothing to do with merits.
If SCO wins this case other companies who are Linux dependant will get a HUGE loss.
RBC has probaly invested in some of these companies.
They gamble a small amount of money on SCO winning.
This way they have less risk, SCO loses, their Linux investments payback - 50 million.
The SCO case wins, they lose their Linux investments (or they are damaged) They get a windfall from SCO which partially offsets this loss.
Think of gambling on a sports games against two people.
They will pay 3:1 that their team wins.
Bet $2, $1 each, and no matter who wins, you are ahead $1. Welcome to hedging.
One user states:
Perhaps I wax pragmatically?
db
Cig:
ôô
You can't spell Fiasco without SCO
This seems to be making sense. The investment companies are playing both sides against the middle. If SCO wins, the consequences will be likely be lower earnings for companies that must pay the licensing fees. OTOH, the investment bankers who have invested with SCO will be able to offset those losses by their earnings from SCO. If SCO loses, they lose their investment, but it is not that much money.
As far as the lawyer veto, I think this is just another hedge in case SCO loses. The bankers want to keep the money instead of paying for currently promised obligation. In any event, they will probably just go court and claim that the lawyer fees are excessive. No one likes lawyers, and even in the case where a lawyer funds a litigation, such as the tobacco case with the states, the courts seem willing to put aside contractual obligations to the detriment of the lawyers.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
did anybody else notice the other reason RBC has
? f= features
."
been in the news
http://www.cfo.com/article/1,5309,11460,00.html
lately? To quote:
"Goldin said that Bank of America and Royal Bank
of Canada knew of fraud in Enron-related
transactions. .
Charming profile they're developing of late.
The insiders *are* selling their shares. Darl isn't ... because he's already sold them. However, he's got another 600K options coming due soon. If ... he ... can ... just ... keep the stock up, he'll have "earned" a few million more for himself. And in any case he can always vote himself a 2M bonus for having attracted so much new investment.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I am surpised that the main stream press did not make more of the fact that David Boise et al did not appear in court last week. You would think the law firm would at least have a representive present. Oh I would love to be a fly on wall back at SCO central right now.
If I was a SCO sucker^h^h^h^h^h investor this would be a very troubling sign. In fact, Boise's presence is the only thing that really gave the lawsuit credibility - regardless of the fact that he lost the last two highly publized lawsuits.
The short percentage on this stock is huge and that can help keep the stock price, up strangely enough. As the stock drops people complete the short transaction, which is "buying back" the shares that they sold earlier.
The story notes, "IBM scored a surprise legal victory in that court case when a judge ruled on Friday in favour of IBM in SCO's trade-secret violation lawsuit against the computing giant..."
I'm certainly no legal expert, but was this really that much of a surprise? From most legal info I've read about the case, it seem fairly accepted that SCO is really just fishing.
That's like expecting a bailiff in some district court to know what the Supreme Court's decision was today on McConnell v. FEC.
What?
I'm gonna miss SCO and Darl McBride. They've kept me laughing and entertained on a daily basis. I mean, where else can you get a company that drags IBM to court and demands that they prove their case for them. Or contends that the GPL is unconstitutional. I mean, these guys are the comic relief of the computer industry.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
I bet you're a huge hit at parties.
Do you correct all the "chicken crossed the road" jokes too?
"Actually, though very few people know this, biologically speaking, chickens lack the cognitive processes necessary to cross the road under the aforementioned circumstances. See the research done by Smoot and Hawley, 1934.... blaw blaw mumble mumble..."
David Boies and his fellow Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP lawyer Mark Heise are SCO's attorneys in this case, but the software company was represented in a court skirmish last week in Utah between SCO and IBM Corp. byDarl McBride's brother Kevin. Kevin McBride, according to West Legal Directory, has a private practice in nearby Park City, Utah, where he specializes in litigation and appeals, not corporate-contract or intellectual-property law.
Makes things even more fishy. Looks like the McBride family is going to make out nicely either way, SCO wins Darl gets a big payout, Kevin gets a cut of attorney fees, SCO looses and Kevin still gets a cut from the contingency plan.
Also to reference Linux as being a derivitave of the "older operating system" Unix is wrong on a couple points. First has already been pointed out, Linux is designed to work like Unix but was not in any way derived directly from its source, which is actually what SCO is trying to claim in the first place. Also, the article fails to mention that the "older operating system" Unix is what SCO's primary buisness was based on originally.
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
So, there is/are some large investor(s) that suddenly excersised huge financial instruments, exposing the RBOC to USD$50M in potential losses, should SCOX increase in value?
This is the only rationalle that I can think of, for a big bank to buy SCOX; banks are typically not big risk takers.
I wonder if there is any way to discover who bought "Call" options on SCOX from the Royal Bank? Perhaps some investor whose name starts with M? Maybe it didn't take a rocket scientist corporate finance guy to figure out how to force an "independent" third party to buy a big chunk of SCOX, if you don't want to do it personally...
-- -pjk Perry Kundert perry@kundert.ca http://kundert.2y.net
It loses you no money
I don't understand what you wrote. But you seem to be saying that short-selling is low-risk, which is totally wrong.
Here's how short-selling works:
You expect a stock to go down in price. You borrow some shares of the stock, and sell them. Then at a predetermined date, you must buy the stocks back, and return the shares to whomever loaned them to you. If you sell at $16 per share, and buy back at $10 per share, you get to keep $6 per share, less any fees (you need to pay whomever loaned you the shares).
But if you buy at $16, then Darl announces that SCO actually owns South America and the stock price goes up to $26, when it's time to buy back the stock shares you need to pay $10 per share.
If you simply buy some stock, the worst thing that can happen is that the stock devalues to zero, and you lost all the money you spent on the stock. With short-selling, if the stock price unexpectedly soars, you can lose vast sums of money in a hurry. Buy-and-hold is much safer than short-selling.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
That means that some clienta has made a huge investment in Linux/IBM. So, should SCO win the case, what they loose from that deal they make up by owning 20% of SCO.
Or it's simply a M$ front end.
What are you talking about? SCO stock would have been a great investment, it went way up. That's the point of a pump 'n' dump. As long as RBC got out just before it collapses, I think it's a good investment. Not because they think SCO is right, but because they think the stock would go up like it did.
"The linux infadels have stolen SCO's code."
"God will roast their stumachs in hell at the hands of Darl McBride."
"Lying is forbidden at SCO. Darl McBride will tolerate nothing but truthfulness as he is a man of great honor and integrity. "
""We are winning!""
Quotes for the SCO Information Minister
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
RBC is not in this for pump-and-dump. They are a banking institution and have way too much to lose from the consequences of taking part in such a scheme. Any gains from a pump-and-dump would be outweighed by the massive loses from being perceived as an untrustworthy entity to do business with.
We have only a handful of major banks here in Canada. When they do anything that might be conceived as remotely negative, they get severly attacked for it.
BM scored a surprise legal victory in that court case when a judge ruled on Friday in favour of IBM in SCO's trade-secret violation lawsuit against the computing giant.
SCO had been pressuring the courts to force IBM to reveal its Unix and Linux source code so SCO could prove that IBM was using stolen code. But the judge ruled that SCO would have to present its own Unix source code first and identify which software code had been stolen.
This was a surprise? Are these people paying attention? Do they have any understanding of the law? Do they do any research outside of the SCO press releases?
How long has this issue been discussed on Slashdot and Groklaw? How long has IBM's motion been out? And this is a surprise?
Frankly, the only surprise here is that anyone trusts these bozos with their money.
This investment isn't as speculative as it might first appear. RBS have $30M worth of preferred convertible shares. They can happily short against these to reduce their risk, lock in some cash profits, then as long as SCO doesn't go bust they collect 30% interest over 4 years. This deal has been set up so that BayStar and RBC will at least get their money back, even if SCO rapidly goes bust, and they do very very well if SCO hangs on for 3 years.
This is the only way junk like SCOX can get cash funding.
Yahoo story
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The SCO Group, Inc., (Nasdaq: SCOX - News) the owner of the UNIX operating system, today confirmed that on Wednesday, December 10, 2003 at approximately 4:20 a.m. Mountain Time, it experienced a large scale distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. The attack caused the company's Web site (www.sco.com) and corporate operational traffic to be unavailable during the morning hours including e-mail, the company intranet, and customer support operations. The company's Web site remains unavailable while this DDoS attack continues to take place. The company is working with its Internet Service Provider to restore www.sco.com to legitimate Internet users.(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19990421/SCOLO GO )
Check for yourselves
SCO Experiences Distributed Denial of Service Attack
Wednesday December 10, 3:19 pm ET
Syn Attack Halts Availability to SCO's Internal Operations
# LINDON, Utah, Dec. 10
This specific type of DDoS attack, called a "syn attack," took place when several thousand servers were compromised by an unknown person to overload SCO's Web site with illegitimate Web site requests. The flood of traffic by these illegitimate requests caused the company's ISP's Internet bandwidth to be consumed so the Web site was inaccessible to any other legitimate Web user.
"SCO is working with law enforcement officials and gathering information through mechanisms that we have in place to help us identify the origin of these attacks," said company spokesperson, Blake Stowell. "We deplore these activities by those who try to intimidate or harass legitimate businesses through cyber terrorist tactics while hiding their true identity."
perhaps it was redhat -
hehe, If SCO wins, so do they!
Sheila: Time's have changed
Our kids are getting worse
They won't obey their parents
They just want to fart and curse!
Sharon: Should we blame the government?
Mrs. Cartman: Or blame society?
Dads: Or should we blame the images on TV?
Sheila: Heck NO, blame Canada
Everyone: Blame Canada
Sheila: With all their beady little eyes
And flapping heads so full of lies
Everyone: Blame Canada
Blame Canada
Sheila: We need to form a full assault
Everyone: It's Canada's fault!
Dear Mr. Pitt:
:8 ,00.as p I have been a SCO
Thank you for your recent correspondence. We at RBC Financial Group
appreciate feedback and welcome the opportunity to address your concerns
about recent reports about RBC's purchase of shares in SCO.
Due to regulatory constraints and issues of client confidentiality, we are
limited to what information may be disclosed in our response. The purchase
of SCO preferred shares for US $30 MM by RBC was disclosed in a routine US
Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) filing and is a matter of public
record. The investment was made to hedge economic exposure resulting from
client related transactions.
Thank you for taking the time to write and for sharing your comments with
us.
RBC Royal Bank
Customer Relations Centre
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
-----------------
From: richard @pacdat.net
Posted At: 00:58:44.540 10/18/2003
Posted To: RDMNTIBG @rbc.com
Subject: Other
Date : Sat Oct 18 00:52:28 2003
Comments
-------
Please pass this on to the highest level of management. I understand that
the bank has invested money in SCO.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,135671
reseller - prior to its sale to Novell I used to work for a company also
owned in part by the Canopy Group I work with the Linux operating system and
am very conversant with the ongoing dispute between SCO and "the rest of the
world" and am of the opinion that SCO's management are doing what they are
doing for personal gain (note the amount of insider trading that has been
done by them in recent weeks) This investment by Royal Bank is one of the
most stupid things I have ever heard of you doing. The tactics being used by
SCO in their quest for publicity (I can't conceive of them actually gaining
anything in the way of licensing and/or penalties from their suits with IBM
and/or SGI and others) are grandstanding of the first order. I have been a
loyal customer of Royal Bank for almost 20 years but am strongly considering
moving my business just over this one stupid act. For my background, please
see: http://richard.pacdat.net richard
--
--
This e-mail may be privileged and/or confidential, and the sender does not waive any related rights and obligations. Any distribution, use or copying of this e-mail or the information it contains by other than an intended recipient is unauthorized. If you received this e-mail in error, please advise me (by return e-mail or otherwise) immediately.
Ce courrier electronique est confidentiel et protege. L'expediteur ne renonce pas aux droits et obligations qui s'y rapportent. Toute diffusion, utilisation ou copie de ce message ou des renseignements qu'il contient par une personne autre que le (les) destinataire(s) designe(s) est interdite. Si vous recevez ce courrier electronique par erreur, veuillez m'en aviser immediatement, par retour de courrier electronique ou par un autre moyen.
=
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
And exactly WHERE is fuckedcompany.com during all of this?
Asleep at the wheel again. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The parent post is good, so far as it goes, but there is an important point it did not emphasize.
If you buy a stock for $10 and sell it for $20, you make $10 (ignoring time value.) It doesn't matter (except psychologically) if the stock dropped to $1 in the interim.
On the other hand, if you short a stock at $10 and it rises to $20, you have a big problem, even if the stock later drops to $1. The reason is that the stock borrowing mentioned by the parent requires collateral ("margin") - that's cash, for the likes of you and me. Your broker will mark your position every day and make margin calls when necessary.
The bit about predetermined dates is a bit misleading, because you can always close your position early if you can find a seller. You can also extend your short if you can find another lender.
Finally, some people have suggested buying a put instead of shorting the stock. That won't work because A) there are no exchange-traded SCO puts, and B) no market maker will sell an OTC put if they can't hedge (by short-selling.)
"The good reader is a rarer swan than the good writer."
THEN they would have to prove that ownership.
The thing is, Linus (And hence the Linux kernel effort) has detailed records of what came from whom (and therefore from where). SCO has no such records except the vague statement that "whatever we (sco) have we own."
If there is common code, and Linus can prove who provided it to him (e.g. who wrote it), and SCO cannot prove even the first records of who provided the code to *them*, then guess who legally possessess "proof of ownership."
See the word Provenance (which usually applies to "fine art"). Lets say I walked up to you with a genuine Picasso, proveably genuine, if I can't provide the chain of ownership that demonstrates that it is mine to sell to you, you would be a fool to buy it.
The same basic features apply to the (mis-named) intellectual property issues. If SCO demonstrates that there is code in common between something they claim to own and the Linux kernel, they will need to be able to make a stronger claim of ownership than that made by the OS community.
This is the basis of the ATT vs BSD settlement. In that case BSD was more pursuasive in their ownership of the disputed text because they had the original copyright notices that included the names of the authors, and they had the authors right there saying "yep" I wrote that under X cirsumstances. ATT was in the SCO position of just having some program text in a bunch of files, no attributable authors and no copyright notices.
The point is, SCO has produced no proof because they have none. They are (probably) hoping to release whatever confluence of code they may have as close to closing arguments as possible, on the grounds that such material would apear to stand on merrit. They *cannot* release that data because the very presence of submission and aproval-for-inclusion records kept in the linux project system (BitKeeper et al) is, by definition, "more pursuasive" than any straight claim.
We saw how fast the one example that got out was debunked. By this time SCO is hoping to do a drive-by submission-of-evidence. That never works. 8-)
Guessing that they have some kind of case is very bad. The simple fact that they havn't produced a single spesific instance of (provenanced) code in the process of pursuing thier case, is rather indicitive.
Remember that in civil cases there is no "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. It is purely "proponderance of evidence." In a civl matter it is *ONLY* a question of who has "more and more credible" evidence.
"incredible" evidence and clames are, by definition, useless.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press