SCO On the Rocks

Netromancer wrote in to alert us to a Businessweek Online article discussing the downward spiral in SCO's fortunes and luck. From the article: "The mouse that roared is barely squeaking these days. A string of recent setbacks raises grave questions about SCO's finances, its court case, and its management."

Comments

Whoa

[LFS.Morpheus]

Didn't see that coming. Who would have thought that basing a company on litigation, scare tactics, and spreading FUD wouldn't work?

Re:Whoa

[TokyoBoy]

I used to work as an engineer on the Caldera server and desktop teams. I was part of the many layoffs which reduced the engineering forces there to nothing. It was sas seeing friends go and everyone knew it was only a matter of time before it was their turn.

However, also being a founding trustee memeber of the Salt Lake Linux Users Group and a Linux and OpenSource advocate for years, I am very grateful that I was able to leave before the name change to SCO and the "direction change" - I would have had to quit anyway.

I still have a couple friends there. The amazing thing is that I ran into one of them (Walt Hammond) yesterday (Fri. March 4, 2005) at lunch. I was amazed at his comments. The feeling inside the company is very positive! I couldn't beleive it. It seems that (from my stand point) that the co-workers are completely blind to what is really happening. Not only with reguard to what is happening but also related to the morality (or lack thereof IMO) of their actions. He was completely positive saying that (parapharasing) "things looks so good for us right now but if you read the press, you'd think we were a sinking ship" and (again, paraphrasing) "the press says we've had major set backs but if you look, we've been winning".

I don't know if it's the blind leading the blind or if he really believes what he told me. Of course, being at the director level or above, I'd think you'd have to tote the company line or you wouldn't be around very long at SCO. So, who knows what he really believes.

Re:Whoa

[timeOday]

Second, I doubt that SCO's outcome will adversely any non-manager employee.

Do you suppose it will hurt the executive officers? They're famous now! Check out Carly Fiorina who lead HP to a 50% reduction in value. They paid her 45 million just to go away, prompting an immediate 7% spike in HP stock. Her punishment? Serious consideration for the job of World Bank President!

Once you've "in," nothing matters anymore. In extreme cases you might get fired and be forced to retire in luxury.

Re:Whoa

[cgenman]

From the article:

McBride says that while his staff is small in numbers, it's high on engineering expertise.

Apparently his staff is high on something.

Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps SCO can sue itself to raise cash

Re:Perhaps

[Anonymous Coward]

Darl has a history of litigation. He's sued THREE of his employers, has taken legal action against one of his kid's schools, sued 2 financial advisors and one of his wives is involved in 2 lawsuits against neighbours.

It's a bit like the social situation where generations of families become dependent on welfare, and as it's all they know it's all they continue doing. With Darl, it's litigation.

Everyone knew it would happen..

[ElScorcho]

..especially the management at SCO. You think they're upset about this? It was obvious from the very beginning that they didn't have the long term benefit of the company in mind when they started all this garbage. The people in charge of SCO, like so many other dead corps of the past, don't care what happens to the company. If you think they haven't gotten fabulously rich while all this has been going on you're deluding yourself.

At this point they're probably running company affairs from their yachts, and when it implodes, so what? Won't hurt them at all, and in a year or two they'll be hired on by some other group of corporate leeches and they'll drain another company dry.

It's just a shame that in this case it impacts more than just the poor slobs working at the company in question (of course, if they're STILL there after all this they deserve it) but something that millions all over the globe care about. But, hey, it was good for business- after all no publicity is bad publicity, right?

SCO on IRC

[Anonymous Coward]

Topic in #os: hey guyz, stop pickin on irix.
<SCO> w00t! i bought unix! im gonna b so rich!
<novell> /msg atnt haha. idiot.
<novell> whoops. was that out loud?
<atnt> rotfl
<ibm> lol
<SCO> why r u laffin at me?
<novell> dude, unix is so 10 years ago. linux is in now.
<SCO> wtf?
<SCO> hey guyz, i bought caldera, I have linux now.
<red_hat> haha, your linux sucks.
<novell> lol
<atnt> lol
<ibm> lol
<SCO> no wayz, i will sell more linux than u!
<ibm> your linux sucks, you should look at SuSE
<SuSE> Ja. Wir bilden gutes Linux f&#252;r IBM.
<SCO> can we do linux with you?
<SuSE> Ich bin nicht sicher...
<ibm> *cough*
<SuSE> Gut lassen Sie uns vereinigen.
* SuSE is now SuSE[UL]
* SCO is now caldera[UL]
<turbolinux> can we play?
<conectiva> we're bored... we'll go too.
<ibm> sure!
* turbolinux is now turbolinux[UL]
* conectiva is now conectiva[UL]
<ibm> redhat: you should join!
<SuSE[UL]> Ja! Wir sind vereinigtes Linux. Widerstand ist vergeblich.
<red_hat> haha. no.
<red_hat> lamers.
<ibm> what about you debian?
<debian> we'll discuss it and let you know in 5 years.
<caldera[UL]> no one wants my linux!
<turbolinux[UL]> i got owned.
<caldera[UL]> u all tricked me. linux is lame.
* caldera[UL] is now known as SCO
<SCO> i'm going back to unix.
<SGI> yeah! want to do unix with me?
<SCO> haha. no. lamer.
<novell> lol
<ibm> snap!
<SGI> :~(
<SCO> hey, u shut up. im gonna sue u ibm.
<ibm> wtf?
<SCO> yea, you stole all the good stuff from unix.
<red_hat> lol
<SuSE[UL]> heraus laut lachen
<ibm> lol
<SCO> shutup. i'm gonna email all your friends and tell them you suck.
<ibm> go ahead. baby.
<SCO> andandand... i revoke your unix! how do you like that?
<ibm> oh no, you didn't. AIX is forever.
<novell> actually, we still own unix, you can't do that.
<SCO> wtf? we bought it from u.
<novell> whoops. our bad.
<SCO> i own u. haha
<SCO> ibm: give me all your AIX now!
<ibm> whatever. lamer.
* ibm sets mode +b SCO!*@*
* SCO has been kicked from #os (own this.)

IBM guerilla marketing reloads

[rifftide]

Word is that IBM will attempt to push the envelope with yet another guerrilla Linux PR campaign starting next month, replacing its current campaign, code-named "SCO", which appears to be running out of steam.

The SCO campaign, featuring a struggling UNIX vendor that was taken over by greedy executives claiming IP ownership of the entire GNU/Linux code base, was a stunning success. Major news sites such as those run by the Open Source Technology Group eagerly signed up to perpetrate the tongue-in-cheek hoax, which one editor called "the longest running April Fool's joke in the technology business".

Prior to SCO, IBM's PR experts tried hiring teams of college students to spray-paint logos and slogans on the sidewalks of San Francisco and Chicago. That campaign was acknowledged to be a flop.

Why is it still in court?

[JPriest]

But considering the length of time this has dragged on, the 900 million lines of code provided to them, and the fact that there has not been a single shred of evidence to date, why is this even still in court? How much money do you suppose this has cost IBM and tax payers so far?

Doesn't the court have some basic responsibility to IBM to end this case now that SCO has come up short?

Re:Has anyone managed to short SCO stock?

[Anonymous Coward]

In order for you to sell a stock short, your broker has to find someone who owns it and is willing to lend it to you. After all, whoever buys it from you is expecting to take delivery of the stock, and you don't have it to deliver.

Nowadays, most stock is held in so-called "street name": the owner doesn't actually hold certificates but rather leaves it in his broker's name. Stock held this way is available for borrowing. For example, every brokerage firm has *some* customer who is long, say, MSFT but has left it in street name; if you want to short MSFT, the firm can borrow the stock from that customer. (That right to borrow your stock is explicitly written into the terms and conditions of brokerage accounts.)

Stocks in a death spiral, such as SCOX / SCOXE, are often hard to locate for borrowing and subsequent short selling. Under such circumstances, the prices of put options (the right but not the obligation to sell the stock at a specified price until a specified date) can and do go through the roof.

Incidentally, the money to be made shorting SCOX / SCOXE has already been made. There's not much more room left for the stock to go down.

FUD in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

While short on business, SCO held some potentially powerful copyrights.
The author treats SCO's ownership claims as gospel, but that has not been established in court. Novell has contested SCO's copyright ownership, a matter which is still in court. IBM has counter-sued SCO for copyright infringement and patent infringement. BSDi settled a suit against former Unix(r) owner USL which established that BSDi owned the major part of the unix(generic) copyrights, while USL held copyright on but a tiny historical remnant of the code base. SCO has a long way to go before they can be said to "hold" valid copyrights to any code that's still in use.

At least put a link to the original of this

[iONiUM]

It's a bash quote in case you didn't already know.

I wrote a letter to the article's author

[shadow255]

I'd mod you up, but I thought it might be better to share the letter I just wrote to the author/editor instead. I took exception to the entire paragraph you quoted.

To: spencer_ante@businessweek.com
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 12:32:48 -0800
Subject: Article "A Linux Nemesis on the Rocks"

I read with interest your article concerning the legal battle waged by the SCO Group against IBM. While your opening paragraph paints with somewhat of a broader brush than is perhaps warranted for the present-day operating systems software landscape, it is further in that I question your grasp of the facts.

You write, "While short on business, SCO held some potentially powerful copyrights." I think it is either dishonest of you to state this, or you are genuinely unaware that there is substantial doubt over whether the SCO Group actually hold the copyrights they claim to hold. It appears that you are trying to present a balanced report drawing from various sources, so I would encourage you to consider as well the legal actions of SCO with Novell concerning those copyrights.

In the same paragraph you go on to say, "Partly funded by a hefty Microsoft license payment, SCO leveled a multibillion-dollar suit against IBM, charging that Big Blue had fed SCO-copyrighted software into Linux." You probably should have included Sun Microsystems when mentioning hefty license payments to the SCO Group. It is also putting a lot of water under the bridge to simplify the lawsuit against IBM the way you do here. The SCO Group have been trying very hard in court to claim that it is a case about contracts rather than copyrights, while making statements to the press to the contrary. In combination with the earlier "held some potentially powerful copyrights" line, this is simply misleading for readers unfamiliar with the case.

"This triggered fear and loathing in the fast-growing Linux community." I feel it is a mischaracterization of the Linux community to make this statement. While there have been some outspoken individuals who support Linux and have made strong statements in opposition to the claims of the SCO Group, the community as a whole neither fears nor hates the SCO Group per se. It would be more accurate to say that this triggered a vigorous response in the Linux community, with many advocates questioning the basis for the claims of the SCO Group.

"A court win for SCO, Linux fans feared, could bring its growth to a grinding halt." Again, while there have been some who have speculated this, I think it is inappropriate to put it in the context you have chosen. There are, for instance, many Linux advocates who have stated that they want the SCO Group to specify their infringement claims so that the offending code can be removed to end the infringement. The notion that a win for SCO spells the end of Linux is not one that originates within the Linux community, and should certainly not be stated as though it is an accepted fact.

"And so, SCO became one of the most vilified companies in the technology industry." The SCO Group certainly will not win any popularity contests with advocates of open source software, and there have been a lot of criticisms leveled against them, but stating that they are vilified conveys the notion that it is somehow not justified. I find this sentence to be gratuitous and irrelevant to the article in general. It does not do anything to inform your readers, but rather inspires them to consider the SCO Group somewhat of a victim and the open source community somewhat of a bully. I expect better from a column labeled as "News Analysis".

It's really rather unfortunate that you started the article with such a poor footing, because the rest of the piece is very good. If not for the overdramatization in the opening and the paragraph I've referenced above, I would recommend your article to friends and associates wanting to know more about the SCO v. IBM lawsuit.