Half of SCO's Accountants Quit

Groklaw Reader writes "Apparently, SCO's lawyers were working overtime last Sunday, because they wrote a quick plea to the bankruptcy court for permission to hire accounting temps. Why? Approximately half of SCO's finance department has resigned or been fired. Two who resigned had over ten years of experience each. One can only assume that they know what's about to happen to SCO."

Comments

Almost done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good!

Half the accountants? How about some of the lawyers too?

I guess the rats are leaving the ship.

Re:Almost done.

[betterunixthanunix]

I wonder what would happen if there were no employees left? What would the bankruptcy judge do?

Re:Almost done.

[Harmonious Botch]

Lawyers? Not yet. Lawyers leave after the rats. ( Some things, even rats won't do. )

Re:Almost done.

[jcr]

With no employees, it would be up to the officers of the corporation to execute any orders the judge issued to the corporation.

-jcr

Re:Almost done.

[Dynedain]

Not possible. There still would be at least the executive board of the company (CEO, CFO, and whoever else might be on the board of directors). They may be unpaid, but they are in effect the responsible entities for the corporation. By definition (both legally and practically) you cannot have a corporation without an executive board.

Re:Almost done.

[semiotec]

while I am as glad as most people here about SCO's deserved and inevitable downfall, sometimes I couldn't help thinking whether it would have been better if Novell hadn't stepped into this fight.

Sure, I understand that they are protecting their rights and IP and that they are right to do so. But by pulling the carpet out from under SCO's feet, they also prevented SCO's claims that "millions of lines of codes were copied from UNIX to Linux" being thoroughly tested (and debunked) in court.

I think that it was a good thing that SCO targeted IBM, who 1) had the resources to fight SCO (and their sponsors), and 2) happened to be on the side of Linux developers/users. So it would have been an excellent opportunity to quash this claim once and for all. Despite SCO's bluster and chest-thumping, I think it would have been extremely unlikely for them to be able to convince any person of even limited intelligence of their claims (including Enderle, Didio and O'Gara).

But all we have now is a statement from Novell saying that there is no Unix in Linux. With Novell being so deep in bed with Microsoft, I am slightly nervous with Novell's overall position and and disposition towards Linux.

Re:Almost done.

[Just Some Guy]

sometimes I couldn't help thinking whether it would have been better if Novell hadn't stepped into this fight.

By defending themselves in the lawsuit that SCO filed against them, you mean. I know what you mean, but they did what they had to do in order to defend their interests.

Re:Almost done.

[Zeinfeld]

With no employees, it would be up to the officers of the corporation to execute any orders the judge issued to the corporation.

Or they can apply to put the company into liquidation, that is Chapter 7. At the moment SCO is in chapter 11, that is reorganization. If the company cannot continue to function it is not reorganizing and has to liquidate.

The problem for SCO here is that it can only reorganize in Chapter 11 if it has a good chance of demonstrating that it can secure the agreement of its creditors to the reorganization plan. The current management only have 120 days in which they have the exclusive right to propose a reorganization plan. After that they would have to pursuade the court to extend that right.

The question I would be interesting in knowing the answer to is what the situation is with respect to Novell's claims. Clearly SCO is going into bankruptcy before the bench hearing to determine what SCO owes Novell. Certain types of lawsuit get stayed by bankruptcy but it would seem odd if a case that had been decided on the merits and was only waiting for damages to be determined to be stayed by a voluntary liquidation when the only 'business' the company has is litigation.

The end of SCO does not necessarily mean the end of the case. I seem to remember that Boies and co have a bunch of charges against the assets of the company which allow them to acquire certain SCO assets and continue the litigation. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, given the amount of time and money that has gone into the case and given that it looks like SCOs case is utterly toast it might well be better for it to at least result in a precedent.

It should not cost $50 million to force a plaintif to state a valid claim. There should be a clear precedent that ugabugah copyright lawsuits where the plaintif fails to state what the allegedly infringing content is get tossed out in future.

Re:Almost done.

[thej1nx]

IIRC, the SCO claims were never going to be tested in court anyways, because from what I understood, the case they actually filed was entirely different from whatever nonsense Darl McBride was spouting.

They may have claimed about millions of lines of codes being copied, but the actual case filed was only regards breach of contract. They claimed that IBM had donated its AIX code to the Linux kernel. Their second argument consisted of "Boohoo, Linux would have been nowhere if not for IBM. IBM created a competitor for us. We hate competition. Boohoo!".

The only piece of code they ever showed as being part of the Linux kernel, turned out to have already been released under a BSD license by the original creators and had already been replaced by better alternatives in the Kernel, which made their whole claim seem to go up in smoke.

All in all, it was just FUD sponsored by possibly an under-the-table deal between Microsoft and Darl McBride, with the aim of stemming the expansion of Linux in the server market, till Microsoft got its slightly-more-stable-than-xp vista OS out. It might be interesting to observe in future, whether any more information regards this possible deal comes out, and whether Microsoft can be sued under another anti-trust, unfair-practices case for its part in generating the controversy.

Re:Almost done.

[Mr. Dop]

So how can you have half of 0?

Re:Almost done.

[burnin1965]

they also prevented SCO's claims that "millions of lines of codes were copied from UNIX to Linux" being thoroughly tested (and debunked) in court

Actually that is not true. The SCO Groups claims have been thoroughly tested in the court system and The SCO Group are where they are today because the facts discovered in the SCO Group vs IBM case revealed that not only were they lying about finding millions of lines of infringing code but they knew full well they were lying.

Initially they claimed millions of lines of infringed code including line for line copying down to even the comments. When called on that bluff by IBM in the court they produced no evidence and the judge proclaimed an "astonishing lack of evidence" on the part of The SCO Group. Later it was revealed that internal SCO Group e-mails communicated the results of their own investigation of infringement in linux and found "aboslutely nothing" at which point their story changed and it was no longer literal copying but instead obfuscation of copied code. But still when they were compelled to produce the evidence which supported their claims they produce abosutlely nothing and instead changed their story again to claim that somehow they held ownership of "methods and concepts". Unfortunately The SCO Group holds no patents so they have no protected "methods and concepts" either.

This entire debacle was a scam from the beginning and it didn't go to a jury trial because the judge realized that The SCO Group's intention was to baffle the jury with the same bullcrap in hopes of making them believe that some how they must own something in linux when in fact they don't own squat.

Oh, this case has been tested, not just beyond a shadow of a doubt but beyond a frickin' eclipse of a doubt. Scumbags and grifters through and through.

Re:Almost done.

[VGPowerlord]

Of course, SCO sued Novell because Novell said "We own UNIX." It turns out the judge agreed with Novell.

Re:Almost done.

[Opportunist]

You mean they'd have to, you know, what's the word... right: work?

Now the chapter 11 makes sense. Though c7 would make more sense, actually. And it'd much more fun too!

I think "chapter 7 for fun and profit" is a phrase not used often.

Re:Almost done.

[Opportunist]

Hmm... when Novell owns Unix and MS pretty much owns Novell... I don't wanna finish that train of thought. Can someone please confirm that there was already a verdict that Unix != Linux?

Re:Almost done.

[Anonymous Coward]

microsoft paid novell to get involved specifically to prevent those claims from being tested. expect microsoft to try again once it's absorbed novell (and the copyright to UNIX). i'm sure the microsoft legal dudes will be a bit more ferocious than what SCO had.

sure would be nice if the UNIX copyright would just fucking expire already.

Re:Almost done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you been hiding under a rock for the last 3 years?

Re:Almost done.

[arivanov]

And this is the exact reason why SCO is going chapter 11, not 7. They have a valuable asset - the smoking gun of Sun and Microsoft correspondence (let's do not forget that MSFT was not alone here). Further to this, while under 11 they can continue litigating without paying to Novell. The bancrupcy court is not entitled to judge the merits of other cases, so if they put to the bancrupcy court judge that they should continue to litigate to get money and not pay until then, he has no grounds to refuse that. As a result Novell gets nothing and the saga continues for around 2+ more years (by their current burn rate) unless someone injects more money in them.

Re:Almost done.

[jimicus]

The only piece of code they ever showed as being part of the Linux kernel, turned out to have already been released under a BSD license by the original creators and had already been replaced by better alternatives in the Kernel, which made their whole claim seem to go up in smoke.

Indeed. IIRC, the only piece of code they ever showed went something like this:

* Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997
  * The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
  *
  * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
  * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
  * are met:
  * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
  * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

I haven't read the actual code, but I assume the "superior" replacement was:

GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
          Version 2, June 1991
 
  Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
  51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
  Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
  of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

Re:Almost done.

[innocent_white_lamb]

The bankruptcy court is not entitled to judge the merits of other cases, so if they put to the bankruptcy court judge that they should continue to litigate to get money and not pay until then, he has no grounds to refuse that.
 
Be that as it may, I think the bankruptcy trustee would have something to say about it.

Re:Almost done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mocking the doomed only leads to a bigger fall. Their fate is not one which any of us would care to partake, what with the Feds giving them a good look-see. Think of it this way, no matter how tough the bully, destruction is never a pleasant thing.

And, yes, I say this with both knowledge and dislike of their actions.

Posted as an AC because I felt like it.

Re:Almost done.

[VGPowerlord]

You are aware that SCO was claiming that IBM stole code from UNIX and put it into Linux? That was the entire basis of their lawsuit.

However, Novell said "Hey, we own UNIX." (paraphrased) A judge agreed. SCO's lawsuit evaporates.

Furthermore, Novell has been fighting SCO on this since 2003.

Novell also purchased SUSE Linux in 2003 and turned it into OpenSUSE, which it also uses as the base for its commercial Linux products.

Novell has also made significant contributions to XGL, Compiz, and OpenOffice to name a few projects.

Despite the constant FUD since the Novell/Microsoft deal, Novell's business model now revolves around FOSS software, so any attempt to kill it would be cutting their own throat.

Re:Almost done.

[Fred_A]

Despite the constant FUD since the Novell/Microsoft deal, Novell's business model now revolves around FOSS software, so any attempt to kill it would be cutting their own throat. This unfortunately has happened before, so it can't be ruled out. Corporations, as people, can do some very stupid things.

Re:Almost done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Goddamn BSD Troll. Piss off.

Re:Almost done.

[trifish]

Unfortunately The SCO Group holds no patents so they have no protected "methods and concepts" either.

However, UNIX related patents were held by Novell, which may or may have not sold them (I'm not sure if they did).

Re:Almost done.

[DrSkwid]

yeah, what could possibly go wrong :

1985 SCO delivers XENIX 286 for Intel 80286 processor-based systems.

1998 Caldera Inc. Split off into two new companies Caldera Systems and what was to become Lineo. Caldera Inc. continued to exist until 2000. Following the settlement of the Microsoft litigation, Caldera Inc. was merged into The Canopy Group. ...
2003 SCO Suspends Distribution of Linux Pending Intellectual Property Clarification; Announces Greater Focus on UNIX and SCOx Strategy

Xenix was once the OS a certain B.G. insisted everyone used on their terminal in Redmond.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/20/bills_vision_for_the_future/
http://openacademy.mindef.gov.sg/OpenAcademy/Learning%20Resources/Microsoft/bio/bio_6.htm
Microsoft Announces XENIX OS 8/25/80

So now they are in bed with another Unix vendor, in fact THE Unix vendor.
Unless the leopard has significantly changed its spots, expect that relationship to go sour.
Microsoft can't do friends.

Re:Almost done.

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

while I am as glad as most people here about SCO's deserved and inevitable downfall, sometimes I couldn't help thinking whether it would have been better if Novell hadn't stepped into this fight.

Sure, I understand that they are protecting their rights and IP and that they are right to do so. But by pulling the carpet out from under SCO's feet, they also prevented SCO's claims that "millions of lines of codes were copied from UNIX to Linux" being thoroughly tested (and debunked) in court.

I think it's a valid argument to say that you don't really want to go to court if you can win like this. Anything can happen when you go to court. Do you really want this case decided by a jury? I served on a jury 2 years ago and I was the only IT guy on it. Many of the people on the jury with me were roofers and guys in construction. These guys are not running Linux at home, that's for sure. A judge deciding a case is not necessarily better. Judges rarely understand the "interweb" and you could easily get a judge who is persuaded by SCO's b.s. to rule in their favor.

Re:Almost done.

[Anonymous Coward]

With no employees, it would be up to the officers of the corporation to execute any employees issued to the corporation.

fixed!

Re:Almost done.

[jthill]

Novell didn't prevent that testing. SCO's claims *were* tested in court.

The judges repeatedly ordered SCO to provide actual evidence of their claims. They repeatedly ... didn't provide any. That led the judges to remarks like "the vast disparity between SCO's public accusations and its actual evidence -- or complete lack thereof", and eventually to actually toss almost all of SCO's claims entirely (the order includes that quote).

Judge Wells didn't just dismiss the claims for lack of evidence. SCO told so many and such blatant lies about why they hadn't provided any that the Judge tossed their claims as a sanction for bad-faith or willful failure. If they had any evidence, the time came and passed for them to put up.

The only claims remaining are the kind that no amount of evidence could substantiate, e.g.

In similar fashion SCO argues that, "Under SCO's interpretation of the contracts at issue, IBM is prohibited from having former Dynix/ptx developers write source code for Linux." Thus according to SCO, "IBM has breached its contracts by permitting IBM developers exposed to Dynix/ptx methods and concepts to contribute to Linux in the same area where each developer worked." SCO then argues that item numbers 94, 186- 193, and 232-270 concern these types of contractual violations.

After reviewing item numbers 94 and 186-192 the court finds that they are supported with enough specificity to survive the current motion[...]

Re:Almost done.

[Just Some Guy]

Despite the constant FUD since the Novell/Microsoft deal, Novell's business model now revolves around FOSS software, so any attempt to kill it would be cutting their own throat.

I think that the fear is that one day, Novell, a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft, will find that their business model is doing whatever their parent company wants them to.

Re:Almost done.

[Bacon Bits]

Especially Novell.

Re:Almost done.

[Mister Whirly]

Well, you left a few steps out. Actually, Microsoft made payments to the aliens who kidnapped Elvis to bribe the freemasons - who are the ones who actually wrote all the code for Unix. Of course the Illumanati had to get a cut but they were willing to share with the M12 so it is all good.

Re:Almost done.

[burnin1965]

However, UNIX related patents were held by Novell, which may or may have not sold them (I'm not sure if they did).

If Novell truely did hold any patents on Unix methods and concepts a reading of the APA with Santa Cruz Operation (there was no agreement with The SCO Group) reveals that they were not sold. Santa Cruz Operation did not have the cash necessary to purchase Novell's Unix assets so instead the APA was an agreement to allow them to aministrate the Unix accounts at a 5% commission and develop their own derivative works from the Unix code.

The APA specifically excluded all intellectual property because Santa Cruz Operation didn't have the cash to pay Novell for it, plain and simple.

Re:Almost done.

[OriginalArlen]

Which "slightly more stable than XP Vista OS" would that be? I'm sure there would have been an announcement here if such a thing were to be released.

Re:Almost done.

[KZigurs]

Pity M$ failed to exploit the deal. Had Vista been on time and indeed a better OS it might stand a chance. Or even if the lawsuit would come to this before vista would be actually launched. Current timing couldn't be worse now that people I know that have dared to play with it seriously are coming to agreement that only thing really improved (or not regressed) over XP is media center functionality. And then there is ubuntu and redhat that, last I checked, are chumming along nicely doing their thing and not giving a shit about the warcry of the month.

Re:Almost done.

[trifish]

I know. That was between Novell and SCO. But Novell may have sold the patents under another agreement to another entity, which I'm not sure if they did.

Re:Almost done.

[mink]

"Despite the constant FUD since the Novell/Microsoft deal, Novell's business model now revolves around FOSS software, so any attempt to kill it would be cutting their own throat."

You only have to worry about that when the new CEO has the last name of Dibbler.

Can't pay themselves

[no_pets]

Heck, the accountants probably know that there is no money to pay themselves. So, why work?

Re:Can't pay themselves

[ackthpt]

Heck, the accountants probably know that there is no money to pay themselves. So, why work?

Reminds me of a company I once worked for. The accountants (finance people) were sworn to some sort of secrecy not to disclose to other employees what they were doing. Basically only paying accounts when there was dire cause (and in some instances the cheques were immediately pulled from the mail bin and locked in a drawer after the vendor agreed to free things up.) After the fall someone finally told me what was going on. Accountants know the games that are played to keep a semblance of business as usual even when the precipice is looming

Those who stay on risk receiving pay cheques which will not cash.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lost job due to bankruptcy of employing company." How's that for a bullet point on an accountant's resume?

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

who the hell receives pay cheques anyway? doesn't everyone have their pay deposited straight into their account these days?

Re:Can't pay themselves

[betterunixthanunix]

Probably not as bad as it sounds. Companies go bankrupt all the time, and it is not the fault of the accountants (in most cases). It's not like, "Lost job due to largest security exploit in history," on a programmer's resume.

Now, if it were on one of the manager's resumes, that might be a little worse.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[twistedcubic]

But the accountants know better than anyone else where payroll funds come from, and probably whether there is enough money there

Re:Can't pay themselves

[extremescholar]

Been there, done that. The economy was crap (2001) and I couldn't find a job anywhere else. I told them up front that if I didn't get paid, they've wouldn't get any work. Fortunately, they never missed a payday, or I'd have been gone regardless. It gave me a lot of good experience from an accounting point of view.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[TheViffer]

Suppose they could start paying their employees with stock options ...

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Blkdeath]

who the hell receives pay cheques anyway? doesn't everyone have their pay deposited straight into their account these days?

Must be Monday.

I'm not sure if this question is flamebait or not (being AC I'll bet it is) but as the saying goes I'll bite;

1. It's colloquial. You don't tell people your "payroll direct deposit transaction" was larger than normal, you make exclamations about the size of your pay cheque.
2. Yes, many people do still get paid directly by cheque. Some even get cash. (Insert half a dozen prime examples here)
3. Some people don't maintain bank accounts. Strange but true. Reasons are varied and none of them are my own. Poll the lineup at the local 24x7 "Money Mart" type store and ask them.
4. All generalizations are false; including this one.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people don't maintain bank accounts. Strange but true. Reasons are varied and none of them are my own. Poll the lineup at the local 24x7 "Money Mart" type store and ask them.

My grandmother is a case in point. She was 21 when the stock market crashed in 1929. Her father, my great-grandfather, was a very successful business man. By 1933 all the banks he banked with had gone under and they were pennyless and homeless. When my grandmother died in 1968 we found $70,000 stashed around her house. In a safe, in hollowed out books, in the walls (I shit you not). She never trusted banks after the depression and never put a penny into one again. I can't count the number of times I've heard this from people about their grandparents.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies that are up shit's creek without a paddle often don't have funds to actually pay direct deposit a few days before it's supposed to happen. You get handwritten checks. /me waits out the last four days at his shitty-ass company

Re:Can't pay themselves

[c_forq]

We had a similar story from my Great-Aunt. After her second stroke, while in the hospital, she told her daughter to go through all of her husband's pants when she died (her husband had passed about a decade earlier, but she still had most, if not all, of his belongings). Of course this was after her second stroke, and she wasn't calling her daughter the correct name along with mixing stories together. About a week later she had her final, fatal stroke. When going through the house and estate her daughter thought, "Well, I'm going through all this stuff anyways, lets see if there was anything to this pants thing". In each pair of my Great-Uncle's pants was over $1,000 in cash, in each pocket. Due to their experiences during the depression neither of them ever trusted banks.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Stephan Schulz]

It's not like, "Lost job due to largest security exploit in history," on a programmer's resume.

You can shorten that to "Lost job due to Windows".

Re:Can't pay themselves

[sumdumass]

Are you sure he wasn't just bothering over the spelling of check/cheque?

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Opportunist]

There's a saying in corporate world. If you see the CFO run away, try to keep up.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Opportunist]

I actually know someone who's being paid his 5 grand in cash every month. Granted, this is some kind of shady gambling place, so I could imagine that it's more convenient for his employer if there is no paper or account trail, but still...

Generally, though, you can't even get a job here without a bank account.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Opportunist]

You can find that on the CV of a lot of security researchers, actually. But it's a given. You don't take a SR serious if he doesn't have it on his CV, not having it only means you never worked in the field.

What's 10 times harder is to find an 80x86 Assembler guru with good knowledge of malware and a clean police record...

Re:Can't pay themselves

[MagikSlinger]

You worked for Commodore!?

Re:Can't pay themselves

[jrumney]

Or they know that the company is only declaring bankrupcy to delay the court cases, and they fear being implicated if the bankrupcy court finds that SCO has fraudulently declared itself bankrupt to avoid a ruling on how much it owes Novell.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Eivind]

Dunno about USA, I'm guessing worker-protection laws are lax ?

In Norway there's no particular reason not to work for a company that is in danger of collapsing. There is mandatory insurance for outstanding pay for everyone that is not part of management for a period of up to 3 months.

There is also an exception from normal bankruptcy law for nonpaid wages. Normally if you file to have a company bankrupted, there's an associated fee. That is to discourage annoyance-filings and bankruptcies over details (they owe us $120, it's two days past due, let's file for their bankruptcy to get their attention kind of thinking), if you're owed wages though, the fee is waived.

So, in effect, if your paycheck is 1 day late, you can file for having the employer liquidated. You can do so at -zero- cost to yourself, and unpaid wages are priority one in the assets, paid before debts etc.

And even if there is nothing of value in the company, so the company won't be able to cover the debts, the insurance kicks in, you're guaranteed pay -- aslong as you didn't let the late paycheck slide for more than 3 months. In other words, when your *third* paycheck is late, it's time to get active, or accept the risk you'll never see that money.

If the company neglected to pay for wage-insurance, you *still* get the money, the only difference, from your POV is that in this case the officers of the company gets criminal charges slapped additionally.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[mpe]

Heck, the accountants probably know that there is no money to pay themselves. So, why work?

Also one of the first things likely to happen to SCO as a result of their filing is an audit.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, when a company is about to go bang, the order of resignations is...

1. Company secretary (because they have the ear of all the Directors and get to know more about whats going on).
2. HR/Personel manager(ess).
3. Accountant.

These are quite cushy positions, so if any of the above leave, time to dust off your CV/resume.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[hauntingthunder]

well coluding to keep trading while insolvent is a fairly serious offence and I suspect you could be struck of for it.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[ConceptJunkie]

you *still* get the money

Isn't Norway the country that had to specifically pass a law that you couldn't be required to pay more income tax in a year than you actually made? Seems to me it balances out in the end. Guaranteed paycheck, but they're still much smaller than most places.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words: Minimum wage

Re:Can't pay themselves

[sethg]

IIRC, in the US, if the corporation that employs you doesn't have the assets to pay your paycheck, then the corporate officers are personally liable for it. My boss once worked for a startup that was getting low on funds, so they asked all the employees to sign a waiver agreeing not to be paid for the most recent month (or whatever). The people who didn't sign got their pay--and got laid off.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[jamar0303]

Yes- in the US worker protection laws don't cover the workers quite that well. Why does Europe (mostly Northern Europe) sound so attractive...?

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, my mom's mom went through the depression, too. But her reaction was that at every single meal she would make a point of saying "it's a sin to waste food". Skinny as a rail herself, she raised a family of extremely obese kids; and she was proud of it.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[kasperd]

My boss once worked for a startup that was getting low on funds, so they asked all the employees to sign a waiver agreeing not to be paid for the most recent month (or whatever). The people who didn't sign got their pay--and got laid off.

I have a very hard time imagining the circumstances where I'd be willing to sign that. What is the probability one is ever going to see that money? Sure, one could work for another month and maybe get a payment then, and then another month, and then the company might again not be able to pay. And at that point you'd have wasted two months and got no more money than you would have if you had just taken your money and left. There are many better ways to spend two months than to be working hard and unpaid for a company in trouble.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are countries in which signing such a waiver couldn't be legally binding. If you were sure it wouldn't be legally binding, you could sign it and sue them when you don't get your money. But still the effort may be better spend looking for another job.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[u38cg]

Hmmph. Speaking as someone who lives in this wonderland, let me tell you what actually happens. Sure, workers enjoy all sorts of (very good, generally) protection. We are protected from sacking, not being paid, illness, etc. The flip side is employers are exceedingly reluctant to take on a worker because if it doesn't work out getting rid of them ain't easy. For the employer it's like getting married after a first date. They have to be picky.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Eivind]

Nope. You got that wrong, plain and simple.

The highest possible tax-rate is something around 45%, the average tax-rate is comparable to American. It's sort of hard to compare, because if you compare "tax" to "tax" it'll appear to be higher here, but that is because we include medical insurance, age-pension, and similar in tax, whereas in USA medical and other stuff like that is paid for separately from your tax as such.

What matters though, is what portion of the amount that your employer pays do you actually get.

Our tax-system *is* more progressive than yours. Which means that poor people pay substantially *less* taxes than in the USA whereas rich people pay more. Personally I find that fair, despite being among the richer ones, but that's in any case a different debate.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Eivind]

That'd be illegal termination then.

Sure, you can legally fire workers for any number of reasons, including not being able to finance their pay anymore.

Being unwilling to accept not being paid what was agreed is however *not* a valid reason. Sure, he can say we need to cut paychecks in half, starting 3 months from now (3 months notice is normal, though if you've worked for a short period for that employer it can be shorter), and anyone who can't live with that needs to quit. But that's a quite different thing, it still leaves you 3 months at your current pay-level to search for a new job, for example.

But demanding that you give up pay already earned in exchange for keeping your job (for one more month anyway) amounts to blackmail -- that money is legally *yours* already, you already *did* that work, so you kept your part of the deal. Now it's time for the company to keep their part of the deal -- namely to pay you what was agreed upon.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Eivind]

Really ? Where in Europe would that be then ? And can you show any correlation between worker-protection and reluctance to hiring ?

Norway has among the strictest worker-protection laws in existance. At the same time we've got the lowest unemployment in Europe, as far as I know anyway. Currently at something like 1.8% and falling.

Half of those people are in reality unable to work more than unemployed, and most of the other half is between-jobs, real long-term (6month+) unemployment among people who are really interested and able to work is essentially zero.

I also don't agree that it's anything like marrying after first date. It's common to be on probation for 3 months, though the legal maximum is 6 months. In that period your employer can fire you with 2 weeks notice, without even having to state a reason. (if he is stupid enough to state one anyway though, it must be a valid one) I don't see the big problem there.

Hiring someone who has worked full-time for you for half a year is hardly like "after first date".

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Eivind]

That's an easy one !

Because of our hot blonde girls offcourse !

(Ok, so that's a joke, personally I went and married a german brunette that knocks the socks of any blonde I know)

Oh yeah, and the telephøne-system.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Eivind]

Oh, and as to the size of our paychecks, I don't think "much smaller than most places" covers it.

USA: GDP PPP per capita: $44.100

Norway: GDP PPP per capita: $46.100

These are 2006 numbers, since then the difference has grown in our favour. Back then we where 5th in the world, currently we're 4th, only surpassed by Luxemburg, Bermuda and Jersey all of which have substantial populations of super-rich tax-refugees. In Norway that's not the case (infact probably the other way around: the average Norwegian earns *more* than indicated because some ultra-rich will have an official tax-refugee on somewhere like Jersey)

What is however true is that some stuff are more expensive here. Mostly this is stuff that is work-intensive, and the higher prices is a simple reflection of the fact that the minimum wage is a lot higher. The burger-flippers in Norway earn double what they do in USA, so it follows that the burgers cost more too.

So end-effect is that if you're *rich* in the USA, you're materially better off there than you would be in Norway. If you're average it's pretty comparable, if you're in a simple or unskilled work, you'll be a lot better off here. I don't think you easily get $20+/hour for flipping burgers in the USA, I could be mistaken.

Re:Can't pay themselves

[sethg]

In the land of American cut-throat capitalism, it's not illegal termination or blackmail, it's, umm, renegotiation of a business deal.

There are only a few cases where it's actually illegal in the US to fire someone (e.g., racial discrimination). And of course some employees (I think it's about 25% nationwide at this point) belong to labor unions and they may have special rules for termination written into their employment contracts. (But a bankrupt company isn't bound by collective-bargaining agreements that it made before declaring bankruptcy.) Aside from that, it's "employment at will"--you can quit whenever you want and the bosses can fire you whenever they want.

Every state has a fund for unemployment insurance that employers pay into, so if you lose your job you can get some fraction of your former wage for six months out of that fund while you look for work. However, if the employer can convince the unemployment office that you were fired "for cause", then you don't get the unemployment benefits (and the employer's insurance premium doesn't go up).

Re:Can't pay themselves

[Eivind]

There's unemployment-insurance in Norway too, but it's .... uhm ... 'different' from in the states.

First, everyone qualifies, aslong as they've been employed for more than 6 weeks before being fired.

Second, you can get it for up to 2 years, not 6 months.

Third, you always qualify if you're fired, *except* in the narrow exception where you're fired for a criminal activity for which you are convicted.

Fourth, you can lose it if you, for example, refuse to take a job offered (in that case you're 'picky' not 'unemployed') but even then on the first occurence it's 8 weeks without before it's reinstated. (if you repeat refusing jobs though, you'll be barred permanently)

Assuming you qualify the payments are aproximately 2/3rds of your average pay for the year prior to termination, with a cap around $6000/month (so even if you earned substantially more than this before getting fired, that won't qualify you for a higher insurance.)

Crumble Crumble....

[beheaderaswp]

I think the biggest worry I have now... which may actually be moot- is who ends up with SCO's assets and IP?

Once they hit chapter 7, as the money runs out, the court will dismember them. Hopefully, the assets they do have end up with IBM.

I'm not so sure about Novell's alignment in the open source world yet.

But even better is this:

If one of their accounting people was a CPA- they could be in deep do do if
there are problems found.

I know this, I'm watching a corporation pull the bond out from under a CPA right
now. The liabilities are incredible and the end game is scary.

Maybe an accountant will have damaging information heh?

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[tgatliff]

I guess it depends on what "assets" you are talking about. Most of the time for situations like this, the person who gets the assests is the first to run off with it... When it get to this point, it is kind of a every man for himself type business model...

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[Daimanta]

Once they hit chapter 7, as the money runs out, the court will dismember them. Ouch, please remember me never to get bankrupt.

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[antonyb]

who ends up with SCO's assets and IP? Yes - for instance the brand name must be worth quite a lot. SCO, as a brand, speaks to me of honesty, reliability, innovation and customer service.

Then again I'm waiting for Enron to reopen for business so I can invest my life savings in another rock-solid business.

ant.

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[thue]

I think the biggest worry I have now... which may actually be moot- is who ends up with SCO's assets and IP?

Is that really a problem anymore? The judge has already ruled that Novell owns the copyrights, and Novell has already waived any liabilities Linux may have. Such a waiver does not seem retractible to me.

If somebody bought SCO's rights then they would first have to get that judgment overturned. And then there is the little detail that it turned out that SCO's claims of Unix code in Linux turned out to be a bunch of lies, with the "millions of lines of code" never materializing. It seems unlikely that somebody else would try bringing another trial using the same lies.

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[fractoid]

Ouch, please remember me never to get bankrupt. You mean please remind you. Unless you want to be remembered, in the sense of undoing the dismemberment.

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[Minwee]

The residual value in transplantable organs is pretty high these days.

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[Opportunist]

Can't be. Why would those executive organs that rammed companies into the ground get transplanted to other corporations so easily? Sometimes you wonder whether it's the first question when choosing a new CEO, "How many companies did you get into financial troubles?"

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[Ash Vince]

Then again I'm waiting for Enron to reopen for business so I can invest my life savings in another rock-solid business. Until then I can recommend a (Northern) Rock solid back over hear in little old britain.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=nrk.l

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[rucs_hack]

Their assets are what? Unixware? All but worthless (nice code maybe, but superseded by linux now). They have no unix copyrights, no trademarks, nothing.

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[Anonymous Coward]

> Ouch, please remember me never to get bankrupt.
You mean please remind you. Unless you want to be remembered, in the sense of undoing the dismemberment.

Gee, thanks for explaining the obvious humor in your parent's post. And for cementing the reputation that Americans/Geeks can't identify irony when it's sitting right in front of their faces.

You know, humor actually works until someone goes out of their way to explain it.

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[Ajehals]

OT

Funny thing is, Northern Rock would be perfectly solid (they have plenty of assets and their mortgage books are valuable) the only issue is one of *potential* liquidity (they didn't touch the loan from the Bank of England last time I checked). What will kill them is the general panicking of their customers (thanks to the media). Its the first time I have ever seen massive queues of people in the UK withdrawing their life savings!

Anyway Northern Rock will end up being bought (at a massively reduced price) by one of the other banks.

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[Ash Vince]

Actually if anyone had followed my advice this morning they would have already made a profit.

The british govt have announced they will underwrite the company.

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[houghi]

I'm not so sure about Novell's alignment in the open source world yet.

The have GPLed YaST. They have opend SUSE. They try to open as much as is legaly possible (They can't just OS everything) and are stil, working doing much more OSS. They are adding a lot of people to many OS projects. Basicaly they are gambeling most of their existence on OSS, if not all.

The only thing they have done badly is lousily explain what the deal with Microsoft entails. Basicily they got money from Microsoft who in return will buy SLED (Not SLES, not openSUSE, nothing else) licences which they are forced to give away.
Also in return there are intention to work together so there can be better connections between Windows and Linux on request of both their customers.

That last part might or might not be related to OSS. So they are comited to OSS, just as much as they are commited to look after the demands of their customers. Yes, you can do both at the same time.

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[petermgreen]

IIRC they said they would underwrite all existing deposits and there was no mention of bonds or future deposits, that is a far cry from underwriting the whole company.

Maybe it will be enough to stop the panic and allow northen rock to get back on thier feet but the run has just made thier books even more mortgage heavy and seriously dented confidence in them. A buyout seems like the most likely outcome.

Re:Crumble Crumble....

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh god, this is sad; I'm 38 years of age, and I just bought my first ever Rush CD. What a pile of meandering, noodly, pseudo-mystic bollocks! I love it. (It's up on the shelf next to my Genesis, Marillion, Yes and King Crimson CDs. Why, of course I sort by genre; how else could you do it?)

Hmmm, I think I'd better post this as an AC. Y'know, I've talked about my drug use, alcohol, hating my employer and fellow-workers, psychological battles and bitter, twisted sense of alienation from the rest of the species... all under my real account, but this? No WAY do I want to be tainted and marked forever as a Prog Head or Marillion fan.

Need to accrue Novell payment?

[seanadams.com]

Something I have not seen mentioned yet is whether SCO needs to accrue an estimate of what they should be paying Novell - whether they have the cash or not, it needs to go on the books. Their current balance sheet does not reflect it, which is probably one reason why the company is still grossly overvalued at $4.72M.

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[Anonymous Coward]

At a reasonable guess, the accountants quit/were fired because they refused to sign the financial statements that were submitted with the Chapter 11 filing. Signing those statements would be professional suicide for any accountant. SCO is probably going to find it difficult to hire anyone who has the necessary standing to vouch for the correctness of an out of date balance sheet whose date was changed.

I think we can now expect the FBI will soon start hauling in SCO officers and lawyers on RICO and SEC charges. Fraud doesn't get much more blatant than submitting such obviously bad financials to a bankruptcy court.

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[HiThere]

There's a problem here. Novell's money is Novell's, SCO is just holding it for them.

As such, SCO can't legally use Novell's money to pay it's own debts. "Unfortunately" SCO has been keeping lousy books, and didn't keep straight which money was Novell's. The legal hearing that they've stalled with this bankruptcy plea was to determine the size of the amount of money owed to Novell.

As such, I think any CPA involved in this scam *SHOULD* be in serious trouble. It's not certain that this will pierce the corporate shield, and allow Novell to go after the management & the board's personal assets...but it's also not clear that it won't.

Another interesting question is criminal charges. Clearly several laws have been broken, and felonies have been committed. It's not clear that any charges will be filed. "The corporation did it" is a common defense, even when all acts of the corporation were, in fact, performed by people. Personally I would rephrase "the corporation did it" by "it was a conspiracy", but this doesn't seem to be legal custom.

Caution: IANAL

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[falconwolf]

Something I have not seen mentioned yet is whether SCO needs to accrue an estimate of what they should be paying Novell - whether they have the cash or not, it needs to go on the books. Their current balance sheet does not reflect it, which is probably one reason why the company is still grossly overvalued at $4.72M.

From what I recall Novell asked the judge to create a trust the money Novell is owed, or claims to be owed, can be put into. But SCO argued it had the money and could pay if ordered.

Falcon

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[Anonymous Coward]

BFD - so they set up a trust.

The real point is HOW MUCH should go into the trust?

If SCOX's books are in shabby shape - and the departure of the
accountants means that from today, the books probably are not
being kept in accordance with generally accepted accounting standards
(if they ever were) - who is to say exactly how much money is at stake here?

All we'll see from now is a lot of finger pointing, with the temps saying
the Old Guard did it, the Old Guard saying the temps are incompetent and/or
that Darl told them to do it that way, and Darl will be pulling the strings.

If I were one of the accounting professionals who has recently
departed, I'd hire myself a lawyer, then have him/her accompany
me to the federal courthouse while I gave a complete deposition
to the Feds. (By "Feds", I mean either the SEC or the DOJ or, for
that matter, any other interested federal agency). I just hope that
the US Department of State has pulled Darl's passport, as well as those
of the rest of his brain trust and the BOD.

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[Anonymous Coward]

listen up jackass, they were delisted. That means the SEC doesn't care about them. Go masturbate to britney spears crotch shots and leave the conversation to people with a clue.

They were trading today. Opened at $0.31 closed at $0.22. So just when were they delisted?

They have applied for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy no more no less. They haven't been delisted and the application for Chapter 11 has not yet been granted.

The SEC responsibility does not end when the company is delisted as it can still be publicly traded in other ways and any action during the period they are publicly traded is the responsibility of the SEC. Even if some idiot bought up SCO and took it private tomorrow all actions up until that point could trigger SEC action. It doesn't stop being a crime just because a company goes bankrupt or is taken private, what happened still happened and if a crime is still eligible to be prosecuted.

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Criminal charges for what? Lousy books? How about I sue the next door deli for making a lousy gyro.

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[scoot80]

There is something wrong with masturbating to Britney Spears' crotch shots? Or do you prefer.. K. Fed's crotch shots...?

*Moving my backside closer to the wall*

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[dbIII]

which is probably one reason why the company is still grossly overvalued at $4.72M.

Is that $4.72 Monaco dollars or Moldovian dollars?

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[corbettw]

"The corporation did it" is a common defense It's not one that worked out too well for the Enron boys (most of the higher ups are either in prison, or dead), I don't think it'll work out any better for the SCO crowd.

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[Duhavid]

Time to subpeona all those accountants and ask them why they quit.

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[debrain]

There's a problem here. Novell's money is Novell's, SCO is just holding it for them.

This concept is a trust, and in particular in this case, a constructive trust. Good eye and intuition, if I may say so.

The key point in this is: Under Chapter 7 (liquidation; should they get there) debts are prioritized, and trust priority is different than a general judgment award priority. Assets deemed to have been held in trust may (though not necessarily in this case) be considered a secured debt (which may have, I vaguely recall, a super-priority over everything except debt-administration and counsel fees), and consequently Novell may be entitled to full reimbursement of the assets SCO held in trust, ahead of payouts to any other creditors. Novell may even have priority over employees.

You're also right that SCO couldn't legitimately use funds deemed to have been held in trust for Novell to pay SCO's own debts. This would fall under the the cliché nomenclature breach of trust (vis-à-vis the tort of breach of fiduciary duty).

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[Ziest]

No, they have not been delisted, not yet anyway. When their stock closed below $1.00 on August 13th. that started a clock. Nasdaq rules say if they trade under $1.00 for 30 consecutive business days (Monday through Friday) They will receive a delisting notice. They then have 120 business days to get their stock trading above $1.00. If they don't they will be delisted. 30 days is this Friday, Sept. 21.

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[Alpha830RulZ]

I think you are confusing accountants with auditors. Internal accounting staff, with the exception of the CFO, don't have liability for the financial statements. Executive management is responsible for the financials and their integrity. The accountants are just paid help. The CFO is a special case, being the executive responsible for the accounting process. Like other executives, he/she is in a more responsible position vis a vis public representations of the company, of which the financial statements are perhaps the most important.

The auditing firm, which is the outside accounting firm hired to attest as to the validity and accuracy of the financial statements, does sign off on the financials, and is liable for misstatements as to their conformance to generally accepted accounting principals, which in lay speak means that they were prepared in conformance with standard accepted practices, and that the data underlying them has been tested (usually via a sampling technique) to check for obvious problems. Even then, auditors/CPAs are NOT tasked with or responsible for finding and uncovering fraud by management, though they do have a responsibility to report fraud that they do uncover - to the management of the company that hired them.

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[Anonymous Coward]

They will only need to accrue an estimate of what they should be paying Novell if it's: a) Probable that a liability exists (or extremely likely they will lose a court case); and b) reasonably estimable. It's covered under Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) 5 Contigent Liabilities. IE, they only record the liability if it can meet the above definition since it's contigent upon a court case. If it's probable but not estimable then it's a financial statement disclosure. IAACPA but I am not offering any sort of an opinion.

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[Ziest]

Criminal charges for what? Lousy books?

Yes. As corporate officers of a publicly traded company they have a legal obligation to make sure the books are in order. If there is fraud in the books then they face prosecution. Have you been asleep for the last 5 years or so? Do the names Enron, Tyco, or WorldCom ring any bells??

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's Zim dollars (as in Zimbabwe). Check the history since about 1995 or so for a laugh...

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[Daimanta]

Worse. It's US dollars.

Re:Need to accrue Novell payment?

[nimid]

Novell's money is Novell's, SCO is just holding it for them.

...you know, like a bank. Except that, you know, better than a bank because banks are aways being knocked off and no-one knocks off old SCO.

In other news...

[nebaz]

SCO sued Novell, IBM, and Anderson Consulting, declaring that SCO owned the intellectual property entitled "Accountant" and that their proposed licensing scheme of $699 per day, per "accountant", had been rebuffed by said companies. Details to follow.

Re:In other news...

[jimicus]

Darl may be a pillock of the highest order, but I don't think even he's stupid enough to try suing Andersen Consulting considering that they haven't actually existed in some time.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that's overestimating him, jimicus.

That counts for something!

[Algorithmnast]

Well the fact is, the accountants aren't liable for any of SCO's sins. However, if they know that the company hasn't got the cash - or the cash flow to pay them, then I can understand why they'd quit.

Being the accounts, I would expect them to be in a pretty good position to know the financial reality of the company.

Re:That counts for something!

[ScrewMaster]

Well the fact is, the accountants aren't liable for any of SCO's sins.

They would be if any of those sins included some creative accounting, which is certainly a possibility.

Re:That counts for something!

[midol]

So are they leaving because it would be inconvenient in bankruptcy proceedings to have people around who actually understood the financial shenanigans the firm has been up to?

Re:That counts for something!

[crawling_chaos]

Too late for that: if the court needs to know what they were doing, they can subpoena them, particularly if this turns into a fraud investigation, which I see no signs of as yet.

What about the other half?

[Trillan]

Seriously, what about the other half? Do they have some sort of personal reality distortion field?

Re:What about the other half?

[ackthpt]

Seriously, what about the other half? Do they have some sort of personal reality distortion field?

They've either got iron-clad guarantee of compensation or they are afraid to leave, go look for another job, what have you.

Ultimately they will all likely find things do not work out and that Bob is indeed not their uncle.

Re:What about the other half?

[budgenator]

who knows maybe going through a bankrupcy is worth more in experience than they're paid anyways
a resume sent to IBM could read "Knows where SCO's skeletons are buried"

Re:What about the other half?

[SpaceLifeForm]

Translation: Nearly half resigned, and nearly half were fired.

They have no one left to cook.

Re:What about the other half?

[RealGrouchy]

Seriously, what about the other half? Hoping for a promotion and a raise?

- RG>

Re:What about the other half?

[nomadic]

Seriously, what about the other half? Do they have some sort of personal reality distortion field?

If the paychecks keep clearing, it seems like they'd have a pretty sensible view of the issue.

Re:What about the other half?

[Trillan]

Oh. That would look pretty sweet on a resumé. Only add a bit:
"Knows where SCO's skeletons are buried. Will apply to Microsoft next."

Re:What about the other half?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm sure there's some Enron accountants still looking for a job. They're some top-notch executive book-chefs!

A short trip

[kryten_nl]

The two accountants with the longest experience immediately took a weekend break in Switzerland, to do some skiing (and visiting friends in the banking sector).

Well, which is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Given SCO is petitioning to spend money on replacements, isn't it relevant if they a.) quit or b.) were fired? My understanding of bankruptcy is that you in general need permission to spend money, so doesn't it make a difference if this was self-inflicted or beyond their control?

This seems appropriate...

[Starteck81]

This seems appropriate...

New Tag -

[capnkr]

ratsfleeingship ;)

Couldn't have happened to a better company.

Let's just hope that Darl etc get some jailtime before it's all said and done with...

Re:New Tag -

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that you'd be hard pressed to actually find a criminal charge to personally level against McBride. Can you prove in a court of law beyond a reasonable doubt what he did in the course of this train wreck of a case was somehow a criminal action? It was certainly underhanded, despicable, etc., but actually criminal?

I *may* be wrong, but I personally believe that McBride has played this entire charade like a harp from hell, both in the court's eye and in the public view. Sure, his professional character is absolutely ruined, but he was able to fleece the company all the way to the bitter end and was able to convince the public (or at least the public that cares) that he is an idiot who has a pie in the sky idea that Linux infringes on his IP. I think you have to dedicate a bit more faith into that idea than to believe that McBride is actually a very smart (and evil) person who was able to play the game so that SCO looks like it was a sad case of a madman taking the helm as opposed to a calculated and deliberate scheme to cause FUD and at the same time artificially inflate stock prices.

One of the great things (or in this case, worst things) about corporations is that they ensure limited liability to shareholders. If you are personally sued in a court of law, lose your case, and are dealt damages, you are personally obligated to pay these damages (including taking your stuff... such as your car, your house, your boat, airplane, TV, etc.). With a corporation, you as a shareholder are protected from this. If the company is sued, you can *not* reach the shareholders (such as McBride). You can only reach the company assets.

So, my theory: McBride and friends made some sort of shady deal and knew exactly what they were doing and what would happen to the company several years down the line. They made a huge drawn-out legal fight in order to squeeze anything they could from their stock, personally profited as Rome burned around them, and because of the limited liability protection given to the shareholders of corporations, make a ton of money while dooming the 200 or so employees that worked for them. Really classy.

Oh, and I am absolutely not a lawyer.

Re:Yet more communist gloating

[fsmunoz]

Ahahahahah, brilliant. I'm curious enough to risk being offtopic: is that Shelley page some kind of Onion? Or is it for real? This is not a funny question, I'm getting mixed signals from reading it. It looks like something like the Onion by the sheer absurdity and language used, even the comments are brilliantly funny, but one never knows...

Those can't have been very good accountants...

[mkweise]

...if they didn't know 'til the bankruptcy filing that it's time to abandon ship.

Re:Those can't have been very good accountants...

[betterunixthanunix]

Maybe they were banking on a victory over Linux users.

Re:Those can't have been very good accountants...

[irtza]

any good capitalist knows that you milk a cow for all its worth. SCO could pay them up until now, so why would you leave beforehand? Now that they may not receive a paycheck, its time to leave.

Up the Ass

[Un pobre guey]

It's hard not to gloat on those rare occasions where a bunch of corporate assholes get what they deserve.

Re:Up the Ass

[SageMusings]

Well, not so fast.

I'm sure Darl and some of the other officers have a tidy sum stashed away. This will likely only be embarrassing for them and not an economic hardship. To get what they deserve, the Judge would have to go after Darl's personal assets and I thought that was only possible when a crime has been committed to "pierce the corporate veil".

Re:Up the Ass

[inode_buddha]

It may very well happen anyway, since IBM has Lanham Act counterclaims against SCO as soon as Novell is done.

Re:Up the Ass

[dbIII]

Unfortunately Darl will still come out of it with millions. His brother has already collected a huge amount in legal fees - I don't think this was about linux at all, I see it as a two man scam on SCO. Darl just drove the company into the brick wall that is IBM, took it to his brothers panel shop and got somebody else to foot the bill.

Re:Up the Ass

[schon]

Unfortunately Darl will still come out of it with millions. Not necessarily.

First, the "millions" that Darl was paid were bonuses for good performance - but it turns out that the money they counted didn't actually belong to SCOX, so it wasn't profit... meaning that the bankruptcy trustee will ask for it back.

Second, as the money is part of the converted funds (ie., it belongs to Novell) the bankruptcy court can (and probably will) order Darl to turn it over. (If you rob a bank, then give the money to someone else, do they get to keep it?)

There is a very real possibility that Darl and Kevin will be personally on the hook for money owed to Novell.

Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just so good I want to have sex with it

Pessimist.

[Weaselmancer]

Darl can totally turn this thing around. Just you watch. It's just another minor setback. They'll be vindicated - just you see. Soon as they get over this small bump, they'll start raking in the cash from all those UNIX licenses that they're going to get from every single Linux user out there. Just as soon as...

Ok, a joke's a joke but I can't type anymore. My fingers started spontaneously bleeding.

Re:Pessimist.

[Trillan]

Okay, you've convinced me. I'm off to purchase some SCO stock... it's such a bargain! :)

Re:Pessimist.

[Weaselmancer]

Dude, this is the best time to get in on it! It can ONLY GO UP!

Re:Pessimist.

[Trillan]

The funny part is if it drops a little more, it will be such a bargain that it'll be at least as good a value as a lottery ticket...

Re:Pessimist.

[SpaceLifeForm]

Well, a lottery ticket costs more, but there is actually
a chance that it is worth more than the paper it is printed on.

Re:Pessimist.

[flyingfsck]

Hmm, SCO stock is worth almost as much as an expired lottery ticket.

Re:Pessimist.

[dosius]

"'Tis only a flesh wound..."

-uso.

Re:Pessimist.

[Nimey]

... and don't forget to pay your $699 license fee, you cock-smoking teabaggers!

Re:Pessimist.

[sharkey]

It can be claimed as a gambling loss on one's tax return?

Re:Pessimist.

[jsight]

"We have found already a mountain of cash!" - Darl McBride, 2007/09/18

Re:Pessimist.

[Trillan]

Well, the odds of winning a 6/49-type lottery are about 1 in 14 million. Though I think SCO are a bunch of fools, I think their odds of surviving are greater than that. Sure, drastic things would have to happen, but it's still more likely than winning the lottery.

Half of seven?

[Fred Ferrigno]

Groklaw says they started with seven accountants. "Approximately half" is either 3 or 4, and I'd wager that they would have said "more than half" if it were 4. Two of them were the 10-year veterans who resigned, leaving just one guy who was fired.

Re:Half of seven?

[flyingfsck]

...so the one guy that got fired *must* have been responsible for the whole sorry mess...

Re:Half of seven?

[3vi1]

Still... if you have that many accountants with that much experience quit at the same time then either a) It's their educated opinion that the company won't be able to pay them much longer. or b) They've being asked to do something they consider improper/illegal for the bankruptcy proceedings and decided to get out on the best of possible terms (i.e. other companies won't be afraid they're hiring whistleblowers and SCO will still give them good references).

Re:Half of seven?

[Paradise Pete]

Good point. The "approximately half" comes directly from SCO's actual petition, which seems kinda strange.

Re:Half of seven?

[ptbarnett]

...so the one guy that got fired *must* have been responsible for the whole sorry mess...

Or the three of them were asked to do something illegal or unethical, and declined.

Two resigned, but the third refused to resign -- and was fired.

Re:Half of seven?

[dwater]

It could be the bottom half, then you can get exactly half, which is also 'approximately half'...or is it? Perhaps the set of 'approximately half' excludes 'half' itself - ie exact != approximate. Interesting ... or not.

Still, taking the bottom half would take away *all* their brains, so it's a nice idea.

On the other hand, do we have anything against the accountants? It's the lawyers was despise, no?

Re:Half of seven?

[jamesh]

"Approximately half" is either 3 or 4

Yes but these are accountants we're talking about. I'm sure that they can take 20 away from 7 and still have 20 left.

Re:Half of seven?

[khallow]

"Approximately half" is either 3 or 4, and I'd wager that they would have said "more than half" if it were 4.

Here's my take. "Less than half" means 3 (it could mean 1-2, but it won't), "approximately half" means 4 (it could mean 3, but it won't), and "more than half" means 5-7 (it could mean 4, but it won't).

Re:Half of seven?

[AVee]

Or c) They have been asked to look for a different job, perferably somewere like the bahamas. At least somewere where they won't be able to properly inform anybody about what is/was going on at SCO. Sometimes it's a 'good' thing when certain knowledge and experience leaves the company...

Re:Half of seven?

[Eponymous Bastard]

Or one (top dog/oldest employee) said I won't do it and they threatened to fire him. The other two said, if you fire him we quit.

Having worked there for 10 years there would be enough personal loyalty for this. In fact, they would've watched the company being run into the ground. It would be interesting to hear their story.

Re:Yay! Gloating!

[Linker3000]

Hey Darl, how's things with you?

They are doing this to save their future

[GnarlyDoug]

We all know that SCO did a lot of shady, probably illegal activities. IMO these guys are getting as far away as they can while the getting is still good. Expect to see some of them giving testimony aginst SCO in future legal proceedings.

Re:Yay! Gloating!

[heinousjay]

Good reply, really on point. I have no love for SCO, but in truth, the character of a man is best revealed in his behavior after victory. I expect this to be a very illuminating story on the moral fiber of many of you.

I REALLY ENJOY THIS

[tjstork]

I shouldn't, I know, enjoy the idea of a company going completely down in flames... but SCO has such a special place in my heart, that I simply cannot help.

Good riddance!

Re:I REALLY ENJOY THIS

[flyingfsck]

Yup, I think everyone that was trying to do Linux consulting work during the past few years must feel some resentment towards SCO. It is impossible to judge how much they hurt the growth of Linux in the corporate environment.

Seven people in accounting?

[DaleGlass]

What's there to account at SCO besides the wages? Do they even still sell something?

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[betterunixthanunix]

Yes. As someone commented in the last article about SCO (announcing their bankruptcy filing), they recently completed a large contract to some company somewhere. Whoever signed that deal must really hate themselves right now.

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[HiThere]

IIRC, the "large contract" was to sell software to some bank in Russia. Don't know how large the contract was, as I didn't bother to look. Now if we were to consider why a bank in Russia would buy their software from SCOg, then we might begin to speculate that the bank wasn't surprised at this result...and may have received other considerations that make the contract worthwhile as long as they don't have to actually *use* SCOg's software.

(If you doubt my assessment of their software quality [fair, since I've neither used it nor read the documentation]...consider what their customers have been doing.)

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[betterunixthanunix]

Well I agree with you on their software quality. If they were creating software that was worth the price they charge, compared to other systems, SCO wouldn't be in this mess. That was apparent the moment they started demanding IP royalties like some kind of patent troll.

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[sfonative]

"Do they even still sell something?" ........

I work in IT at a small company that uses SCO unix on some servers. We configured a new server and had to buy another license about six months ago. (Don't shun me. We also have several linux servers, but this one needed SCO.)

I was on the phone with our vendor and said to him, "We may be the last people to ever buy this."

He replied, "You're probably right."

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[dbIII]

The bloodthirsty side of me is curious about what will happen if a Russian Bank finds out they wasted a lot of money on a worthless contract and then they decide to have a few personal words with Mr McBride. His paranoia and armed gaurds from before might actually be justified.

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[Just Some Guy]

Don't shun me. We also have several linux servers, but this one needed SCO.

Out of curiosity, have you tried running your SCO applications on FreeBSD? It has all sorts of interesting cross-platform binary support, to the extent that Solaris for Linux runs fine on it. It's rumored that the SVR4 compatibility layer can handle SCO as well as Solaris binaries.

Might be worth a shot if you can't get rid of some applications but detest the rest of the system.

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen POS terminals in bars that use SCO OpenUNIX. I think that the POS systems when I worked at Blockbuster also were, but I'm not sure about that.

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[corbettw]

I work in bizdev at an IT services firm (I used to be a sysadmin, but needed some new challenges and a job that had nearly unlimited earning potential). My boss and I wanted to start targeting SCO's customers to switch them all over to Linux and provide support to them. The only problem: all of the customers that SCO lists on their site are either out of business, or have obviously switched over to Linux already, or are in far away countries where we don't have a presence. It's damn near impossible to find anyone still running any of their software, my guess is Novell and/or RedHat made the same overtures we were planning on doing, but much sooner than we did.

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[Anonymous Coward]

That smells really fishy. I wouldn't be surprised if the proceeds never hit the books in Utah. Heck, it was probably a golden parachute money laundering scheme for the execs.

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[jimicus]

I work in IT at a small company that uses SCO unix on some servers. We configured a new server and had to buy another license about six months ago. (Don't shun me. We also have several linux servers, but this one needed SCO.)

Oh, so it was you. Everyone else thought it was Sun.

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[innocent_white_lamb]

The hardware store in my town (part of a Canadian chain called "Home Hardware") uses an inventory/POS program called Prism that runs on SCO Unix.
 
I see it every time I purchase new box of wood screws or fertilizer for my lawn.
 
Psst... notice the clever double-entendre in the products mentioned..... *tee hee*
Just couldn't resist....

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in IT at a small company that uses SCO unix on some servers. We configured a new server and had to buy another license about six months ago. (Don't shun me. We also have several linux servers, but this one needed SCO.)

I don't mean to bust your chops exactly, but I don't get it.

Using linux is morally neutral. It's only good in the sense that there's nothing wrong with it. Giving money to SCO (or for that matter any other company making war on FLOSS, like microsoft for example) is...downright evil. So they don't balance each other out.

It's like saying to a group of vegetarians "don't shun me, yeah I ate a steak, but I had a salad with it".

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[Jason_D_Berg]

Quick SCO...here's your chance. It's one of your customers. So just track down which company this guy works for (shouldn't be too hard, just look for that 1 order that you received in the past six months) and sue them for billions. After all, they're using your IP in Linux. Bankruptcy solved!

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[Anonymous Coward]

(Don't shun me. We also have several linux servers, but this one needed SCO.)

Why would we shun you (or your company) for having specific needs for a niche OS vendor? Different people have different needs, and obviously your workplace has some obscure needs.

As such, I'd like to offer your bosses a cocker spaniel with a bottle of ketchup stapled to its head and a large flounder on a bicycle. I'm sure we can come to a reasonable price!

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[Just Some Guy]

Solaris for Linux

Lets try that again: Oracle for Linux.

Re:Seven people in accounting?

[CmdrGravy]

POS = Piece Of Shit ?

Oooooh!

[fm6]

This sounds like a big deal, until you get to the part where SCO only had 7 accountants! So 3 or 4 people quit or were fired. Not the most shocking event at any company, never mind one that's just declared bankruptcy.

explain please,

[unity100]

if you are not a geek yourself, what the hell are you doing here ...

Re:explain please,

[AJWM]

I just happened to pick up other traits geeks don't seem to have.

Sanctimoniousness, for one.

Re:explain please,

[poopdeville]

Sanctimony.

Re:explain please,

[WilliamSChips]

I never developed the requisite disdain for people. I couldn't tell that from this board.

Re:explain please,

[unity100]

I'm a little too social to be a geek. I never developed the requisite disdain for people. Also, I shower. So I have that "against" me as well. I do have the intelligence, I just happened to pick up other traits geeks don't seem to have.

traits like self-contradiction, i presume ?

in addition to buying into stereotypes that are propagated by ignorant, witless people.

about intelligence, im not even going to say anything. im speechless.

all i can say in the end is that you have to reevaluate many things.

Re:explain please,

[AJWM]

You can find both forms out there. Normally I would go for the shorter and likely more correct, but in this case decided that the longer had more humor value.

I had also been considering superciliousness, but that apparently is a trait shared by some geeks.

SCO's assets and ip

[falconwolf]

I think the biggest worry I have now... which may actually be moot- is who ends up with SCO's assets and IP?

What assets and ip?

Falcon

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[shadowbearer]

  There's probably a good number of chairs.

SB

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[InvalidError]

According to filings, SCO has a $7.5M outstanding debt and about $15M in cash or other assets.

However, SCO is also illegally holding onto ~$36M of Novell's Unix licensing loyalties.

The one who will get first dibs on SCO will be Novell since that ~$36M is Novell's capital (not a debt/credit) which SCO is trying to convert (fraud) into its own... a detail which SCO apparently conveniently failed to mention to the bankruptcy judge in the first hearing.

Novell licensed its Unix to SCO and asked for a ~95% royalty on sales. SCO sold Unix licenses but never gave any of the money back to Novell. Novell is suing to get this capital back. SCO does not want to be curbed right away so it now attempts to stall by filing for bankruptcy. Tomorrow, Novell, IBM, RedHat and others will surely point out the many faults in Monday's SCO declarations and the judge will very likely order the Novell vs SCO counterclaims suit to proceed in order to establish how much capital SCO owes Novell since settling capital disputes preempts negotiating debts.

By the time chapter 11 proceedings are completed - presumably after Novell is awarded about $20M - SCO will be ripe for chapter 7.

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[Anonymous Coward]

The Linux source code, right?

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[_Sprocket_]

There's probably an "attractive buy-out target for Microsoft" joke in there somewhere... but I'm not going to put forward the effort to dig it out.

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[kisielk]

I think there's someone in Redmond who's already called dibs on those.

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[falconwolf]

There's probably a good number of chairs.

True, perhaps Ballmer can use them.

Falcon

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[king-manic]

What assets and ip?
Falcon

They have a perfectly good patent on how to extort money form large multi-national corporations. As well on how to run a legal pump and dump. If they can get the first one to work properly and the second one not to violate insider trading they will have a gold mine!

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[Ziest]

What assets and ip?

The several dozen copies of the Book of Mormon ?

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[mkiwi]

Maybe if they sell enough chairs to Ballmer on eBay they can get out of bankruptcy.

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[Billly Gates]

Doesn't chapeter 11 bankruptacy protect SCO from giving Novel any money?

I am not a lawyer but I would like to know as I assume chapter 11 is used often to avoid making payments that can bring a company under.

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[IP_Troll]

The order of debt satisfaction is: UCC secured creditors (people who leased SCO their cubes/chairs/appliances and filed a UCC section 9 lien with Utah sec. of state), Judgment holders (Novell, IBM, etc.), unsecured creditors, a whole bunch of other people, employees owed salary, shareholders (get whatever is left over).

So if SCO leased their office equipment there may be even less left to satisfy any judgments.

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[Michael Woodhams]

That matches my IANAL understanding of the discussions at groklaw.

There are various classes of creditors in a bankrupcy. The highest priority class gets paid first, then the next etc. If there is enough money to pay only a fraction of the claims in a given priority class, everyone gets the same proportion of money owed.

The highest priority classes are paying the bankrupcy lawyers and paying back fraudulently acquired wealth. (I'm not sure which order these two are in.) As Novell's claim is in the 'fraudulent' class, they get paid first. If (as is likely) the amount owed is greater than SCO's total assets, Novell gets everything - all the assets and none of the liabilities of SCO.

I don't know whether the assets are just given to Novell, or if they are sold off and Novell gets the proceeds. I suspect they'll be sold - it is the only real way to determine the value of assets such as the Unix IP.

If they are sold off, Novell is likely to be in the bidding, and is likely to win the bidding. Whatever they bid isn't 'real money' to them - it comes straight back.* All they stand to lose is whatever amount of money somebody else was willing to pay for the Unix IP. Even if such a buyer exists, they would probably prefer to buy it from Novell after the liquidation, rather than as part of the SCO liquidation sale. This allows them to renegotiate what gets transfered, rather than having to follow the chain of old deals Novell -> old Sco -> Caldera/new SCO -> hypothetical buyer.

* Exception: if Novell bids so much that the SCO assets exceed what SCO owes them, then they'll pay some real money.

I expect the IBM case will pretty much evaporate. Novell would be successor-in-interest to SCO, and might have the option to keep fighting it, but obviously won't. I'm guessing (IASNAL) that if they did chose to keep fighting, they'd also have to accept some amount of liability for IBM's lawyer's fees if (when) they lost.

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[Archangel Michael]

What makes you think that shadowbearer is not from Redmond? After All he already knew there would be extra chairs. He even signed it "SB". Coincidence? I think not!

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[number11]

The one who will get first dibs on SCO will be Novell since that ~$36M is Novell's capital (not a debt/credit) which SCO is trying to convert (fraud) into its own... a detail which SCO apparently conveniently failed to mention to the bankruptcy judge in the first hearing.

And 5 lawyers from Novell's law firm (while I'm sure they will blandly insist that their domain name is merely a contraction of their corporate name, they probably are aware of other possible interpretations) will be there. One, in addition to her law degree, has a PhD in linguistics and wrote her thesis on people who lie under oath.

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[Darth]

How much do you want to bet they leased the office equipment from Yarro-McBride Office Furnishings Inc. for a ridiculous amount of money?

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[Scarblac]

Novell is arguing that the money SCO collected for them isn't a debt from SCO to Novell, it's Novell's money!

And in the SCO-Novell case it has already been decided by the judge that SCO is in breach of fiduciary duty for not handing it over; they were just about to decide how much it actually is when this Chapter 11 happened.

That's not debt, that's stolen money. Surely that comes before anything else.

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[Geheimagent]

What assets and ip?

132.147.63.12

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[IP_Troll]

No. SCO didn't go into Novell's bank account and withdraw cash, or route checks intended for Novell through SCO's bank account (although to the lay person it looks like it).

SCO was Novell's agent and therefore had the right to handle Novell's money, it is up to the judge to interpret the contract and determine if SCO violated its fiduciary duty and the terms of the contract. Although I would guess the judge is overwhelmingly going to side with Novell.

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[Anonymous Coward]

And now, ladies and gentlemen, SCO's IP: (drumroll): 132.147.63.12

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[u-235-sentinel]

What assets and ip?

The several dozen copies of the Book of Mormon ?

What?

So now SCO is claiming ownership of the Book or Mormon?

Time for me to call my Bishop. I think someone in SCO is lying.... oh wait.. we already knew that. Never mind :-)

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[ch-chuck]

You know, if I were Stever Ballmer I'd go ahead and have someone build me the biggest fargin chair tossing catapult ever built. He could afford it, and instead of trying to quell the image, just take it to rediculous extremes. It could be jokingly threatened against MS employees who don't respond to regular chair treatment.

Re:SCO's assets and ip

[falconwolf]

I don't know whether the assets are just given to Novell, or if they are sold off and Novell gets the proceeds. I suspect they'll be sold - it is the only real way to determine the value of assets such as the Unix IP.

The UNIX IPs can't be sold, Novell owns them not SCO. SCO only has the right to sale licenses.

Falcon

Re:Yay! Gloating!

[SatanicPuppy]

I'm not sure what it says about your moral fiber that you're hot and bothered at the thought of geekish gloating, which you can then condemn. It's like the preacher taking names outside the titty bar...Sure he's there to look down on the patrons, but the simple fact of the matter is, he's also standing outside the titty bar. If he wasn't interested, he'd be somewhere else.

SCO is pathetic. I won't waste my scorn on them. Still, I can't help imagining what their attitude would be if the situation was reversed. Would they be magnanimous in victory?

Somehow I doubt it.

Ethics lapses and no pay = grumpy accountants

[christian.einfeldt]

In the wake of Enron, etc., accountants are looking over their shoulders whenever they are asked to do something unethical. I am betting that not only are the accountants seeing that they might not be paid on time or at all, but they are also seeing that they are being called upon to do something unethical, something that would be a blight on their careers.

You can bet that these accountants were not working for SCO because they loved Daryl. So late or non-existent pay + ethical lapses = hasta la vista, baby.

Re:Yay! Gloating!

[heinousjay]

I'm not hot and bothered at all. Don't go ascribing motivations when the internet makes them totally opaque.

Obviously, I would expect SCO to be quite awful in victory. Tell me, does that fact mean that it's somehow OK to mirror their actions as a sort of retaliation? Has that particular line of thinking ever been valid?

When the accounts pack up - run!

[flyingfsck]

In my experience, when the accountants pack up their stuff, then you should trample them on the way out, cause you are likely not going to get paid for that month - Better to start your job search early than wait for the bouncing salary cheque...

Re:When the accounts pack up - run!

[Anonymous Coward]

Better to start your job search early than wait for the bouncing salary cheque...

I was going to ask how you thought that an SCO employee searching for a job now is "early," but then I realized you are from Canada (different conversions, you see).

My God! Its full of Bugs!

You misspelled "It's". Why is "bugs" capitalized?

Re:When the accounts pack up - run!

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, when the accountants pack up their stuff, then you should trample them on the way out, cause you are likely not going to get paid for that month - Better to start your job search early than wait for the bouncing salary cheque...

Of course the question that might should be asked is: Did any of them get a job holding down a lounge chair on a beach in some country with no extradition treaty with the US?

The sad thing really is

[highwaytohell]

The investors out there who will be losing money. And I'm not talking the megabucks investors, just the mum and dad investors who have no idea what Linux is and no idea what IP is, but just looked at the stock and thought this may be a good thing. SCO will file, they'll lose all their money. Sure it's great to see a pack of assholes go down, but its a real shitty thing to see them take good people with them.

Re:The sad thing really is

[DarkVader]

Anybody who invests in a company without doing some basic research (I'm not talking hard stuff here, just the first page of google results) is asking to lose their investment.

And SCO is a penny stock at this point, nobody who is sane and worried about their life savings invests in those.

Re:The sad thing really is

[Mspangler]

"The investors out there who will be losing money".

According to the bankruptcy filing there are only 402 stockholders. Not likely to be many from the mom and pop group in there.
A few slow-witted mutual funds will get hit. Most of the stock was to the corporate officers. The suspicion for some time is that they were buying and selling it from each other to try to keep the price up over a dollar.

Re:The sad thing really is

[pegr]

According to the bankruptcy filing there are only 402 stockholders. Not likely to be many from the mom and pop group in there.
A few slow-witted mutual funds will get hit. Most of the stock was to the corporate officers. The suspicion for some time is that they were buying and selling it from each other to try to keep the price up over a dollar.
 
So be sure to pick up a share or two (for less than the price of a pack of gum) so you too can be a member of a class action down the road! ;)

Re:The sad thing really is

[the_womble]

mum and dad investors who have no idea what Linux is and no idea what IP is, but just looked at the stock and thought this may be a good thing.

It does not sound like they are capable of making very good decisions, if they invest in something they do not understand.

A fool and his money are soon parted. It has always been that way, and always will be.

Yes, I feel sorry for them, but they are partly to blame too.

In retrospect...

[erroneus]

...if you were running a fairly popular and active business and Microsoft bought a ridiculous amount of useless crap from you, would you then be inspired to file stupid lawsuits against other businesses that Microsoft might consider an opponent?

Re:In retrospect...

[jimicus]

a fairly popular and active business

Linux has been making inroads on commercial Unix vendors revenue streams for many years.

SCO (or, more accurately, any company which chose to sell SCO Unix as its main form of income) were particularly vulnerable and indeed suffering here for a number of reasons:

1. SCO Unix runs on standard x86 hardware. So anyone who's licensing it doesn't have a massive investment in proprietary hardware that they want to get best value for money out of.
   
2. Following on from this, porting code from SCO to some other x86 Unix should be relatively easy. You've got the same "this library's somewhere slightly different, that function has been deprecated" issues you do with any Unix port, but you shouldn't have endianness or word size issues. And because it's already x86 code, it's quite feasible to write support to run it natively on any Unix-like system without needing the original source code - I believe FreeBSD has this functionality.
   
3. SCO Unix has languished in terms of hardware support for many years. Linux and FreeBSD both have substantially more drivers, particularly for modern hardware. So there's a lot of work involved in buying a new box to make sure SCO will run on it.
   
4. Other basic functionality is also lagging behind. It's hearsay, I know, but apparently at one of the last Unix conferences before all this blew up, the biggest selling point SCO could come up with was "Now supports colour printing!"
   
5. SCOs support had earnt itself a bit of a reputation - and I do not mean that in a good way. Again, that's hearsay, so take it with as much salt as you think it needs.
   

Novell sends in the big guns

[Anonymous Coward]

Novell is sending five lawyers to tomorrow's hearing. Their resumes are truly impressive. It's all part of the greater scheme to leave a smoking crater in Utah.

They will probably be trying for two things:

1. SCO's attempt at chapter 11 gets rejected on the grounds of bad faith. groklaw post
2. Even if they don't get chapter 11 pitched, they want the trial in Utah un-stayed.

Given SCO's record, it seems likely that Novell will succeed. Given a checklist for bad faith in bankruptcy, SCO meets most of the criteria.

It seems to me that SCO's bankruptcy petition is a bit of a Hail Mary pass attempt. I'm not sure what else they were supposed to do though. Their goose has been cooked for quite a while and they have been doing a masterful job of putting off the final resolution as long as possible.

Re:Novell sends in the big guns

[kilgortrout]

Motions to dismiss for a bad faith filing are hardly ever granted even in egregious cases and are generally limited improperly filed Ch13 consumer cases. There is no such motion pending so don't expect that to be argued tomorrow. Motions to lift the automatic stay are usually only granted to secured creditors under very specific circumstances. Again, Novell hasn't filed a motion to lift the stay, so, no, that ain't happening tomorrow either. Even so, stay and bad faith litigation require the filing of briefs for and against and an evidentiary hearing, all of which have to be scheduled. None of this has happened.

The main issues in the case will be whether, and to what extent, Novell can grab SCO assets out of the bankruptcy case on the theory that SCO was holding the MS and Sun payments in trust for Novell. You can predict that SCO will argue that the contract with Novell only creates a debtor creditor relationship with Novell and Novell can stand in line with the other creditors.

Re:Novell sends in the big guns

[Anonymous Coward]

Novell has a summary judgement in hand, stating that there was a breach of fidiciary duty, and that SCO is liable for conversion. It's not 'on the theory', it's 'based on the summary judgments'.

SCO can argue all it likes, but I'm betting that in the face of that judgement, the arguments won't fly.

Re:Novell sends in the big guns

[chromatic]

It's all part of the greater scheme to leave a smoking crater in Utah.

Sort of a caldera?

Re:Novell sends in the big guns

[orcrist]

This is only at +2 Funny?!? Moderators: Look up the word "caldera"!

Re:Novell sends in the big guns

[kilgortrout]

I haven't read the 200 page summary judgment ruling and you are right that there will be issue preclusion/collateral estoppel issues raised by that ruling, i.e. SCO will be precluded from arguing that the unix code was transferred to it by Novell. However, it's not clear to me the extent to which the trust issues were actually litigated in the prior preceding and that can have a significant impact on the scope of issues precluded from the bankruptcy case. There are also open apportionment issues in the Novell case which the bankruptcy court will have to decide, namely, the extent to which the payments received were for the code retained by Novell. Finally, there are tracing issues even if a trust is found here since the assets were undoubtedly comingled with the general funds of SCO. If you can't identify the specific assets subject to the trust because of comingling, absent facts indicating otherwise, you are left with FIFO. And since those payments were received a long time ago you can say the trust funds are gone which again leaves SCO an unsecured general creditor.

Novel has the IP already

[flyingfsck]

as proven by the court and who the hell wants a bunch of 2nd hand SCO servers?

Re:Novel has the IP already

[taniwha]

well not strictly - SCO still has the right to control its use to some extent - but, more importantly, under Novel's contract with SCO if SCO becomes bankrupt (ch 7, not 11 I think) all the Unix IP reverts directly to Novell ....

Re:Yay! Gloating!

[SatanicPuppy]

No, I'm simply saying that while sure, in a perfect world where everyone is lawful good and all is sunshine and bunnies, it might be reasonable to expect the victim to be better than the aggressor, to show mercy even when they know none would have been shown them.

But here, in this world, it is far more likely that the many enemies SCO has made for itself will be lining up to tear bits out of them in any way they can, and while I personally take no joy in the fight now that it's over, I'm not going to start throwing moral judgments at the victors when they start doing as victors will.

It's just the way of the world.

challenges to open source

[timmarhy]

Just goes to show... open source is like a puppy with a nasty bite. looks defencless, but pat the puppy in a place it doesn't like and you get gashed. same thing happened to bell with BSD

Re:challenges to open source

[bigstrat2003]

Huh? This says more, to me, that you should be prepared to fail if you're going to pin your hopes on patent trolling. Nothing about open source.

Re:challenges to open source

[TeraCo]

Open source? This goes to show that you don't fuck with IBM and Novell. (And especially not if they're allied on something). It doesn't show anything about Open Source.

Re:challenges to open source

[GPL Apostate]

Didn't you know? A lot of people here, and on GrokLaw, think they defeated SCO. Our comments here, plus a little DDOS of SCO servers, plus the word-of-mouth of a bunch of Open Source enthusiasts took down a big unholy company. Had nothing to do with Novell and IBM. Yeah.

It's been rewarding to root for the team that won, but we all knew who that was going to be, so it's actually been more like rooting for the team that everybody knew would win.

Re:challenges to open source

[Mr. Underbridge]

...like a puppy with a nasty bite. looks defencless, but pat the puppy in a place it doesn't like and you get gashed...

That'll teach you to molest Doberman puppies. Stick to Chihuahuas.

Re:Yay! Gloating!

[DarkVader]

That's kind of like saying the Allies shouldn't have celebrated after the defeat of Nazi Germany.

(oops, did I just Godwin the thread?)

sleep

[stdazi]

I'm wondering if SCO CEO is having any troubles sleeping these days.

Re:sleep

[Technician]

I'm wondering if SCO CEO is having any troubles sleeping these days.

I would presume it depends on if he has a good pharmasist.

Re:sleep

[Anonymous Coward]

As a vampire, Darl must sleep during the day, because he can only go out to feed at night.

well, no they don't

[Anonymous Coward]

No. I do my own banking, employers who owe me money give me checks, and then I decide where to cash them or what account to put some in or whether or not to just carry it around in the form of "cash". And I also don't tremble in mortal fear when carrying said sums of cash about either, any size, because I am quite capable of personal self defense, by skills, training, mindset and tools, and am perfectly willing to completely and probably permanently ruin some potential mugger's day without suffering angst over it. Nor do I use some plastic card for every single transaction. Nor am I ever going to get "chipped" or trust my account to some telco vendor and cheap piece of plastic cellphone and "wave" it around to purchase things.

Believe it or not, some people haven't fully adopted the metrosexual lifestyle. And I drink plain coffee, black, and it doesn't come *ever* from a "must be seen there" trendy coffee shoppe. And the only thing I "mash up" is potatoes, and I use sharp pointy bent pieces of thin metal to catch fish with, not as sexual adornments or "fashion statements".

Generalizations don't work very well in most circumstances, now do they?

Re:well, no they don't

[Paradise Pete]

And I also don't tremble in mortal fear when carrying said sums of cash about either, any size, because I am quite capable of personal self defense, by skills, training, mindset and tools, and am perfectly willing to completely and probably permanently ruin some potential mugger's day without suffering angst over it.

Good idea. Raise the stakes in order to save some cash. That's a strategy that will work every time...right up until it doesn't. It doesn't matter how tough you are. There's always somebody somewhere who's tougher and more desperate than you are.

Re:well, no they don't

[Sj0]

That wasn't a generalisation...That was a non sequitur.

I use banks...I LIKE PUPPIES! You and your puppy hating ways. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Re:well, no they don't

[cduffy]

Good idea. Raise the stakes in order to save some cash. That's a strategy that will work every time...right up until it doesn't. It doesn't matter how tough you are. There's always somebody somewhere who's tougher and more desperate than you are.

Sure -- but the higher that bar gets raised, the fewer of those somebodies are left.

I'm living in Texas at the moment, and I'm quite glad that a significant number of my fellow homeowners are well-armed (and that local laws -- and juries -- are generally conducive to defensive use of deadly force). Making home invasion a risky business means that fewer are willing to try it, and those that do are more likely to meet an unfortunate end before they get around to my place. (I recall the police commenting on a 19-year-old who was caught robbing homes as to how lucky he was to still be alive).

So -- I may hand over my wallet (or I may not -- not specifying until it happens), but the more people there are who raise the stakes in self defense, the safer all of us are. It's thus a reasonable assertion that such an action is, in fact, the socially responsible thing to do.

Re:well, no they don't

[Johnny Mnemonic]

But you do post Anonymously, as a Coward. So I guess there are limits to your bravado, afterall.

Re:well, no they don't

[fractoid]

I use banks...I LIKE PUPPIES! A bank paid you to say that, didn't they?

Re:well, no they don't

[Anonymous Coward]

The logical, game theory based, response by the crooks is, of course, to open fire first, without warning, and then rob your corpse or the house where your corpse is. I foresee a rise in demand for silencers on the black market.

Re:well, no they don't

[Sj0]

Well, the answer to that is... DELICIOUS MAPLE SYRUP! It fills me with a cacophony of sorrow and hatred and rage! I wanted to kill myself....the only thing stopping me from killing myself was DELICIOUS MAPLE SYRUP! It fills me with a cacophony of sorrow and hatred and rage! I wanted to kill myself....the only thing stopping me from killing myself was DELICIOUS MAPLE SYRUP!

Re:well, no they don't

[glittalogik]

Nah, he's just too hardcore/oldskool to waste brainspace on a username and password.

Re:well, no they don't

[sumdumass]

Depending on how big your gun is, a simple potato fitted to the end of the barrel without going inside it is an effective silencer. So no need for a fancy black market.

But the thing is, you might get one person before another gets you or you might get 2 or all of them. The original posters point still is valid because only the extreme will be willing to do this and they won't last long. Most crooks don't want the extra law enforcement effort that would be present with home invasion murder/robberies.

Cops, at least in my neck of the woods treat a burglary like a form filing session so you can get your insurance claim. Most of the time, unless you appear rich, they won't even look for finger prints. A murder is actively pursued from start to finish. A groups of burglaries resulting in murder would likely be pursued even more so.

Re:well, no they don't

[number11]

'm living in Texas at the moment, and I'm quite glad that a significant number of my fellow homeowners are well-armed (and that local laws -- and juries -- are generally conducive to defensive use of deadly force).

Ah yes, Texas. What's the bag limit on trick-or-treaters this year?

Re:well, no they don't

[steveo777]

I've used this as a training mantra for a long time.

"When I'm not training, some one else is."

There's always going to be some one tougher. Not necessarily on top, or higher, but different, unexpected. That and it's pretty hard to beat a bullet. I don't mind carrying large amounts of money on me from time to time. I have no issues with breaking a few arms/legs what have you to defend myself. But at the same time, I don't ever pack heat, so if there is a gun pulled, it's time to improvise. Or give up. And even if I did have a gun, some coward could pull the trigger without me knowing a barrel was looking in my direction. We risk walking the street every day all the same. I agree with the other poster that life could be safer if you don't know who is armed. And I think that giving yourself an edge is always a good idea. Whether it's cardio-kickboxing or Pilates, just do something.

Re:well, no they don't

[totallygeek]

Ah yes, Texas. What's the bag limit on trick-or-treaters this year?

Limits?!?!?

Re:well, no they don't

[rk]

Two, or three if their combined weight is less than 100 pounds.

I would love to be a SCO accountant

[Schlemphfer]

Where else could you find an accounting job where you never have to enter or review data on account receivables?

Re:I would love to be a SCO accountant

[Anonymous Coward]

Or be paid.

Rats fleeing

[jpvlsmv]

Remember, the correct response is not "Gee, I bet that's a nice ship now that all the rats have left".

--Joe

Re:Rats fleeing

[The-Bus]

Rats fleeing?

The article mentioned accountants leaving, not the lawyers or executives.

More like Don't want to be involved

[kawabago]

More like they don't want to be involved in what SCO is planning next. They don't want to go to jail!

Re:Yay! Gloating!

[dAzED1]

we're not the victors. We were collateral damage, spectators that were too close to the flame.

Are there any cliche', meaningless sayings for the character that is revealed of a person after a competition of which they weren't directly a part?

2 football teams play, one wins, the winners (hopefully) are gracious to the losers. But in the stands, the audience is certainly expected to be cheering their asses off, talking about their favorite plays during the game. That's us. So, get over it.

How do we know half the accountants quit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who counted them?

Re:How do we know half the accountants quit?

[davester666]

Who counted them?

The other half, of course!

However, I would think the number is suspect because only the clueless accountants remain...

Re:How do we know half the accountants quit?

[langelgjm]

Seriously. Everyone knows there are three types of accountants: ones who can count, and ones who can't.

Re:How do we know half the accountants quit?

[Anonymous Coward]

You _have_ to be an accountant for this joke to work. Now you've ruined everything.

You should start with easier jokes like "in soviet russia", "beowulf cluster", or the classic "where's the beef".

Re:How do we know half the accountants quit?

[n3tcat]

The half that doesn't think SCO has a probl.... oh I see what you did there.

Re:How do we know half the accountants quit?

[mpe]

Everyone knows there are three types of accountants: ones who can count, and ones who can't.

The same way that there are 10 types of programmers. Those who understand binary and those who don't.

Re:How do we know half the accountants quit?

[indifferent children]

Everyone knows there are three types of accountants: ones who can count, and ones who can't.

No, there are 100 types of accountants: those who can count in binary and decimal, those who can count in binary but not decimal, those who can count in decimal but not binary, and those who can count in neither.

Re:How do we know half the accountants quit?

[bondjamesbond]

At first I read: "Now you've ROUNDED everything.". My bad.

Re:How do we know half the accountants quit?

[logixoul]

no shit

Not Neccessarily

[Nymz]

Those who stay on risk receiving pay cheques which will not cash.

While it's entirely possible that some employees resigned because they feared of not getting paid, it's more likely that proactive employees have been 'on the hunt' for a better job for many months, and left when their 'ship came in'. These events often coincide with a company 'lettting go' a few of the less valuable employees, in the process of downsizing.

Stock plumetage continues...

[Anonymous Coward]

There stock is still worth $0.22 a share... apparently somebody hasn't gotten the message yet!

Sell! Sell! SELL!!!

Uh... to whom?

Re:Stock plumetage continues...

[Just Some Guy]

Sell! Sell! SELL!!! Uh... to whom?

I could ask my broker, but this seems ripe for public discussion:

Actually, I wouldn't mind owning a bunch of single shares to pass out as gag gifts, etc. At $22 a hundred, it's pretty cheap entertainment. Is there any legal downside at all to buying this stock? I'd hate to have IBM show up with an invoice-bearing Nazgul just because I wanted to play a joke on a friend.

They are still listed, lots of trades on Monday

[davidwr]

Unless they got delisted after the close of business Monday, they are still trading.

As of 4PM EDT, they were at $0.22/share, for a market cap of around $4.7M.

At some point it's going to be cheaper for Novell to offer to offer to buy all outstanding stock at market price and settle the suits with IBM and the rest than it will be to keep paying the lawyers. Unfortunately, that means the SCOundrels owning significant shares will walk away with something more than $0 to show for it.

squark!

[apodyopsis]

(thats the sound a vulture makes, btw)

Re:squark!

[Techman83]

As it hovers around the slowly moving creature known as SCO. It's only a matter of time before they will be able to enjoy the fruits of it's death.

delisting, bankruptcy

[bcrowell]

I was looking forward to seeing them delisted from NASDAQ. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to have to wait 180 days to get that gratification. They filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sept. 14; I guess a company can still be listed on NASDAQ even though it's bankrupt!

Re:delisting, bankruptcy

[value_added]

I guess a company can still be listed on NASDAQ even though it's bankrupt!

Years ago I worked for a law firm that specialised in things like mergers and acquisitions. They also did a lot of bankruptcy work.

One of their clients was a large company that was mired in Chapter 11 proceedings and was, from the perspective of the general public, doomed to extinction. The attorneys came up with a plan for the company to raise money (and expand their business) by issuing new stock which, unsurprisingly, sounds as bizarre as it is illegal. A few months later (and many letters back and forth from the SEC), the company did just that. They ended up raising just under $40 million, and the law firm earned not only their own extravant fees, but bonuses for arranging that deal and the ones that followed.

The company no longer exists today, but if there's any lesson to be learned from this, it's that the subjects of law and finance are more complex than what you read in the newspapers. If there's money to be made, you can be sure someone will be walking away with some of it, even in SCO's case.

Re:delisting, bankruptcy

[shanen]

What I don't understand is why trading in SCOX hasn't been suspended at this point. They lost another 40% of their value yesterday. Is there some kind of advantage to speculating on whether or not the judge will accept the Chapter 11 filing? There would seem to be plenty of basis to skip that and just force them into Chapter 7. Basically, all the judge has to do is say that Novell should get their money, and then SCO would have no assets to support a reorganization.

Sadly, the lawsuit might still have a zombie life of it's own... It could get auctioned off with the office furniture.

Re:Yay! Gloating!

[skeptictank]

"Just remember this when you geeks try to pull some moral high ground shit later. You're the same shitty people as everyone else. You just have more self-righteousness to spread around like rancid butter."

OH PLEASE!

This company's 'moral higher ground' was spreading FUD and suing anyone one they thought would yield. Indeed, that was their only revenue stream. Take your preaching to some place where they don't know the recent history of SCO.

sad in a way

[MrKaos]

xenix used to be a big thing - back in the good 'ole days. It's just dumb that they did this. Still someone had to run interference for M$.

The Pawn has been sacrificed, time for the King to die!!!!!! muuuuuuuhahaha

Re:sad in a way

[Xtifr]

This has nothing to do with the company that made XENIX. This is a former Linux vendor formerly named Caldera which bought the tree logo and three initials (but not the full name), along with some other stuff, from the Santa Cruz Operation. The Santa Cruz Operation changed its name and ended up getting bought by Sun. As a division of Sun, I believe they're still doing fine.

Re:sad in a way

[MrKaos]

along with some other stuff

What other stuff, source code? How could they even make a case without an original source code tree for this product

As a division of Sun, I believe they're still doing fine.

Which division of Sun? Doesn't sun already have an intel offering of Solaris? Where is the website? Why would Sun buy that market if they didn't buy the branding that went with it, the only reason they would do it is to convert customers, specifically SCO developers, to Solaris. I remember Caldera getting into SCO but I don't remember anything about Sun purchasing any SCO assets, can you show me where this information is because I couldn't find any when I googled for it?

I remember SCO's original purchase of the Unix Source code and the subsequent sale to Novell, I'm not saying I'm an expert of Unix Source code ownership but I did work with this companies offerings for a long time.

I think SCO were assholes for not working with the Open source community because I think they had alot to offer, for all of SCO's fault's you cannot deny them the success they had in the marketplace. Instead of capitalising on this success they decided to be M$'s Bitch.

Re:sad in a way

[Xtifr]

How could they even make a case without an original source code tree for [unixware] Well, actually, they managed to make a case with no evidence whatsoever. Or, to put it another way, they never did actually manage to make a case. See Groklaw for more details. :)

Which division of Sun? Doesn't sun already have an intel offering of Solaris? Tarantella. And they were purchased not their for general *NIX expertise but for their UNIX/Windows integration skills. For more information, you can start with the Wikipedia articles on The Santa Cruz Operation and SCO Group. They're separate companies, I assure you. The former made XENIX, the latter sued IBM.

I remember SCO's original purchase of the Unix Source code So do a lot of people, but it didn't happen like that according to the recent court ruling in Utah and the plain language of the asset purchase agreement (see "Schedule 1.1(b) Excluded Assets"), where copyrights were specifically excluded. Santa Cruz (not the SCO group-you have to be careful to distinguish who you're talking about in this situation) wanted to buy SysV, but in the end, they couldn't afford it, so instead they became exclusive licensors for SysV, passing along all the revenue to Novell, who in turn remitted a 5% agent's fee back to Santa Cruz. This, along with the Unixware and SCOServer business (and the channel, the part that Caldera really wanted at the time), is what was later sold to Caldera (now the SCO Group). Santa Cruz kept their Tarantella product line, and renamed themselves.

> I think SCO were assholes for not working with the Open source community because I think they had alot to offer, for all of SCO's fault's you cannot deny them the success they had in the marketplace.

Again, two separate companies. Caldera, now dba SCO, was never particularly successful as a Linux vendor compared to Red Hat and SUSE, although they did ok. But their purchase of Unixware and SCOserver didn't catapult them into the lead the way they expected, which is probably in part why they pulled their desperation move. Tarantella, formerly dba SCO, was not only fairly successful in their day, but actually worked pretty well with the open source community, even though some parts of it could have been considered competition.

Documentation for most of this stuff can be found at Groklaw, which uses robots.txt, so you can't necessarily google it. The Wikipedia articles are actually a pretty accurate summary at the moment, although who knows how long that will last. :)

Re:sad in a way

[MrKaos]

Thanks for the links Xtifr, that does clear things up. I didn't realise that The SCO Group and the Santa Cruz Operation were now seperate entities. I worked with The Santa Cruz Operation.

Appreciate the advice.

To be fair...

[cryptomancer]

... not all accountants are rats.

Re:To be fair...

[maroberts]

... not all accountants are rats. ...but all rats are accountants!

disambiguation

[buss_error]

SCOX had seven people in the accounting department. 3 were terminated or resigned. SCOx's problems are obvious enough not to blow this all out of reason and make it sound like a thundering cavalcade ran for the door. The truth about SCOx and Darl is quite bad enough without inflating the facts. That's a SCOx tactic, and one we need not indulge in since SCOx does it so well.

Not that I am a SCOx supporter. Far from it. I think Novel should go after Darl in his own natural person to recover court costs. And if Darl dies while I'm still able to get around, count on it that I'll fly to his grave site to relieve myself on it. Twice. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

A more damming metric would be to quote how many engineers SCO had on staff, vs. how many SCOx retained. Answer: Not many! SCOx has allowed their product to lag behind hardware to the point that the OS is irrelevant on modern hardware. It simply doesn't work on the new stuff, and doesn't support many current technologies. That's a death knell for any OS.

SCOx concentrated on a niche market, and they didn't pick it any too carefully. That SCOx finds themselves bypassed and disfavored is a mark of just how badly they chose to grow. It's never pretty when a technology company chooses to become a litigation company, it's even worse when they choose the wrong technology to litigate against.

This is pure speculation

[JoeCommodore]

Let's say you work for a business that used creative accounting and it's going down in a month or so, are you (an accountant) going to wait till the news breaks and then look for another accounting job or are you going to go out and get a job using your current reputation before the public learns the facts.

Not sure if this is the case but even if the accountants had nothing at all to do with it, they'd be Mudd by association of any bad accounting news came out of this.

Re:This is pure speculation

[u38cg]

Typically this doesn't "just happen". A company up against the wire goes on for quite a while, and gradually you squeeze the supplier's terms harder and harder, they get used to it, you kick the backside out of the overdraft, your cashflow becomes over-exposed, the wages are regularly paid early or late (if cash flow is ropey, companies will get wages out the door early to make sure they're paid for another month), this whole situation is normal because you're part of the team that's managing the problem and then one supplier files suit, then another, then the word gets out and winding up orders are issued, and suddenly the emperor is seen to be naked (can you tell I've been there?).

We're getting closer

[BanjoBob]

Maybe this image that I saw on Groklaw will be an indication of things to come....

http://www.yourfilehost.com/media.php?cat=image&file=Darl.jpg

The rest of the staff

[belmolis]

People are talking as if SCO had only lost accountants, but I wonder if that is true. We know about the loss only because SCO has asked for permission to replace them. For all we know, lots of other SCO employees have left the sinking ship, only SCO hasn't asked for permission to replace them. Could it be that even with essentially no business left SCO needs the accountants to keep running but doesn't need the other staff who are leaving? Do they still have any use for developers? Can their sales people sell anything?

Half?

[sakusha]

OK, just how many is "approximately half of the accounting personnel"...? We know it's greater than or equal to 2, the article mentions 2 that resigned. So, what are we talking here, 3? 300? Without real numbers, this article is not very informative.

Re:Half?

[jellomizer]

Well either way it is a major problem for the company. My theory is they were fired because they said to the CEO this is not working we will be dead soon. So he doesn't want to hear that so he fired them. But he listened to his lawyers friends who said we are just about to win just an other million and we will make billions!!!!

Re:Half?

[PPH]

One. The treatment for multiple personality disorder was a success.

Re:Half?

[SaturnNiGHTS]

its over NINE THOUSAND!!!

It's because scox doesn't want witnesses

[walterbyrd]

I think this is the part of scam where scox makes witnesses harder to find, and hey! what happend to all the documents?

Think about it, all of the sudden the accounting staff is gone - the day before their bogus bankruptcy hearing?

Re:It's because scox doesn't want witnesses

[v1]

(cups hand to ear) "What's that? What's that sound? sounds almost like... a paper shredder..."

Approximately half...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see...

Approximately half (so just under 50%)

They had 7 employees... Approximately half quit or fired. That would be three. Two quit and one fired?

The headline makes it sound like a mass exodus.

But really, who in their right mind would have still been working there after the past few years?

Parent has a point.

[Anonymous Coward]

Darl McBride, his lawyers, and accountants make up a small minority of the people affected. By far most people who are going to lose their jobs are lower-level programmers and managers like us who had absolutely no input on the direction SCO was going.

Re:Parent has a point.

[Just Some Guy]

By far most people who are going to lose their jobs are lower-level programmers and managers like us who had absolutely no input on the direction SCO was going.

BS. The job market isn't so terrible that you have to sell your soul to eat. Do you really think SCO had enviable salaries for the little folk? It's not like they were making dot-com venture capital pay and are suddenly losing it. Also, people who aren't bright enough to understand that "worked for SCO until the bitter end" looks bad on a resume shouldn't be in a mentally strenuous career anyway.

No, the people who stuck it out were the ones who knew their employer was evil and pestilential and didn't care. I have a hard time getting worked up about their fates.

Re:Parent has a point.

[v1]

It's difficult to have much pity for the pawns that covered their eyes and ears and hummed loudly when most of the rest of the world was buzzing about the writing on the wall.

Any of the pawns that didn't have a few resumes out by this point deserve what they get. That's the built-in penalty for being a stupid sheep.

Mysterious.

[Erris]

Heck, the accountants probably know that there is no money to pay themselves. So, why work?

No, something else is wrong because at least one was fired. To get fired they had to have done something incompetent or evil or both. The others may have quit to distance themselves. Of course, it's much too late to escape the stigma of one of the most flagrant and intentional destructions of a public company imaginable. There are some things you should not do, no matter how much money is offered.

Re:Mysterious.

[VE3MTM]

To get fired they had to have done something incompetent or evil or both

Not necessarily. They may have refused to do something evil, illegal, unethical, or all of the above.

Re:Mysterious.

[Rogerborg]

Like threatening to squeal about exactly why Darl set up a brand new holdings company in the middle of July, and where all SCO's assets have suddenly gone?

Shares as gag gifs

[Nit Picker]

There is no legal downside to owing the stock, but getting it in the form of certificates would cost more than the 22 cents each share is worth. Normally, shareholders leave the shares on deposit with a broker. A year or two ago someone on the Yahoo board itemized the cost of having stock certificates issued, and I seem to remember it being something like $40/certificate. If you had 100 shares, you would normally receive one certificate for the shares, although you could request multiple certificates for a total of the 100 shares.

These shares are not worth the paper they are printed on.

Apologies to "The Chips"

[Anonymous Coward]

mmmmmh, the other day
I ate a cool water sandwich
and a sunday-go-to-meeting bun
doo doo bouuh

cow cow lubba 'n a-blubba lubba
hell ride ricky ticky hubba lubbav how low a wann' suppa dov hey ride sippin' and hubba lubbav hell ride a-hubbin' and wan' do
hey ride a wanna an' recca recca
ho' low a mail take lubba hubba
hey down a wann' suppa dubba
please ride a hubbin' gonn' do

What you SCO for nuthin'?
A Rubber Paycheck?
doo doo doo boooh
cooow cooow oo-oooooouuuh

Is it just me...

[Anonymous Coward]

or has anyone else considered copying their web server, so we can mirror it once its gone, and all have a good little chuckle (especially re: their IP page) ?

Re:More like a parody of a certain Foxblogger

[Anonymous Coward]

Xenu smack your ass!

Ticker symbol will change to SCOXQ

[Animats]

When a company goes into bankruptcy, the ticker symbol has a "Q" added at the end. So "SCOX" will change to "SCOXQ" shortly, probably on Wednesday.

Re:Ticker symbol will change to SCOXQ

[MLease]

So that's why Hewlett-Packard got so screwed up when they bought Compaq!

-Mike

Rats, Sinking Ship

[PPH]

You know the drill.

I guess

[JustNiz]

you don't need money counters when you don't have any money.

Whoever they owe debt to

[r_jensen11]

That's what the bankruptcy court is for. The people and companies that SCO owes money to will fight and scrape over whatever they can get, but with the amount of money they're going to be oweing, I'm sure quite a bit of it will settled by a bankruptcy judge.

The other half...

[fahrbot-bot]

...are waiting for their stock options to mature.

Half the accountants ? Really ?

[Anonymous Coward]

And where did he go ?

What really happened...

[bjorniac]

They only ever had three accountants, but they all counted each other twice*

*I know it doesn't add up. That's accountancy.

It may not be what you think...

[Alpha830RulZ]

Back in the day, my accounting 410 prof told us that it is a common tactic in troubled financial times to fire your accountants, and then have your lawyer hire them back. That way, management's interactions with them become privileged communication, and not admissible in court. Perhaps the Country Lawyer could weigh in on this.

Oblig. Simpsons quote

[Opportunist]

"While we're waiting, help yourself to some more stock options"

Novell have an equiable interest

[igb]

Novell licensed its Unix to SCO and asked for a ~95% royalty on sales.

No. Novell licensed its Unix to SCO, and offered SCO a 5% handling charge on collecting Novell's royalties. What's the difference, you ask? The difference is that such money from the licenses that SCO hold is Novell's in equity, not as a creditor. Novell are like the people who leased SCO a photocopier: it's their's, and they can take it without reference to other creditors.

If you steal a car and then go bankrupt, your creditors can't fight over who gets the car: it's not yours, so it's not an asset in bankruptcy, and it goes to whoever holds title. Same here.

ian

Re:Novell have an equiable interest

[InvalidError]

No. Novell licensed its Unix to SCO, and offered SCO a 5% handling charge on collecting Novell's royalties. What's the difference, you ask? The difference is that such money from the licenses that SCO hold is Novell's in equity, not as a creditor. Novell are like the people who leased SCO a photocopier: it's their's, and they can take it without reference to other creditors.

If you steal a car and then go bankrupt, your creditors can't fight over who gets the car: it's not yours, so it's not an asset in bankruptcy, and it goes to whoever holds title. Same here.

Slightly different words, same story... you make it sound like you oppose my point of view and interpretation even though your own sounds exactly like mine.

Re:Novell have an equiable interest

[igb]

It's not the same story once bankruptcy is involved. If SCO had to pay a 95% royalty to Novell, then SCO owe money to Novell. Novell can then just get in line if SCO go bankrupt, and get (potentially) cents in the dollar, if and when there's a distribution by the bankruptcy court. If SCO collected the money on behalf of Novell and then retained a 5% commission, then Novell can take action independent of the bankruptcy court to protect their property. The position I outline, which is what is in the contracts, places Novell in a fantastically stronger position.

Re:Novell have an equiable interest

[InvalidError]

The important thing is...
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070812

Are you kidding?

[greenguy]

The SCO software would be easy to wipe out and replace with Ubuntu (or [$DISTRO]), and the hardware will be going for fire-sale prices.

As for the bad SCO karma... well, my Excellent karma here on Slashdot would balance it out.

The exact contrary is the case

[Flying pig]

A very smart accountant I knew once deliberately left a good job in a successful company to go and work for a company that was in the UK equivalent of Chapter 11 (voluntary arrangement with creditors.) He reckoned that the experience would accelerate his career. How many companies do you think get into trouble every year? How much of a premium do you think they are prepared to pay to accountants who know how to deal with that stuff? When the shit is really deep, that's when you are prepared to pay a lot of money to the guy with big rubber boots and a large pump.

GAH!

[Kelz]

Beer! All over my shirt >

That was thouroughly explained....

[jotaeleemeese]

... in the discussion when SCO filed for chapter 11. Short answer is no, Novell gets the money because it is not a debt strictly speaking.

Check SCO stories of the last few days.

Re: "Unix in Linux"

[TaoPhoenix]

Why don't we just write an open source app that compares source code?
We don't need the scary overhead of SCO for that. Someone more reputable can do a discreet study.

Re: "Unix in Linux"

[DrSkwid]

man diff

but you'll need a copy of all the source code. Got an AIX lying around?

Sigh ... you're close to being a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

The law is built on shifting sands. In particular, it has become much easier to find that a bankruptcy was filed in bad faith. There is one precedent in particular that fits the current case closely; Primestone v. Vornado. Here's the analysis taken from the decision in that case:

12. Analysis. In conducting their good faith inquiry, courts typically review the record for evidence of various factors:

• a. Single asset case;
• b. Few unsecured creditors;
• c. No ongoing business or employees;
• d. Petition filed on eve of foreclosure;
• e. Two party dispute which can be resolved in pending state court action;
• f. No cash or income;
• g. No pressure from non-moving creditors;
• h. Previous bankruptcy petition;
• i. Prepetition conduct was improper;
• j. No possibility of reorganization;
• k. Debtor formed immediately prepetition; 8
• l. Debtor filed solely to create automatic stay; and
• m. Subjective intent of the debtor.

link

It's pretty much a slam dunk that MoFo will argue bad faith. I don't care if they haven't filed anything yet. The first step is, as they have done, to inform the court of Novell's interest in the outcome of the case. After the court recognizes them, they will file the rest.

You are right that these motions are seldom successful but this is a specific case. Each case is tried on its merits and you haven't addressed those. That's just lazy or maybe even intellectually dishonest. Of course, you are in good company. SCO's lawyers couldn't even get the name of the bankruptcy trustee spelled right. The trustee won't hold a grudge but will wonder what else they got wrong. That's not a good thing.

This isn't a run-of-the-mill case and you can't treat it as such.

-37% of zero

[Anonymous Coward]

So how can you have half of 0? Imagine the hilarity when someone points out to them that they only got paid 25% of zero, and when the person does the sums, it turns out that this is correct!

They take it to court and win; the judge orders SCO to pay them the remaining 25% of zero, and another 15% in damages.

Then the person does the sums again and realises that they still only have 25% of zero. They take it to court again, and it turns out that they in fact have 120% of zero in their possession (but can't figure out how this happened)! Then they get sued for fraud.

A non-authoritative take on Novell's claims

[OmniGeek]

The best bet here is that the Novell monies (per the court judgement, this is money belonging to Novell and illegally "converted" [i.e., stolen] by SCO) are not subject to the bankruptcy process; instead, Novell gets to recover that amount before the Chapter 11 reorganization. It seems logical for the bankruptcy judge to either allow the Utah court to establish the amount of that judgement, or simply declare "It all belongs to Novell," before proceeding with a reorganization, given that the Novell judgement is what tips SCO into the bin.

So, my $.02 is on Novell being unconditionally awarded the judgement in the amount determined Real Soon Now by one of the two courts ahead of the Chapter 11 process, and there being nothing left for SCO and its other creditors but scorchmarks.

Re:A non-authoritative take on Novell's claims

[Zeinfeld]

The best bet here is that the Novell monies (per the court judgement, this is money belonging to Novell and illegally "converted" [i.e., stolen] by SCO) are not subject to the bankruptcy process; instead, Novell gets to recover that amount before the Chapter 11 reorganization. It seems logical for the bankruptcy judge to either allow the Utah court to establish the amount of that judgement, or simply declare "It all belongs to Novell," before proceeding with a reorganization, given that the Novell judgement is what tips SCO into the bin.

Probably not, Novell would be an unsecured creditor. So the secured creditors get paid out first. And of course the Boies slime machine has tried to make itself first in line to be paid.

That said, the lawyers took the case on a contingency basis, SCO is now in bankruptcy so the contract with the lawyers can be voided just like any other supplier. The judgement won by Novell has established that SCO does not hold the copyrights to UNIX as they claimed, so what does SCO actually have?

It is hard to see any other law firm wanting to buy SCO's assets out of bankruptcy to continue the lawsuit. So the only likely bidders for SCO's assets are IBM, Novell and Boies. At this point it must be pretty clear to Boies that the case is lost and all they can hope to collect is at best some nuisance money from IBM. IBM has no incentive to pay since there is a court judgement to the effect that any money owed belongs to Novell.

My guess is that we won't know what is going to happen till we see what the liabilities are and which ones the judge will allow to be cancelled.

Can't see the judge being too impressed by McBride's reorganization plan. The purpose of Chapter 11 is to keep a company in business. SCO does not have a business, all they have is a lawsuit which the largest creditor wants to see ended.

I remain entirely unimpressed by Boies legal skills. He botched the Florida recount. He made idiotic arguments in Napster and SCO vs IBM that never had a chance of success. In the Microsoft case he essentially handed ultimate victory to Redmond by leading Jackson into a whole series of decisions which a competent lawyer would have realized were certain to backfire at appeal. He fought the case on entirely the wrong set of claims. He should have worked out that Clark and McNeil were looking for an alibi for their own poor management. Netscape's treatment of Spyglass in particular was just as predatory as anything Microsoft was acused of. If Boies had been the legal genius he was cracked up to be he would have taken a very different path.

They are late!

[Anonymous Coward]

Two who resigned had over ten years of experience each. One can only assume that they know what's about to happen to SCO.

Damn! This has been obvious for quite a while. Why hold out until now? Is it possible that paychecks are bouncing lately?

Not that I'd want to start a rumor that might hurt SCO ;)

Link is drive by download

[Anonymous Coward]

The link on the above post attempts a drive by download. Don't click it and mod it down.

Re: "Unix in Linux"

[thommym]

"but you'll need a copy of all the source code. Got an AIX lying around?" Please see http://src.opensolaris.org/source/ for UNIX source.

SCO Sales are UP!

[canuck57]

Does that mean SCO sold 100% more units that day?

Your management aught to take a very serious long look at why they need SCO and get rid of it.

Don't get me wrong, SCO at one time with ODT was a premier product. But since the blood suckers MBA got a hold of SCO it has been a down hill slide all the way.

Re:SCO Sales are UP!

[brjndr]

1 is not 100% more than 0.

Think of the sales pitch.

"our sales are up infinitely"

If the accountants talk...

[canuck57]

I'm wondering if SCO CEO is having any troubles sleeping these days.

Especially if the accountants talk.

Maybe the SEC is just waiting for the judgment, then roll in. A little stock manipulation with cooked books.... fry the CEO.

It will be interesting as this unfolds as I am sure their are juicy stories in here somewhere. I mean real juicy stories.

Not sad at all

[canuck57]

xenix used to be a big thing - back in the good 'ole days. It's just dumb that they did this. Still someone had to run interference for M$.

There is a old saying, dance with M$ and you will sooner or later go out of business. I do remember the Microsoft copyright on a Xenix and ODT boot...

This is not a sad day at all. Time to rejoice, FOSS just won it's first real serious attack and Microsoft strategies failed miserably. Nice timing too with a Vista flop in the wind. Microsoft cracks are getting bigger...my CEO now knows of Linux/UNIX, and does not fear it.

Re:Not sad at all

[MrKaos]

It's sad because SCO had the same fragmented mindset that the UNIX community of old had, it's sad because the loss of SCO as an ally to the open source community means that fragmentation has persisted.

I totally agree with you about the M$ comment though, I've seen the same thing so many times.

lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

Lawywers are the last to leave. But only after they strike the match and toss it.

CPA Liability

[EgoWumpus]

Basic business or accounting classes will teach you that accountants are only liable if they are cooking the books on their own volition, rather than on the instruction of their superiors. This is why many accountants keep a separate and private ledger - that way if something like this hits the fan they have a record of, "This is what it should have been, but when I told so-and-so, they told me to do it this other way."

And in that situation, the CPA is actually fine; it's the corporate execs who decide to fudge it or 'ignore problems' who are in trouble. That is what happened with Enron - the accountants knew the problems, but were instructed to obfuscate it. I suspect, given that the accountants were alternately 'fired' or 'resigning' that some accountant hit a legal wall, wouldn't go any further, was fired, and the rest knew that was the straw that broke the camels back and took off. Given the severe risk an accountant carries by being a CPA, and their significantly lessened protection (compared to an exec), I doubt many would actually put their neck out that far for a company unless they were already somehow complicit.

Somebody = Microsoft

[Weaselmancer]

...and got somebody else to foot the bill.

That somebody else is Microsoft.

See the Halloween X document.. Details here.

Chap. 7

[Dr. Cody]

Wow, dismemberment and liquidation. That's what I call "overkill."

No

[Weaselmancer]

The Undead do not sleep.

I guess MS stopped funding them

[TravisO]

and they couldn't pay their employees anymore.

Open Letter to the Open Source Community

[johnwbyrd]

In retrospect, it's now fascinating to go back and read the original Open Letter to the Open Source Community written by Darl McBride, with the knowledge that SCO is going to bankrupt in four years.

Note to VCs: it's impossible to litigate your way to profitability.

Yabut

[Anonymous Coward]

Money is fungible. You can't say that any money they spent was from this pile and not from that pile. In any event, SCO hasn't had any significant income since they sold those two licenses so all the money of which they are in possession is Novell's. The trust that Judge Kimball would have imposed this week (if not for the bk) would have tied up all of the money in SCO's possession.

SCO would like the bk court to have to decide the apportionment. Novell will argue that, in order to achieve judicial economy, the trial in Utah should proceed.

SCO has a well documented trail of false claims and misbehavior wrt their other litigation. Novell will point this out when it argues bad faith. It would be stunning if the bk judge decides that he has to decide that which was about to be decided in another court. AllParadox, a retired lawyer who has followed this case closely, thinks Novell has a good chance to get the chapter 11 motion rejected.

THIS JUST IN: The hearing is over. Novell asked for a trust and the judge rejected it saying it would be preferential. He invited Novell to file a lift stay for the Utah trial and they indicated that it was their intention to do so.

Re:Yabut

[kilgortrout]

It looks like your prognostications were incorrect. As I originally predicted, Novell came in asserting a trust argument in an attempt to grab SCO assets and that argument was rejected by the bankruptcy judge. Apparently, the judge was of the opinion that any equitable trust imposed by the Utah court's ruling was within the 90 day preference period and thus voidable by the debtor or that imposing the trust post bankrupcy filing would be improperly preferencial. This leaves Novell as a general unsecured creditor unless they can show that the trust was imposed by the original asset purchase agreement but then you get back to the tracing/comingling issues and Novell would have to point to unambiguous language in that agreement establishing the trust relationship. The bankruptcy court will reluctant to allow Novell's trust claim absent compelling evidence in support of that claim since that would screw not only SCO but SCO's general unsecured creditors as well.

With all due respect to AllParodox, bankruptcy law is a highly specialized practice and most non-bankruptcy lawyers have little experience in this area. Novell's attorneys did not indicate any desire to file a motion to dismiss the case for bad faith filing and I seriously doubt one is forthcoming especially in light of their stated intention to file a motion to lift the automatic stay.

Re: "Unix in Linux"

[Anonymous Coward]

Solaris is not AIX.

Sun own Solaris. IBM own AIX.

SCO didn't accuse Sun of putting Unix code into Linux, they accused IBM of doing it. So if IBM had done it it would have been taken from AIX code that SCO owns the rights to. Even if Sun does have code owned by SCO in Solaris, Sun would not have put it into OpenSolaris. In short, OpenSolaris code is useless for this comparison.

Would you credit de bit where it says that...

[Hognoxious]

There's only one kind but you have to count them twice or it won't balance.

Re:Would you credit de bit where it says that...

[Bastard of Subhumani]

I didn't think accountancy was funny till I read this thread. Now I know it isn't.

Re:Would you credit de bit where it says that...

[Hognoxious]

Whatever ledger to think that?

I was half right

[Anonymous Coward]

Novell very definitely wants the Utah trial un-stayed. They do not object to the bankruptcy but I'll bet that it goes into chapter 7.

There are a couple of reports from the hearing over at Groklaw now: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070918115337281

The APA is very clear that SCO has a fiduciary duty to hand over SRVX license fees to Novell which will then return 5% as an agent's fee. So, the money is Novell's (assuming that the apportionment is more than 50%). SCO has no claim over the license money and therefore neither do the other creditors.

I still think you are wearing blinders and not considering the specifics of this case. Check the Groklaw link and see if you still think the same.

Re:I was half right

[kilgortrout]

If that's all they have, Novell will not prevail on the trust issue in the bankruptcy case IMHO. This is just a breach of fiduciary duty claim in a bankruptcy case and the bankruptcy judge has already told you what he thinks of this claim - unless you have more, I'm not inclined to grant the imposition of a trust favoring Novell over other creditors. We'll have to wait and see on the motion to lift the stay, but if granted, it will probably be for the limited purpose of liquidating Novell's claim. There's is just no way the bankruptcy judge will allow the stay to be lifted for the purpose of litigating whether a trust could be imposed on assets under the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court.

However, all is not lost for Novell. Breach of fiduciary duty is grounds for denying a bankruptcy discharge of Novell's claim under Section 523(a)(4). That's where the future action in this case will be. If granted, Novell would be able to pursue collection of it's claim against SCO post petition. Again, dischargeability claims under 523(a)(4) are tough cases generally requiring more than just a showing of fraud or breach of fiduciary duty.

Re: Apply directly to Microsoft's forehead

[Douglas Goodall]

The precident could be immediately applied to the unsupported accusations by MS about Linux infringement on MS patents, which MS is too busy to detail...

SCO and Novell

[falconwolf]

Doesn't chapeter 11 bankruptacy protect SCO from giving Novel any money?

Chapter 11 only protects assets, property owned so to speak. The money that SCO never gave to Novell is Novell's not SCO's. SCO was supposed to give all of the money they were paid for licenses to Novell then Novell would give SCO 5% of the money back. The money was Novell's property.

Falcon

Re:SCO and Novell

[IP_Troll]

I believe the judge already has ruled the money is Novell's, what needs to be determined is how much money Novell is going to get.

How could that have happened? The trial hasn't occurred yet. We are still in pre-trial. The only thing the judge has ruled on is what evidence will be admitted at trial to determine the facts.

The finder of fact (jury or a judge in a bench trial) only makes determinations during the trial. We are still in the pretrial phase where the judge determines what facts will be displayed during the trial to the finder of fact. Contract interpretation is a determination of facts. Don't get ahead of yourself.

And don't confuse my words, SCO is going to loose, all I am saying is there is still a long road ahead. Just a healthy bit of pessimism.

Re:SCO and Novell

[falconwolf]

I believe the judge already has ruled the money is Novell's, what needs to be determined is how much money Novell is going to get.

How could that have happened? The trial hasn't occurred yet. We are still in pre-trial. The only thing the judge has ruled on is what evidence will be admitted at trial to determine the facts.

Here goes:

"SCO claims it owns all copyrights over Unix and that Linux infringes on those copyrights. In what were widely seen as bet-the-company moves, SCO, beginning in 2003, launched a series of lawsuits against rivals and customers claiming their use of Linux was violating the copyrights. The campaign was dealt a crushing blow on Aug. 10 when federal court Judge Dale Kimball ruled that Novell, and not SCO, owns the copyrights to Unix."

"As a result, Kimball said that SCO must remit to Novell a portion of the fees it has collected from selling Unix licenses -- mostly to Sun and Microsoft. That could amount to as much as $25 million. The total is to be decided at a trial that's set to start today. The case is scheduled to proceed as a bench trial, meaning that Kimball -- not a jury -- will decide the outcome."

There's what judge Kimball said. Then this:

"Novell and SCO were slated to begin trial yesterday to determine the amount SCO would need to fork over, but SCO's last-minute bankruptcy filing prompted a postponement of the Novell trial."

Fslcon

SCO and Novell

[falconwolf]

SCO was Novell's agent and therefore had the right to handle Novell's money, it is up to the judge to interpret the contract and determine if SCO violated its fiduciary duty and the terms of the contract. Although I would guess the judge is overwhelmingly going to side with Novell.

I believe the judge already has ruled the money is Novell's, what needs to be determined is how much money Novell is going to get.

Falcon