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SCO Receives Nasdaq's Delisting Notice
An anonymous reader writes "This somewhat amusing press release of sorts tells us one of those things we've all been waiting a while for. SCO(X) has announced that 'it received a Nasdaq Staff Determination letter on December 21, 2007 indicating that as a result of having filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel has determined to delist the company's securities from the Nasdaq Stock Market and will suspend trading of the securities effective at the open of business on Thursday, December 27, 2007.' PJ at Groklaw has surmised that with effectively zero cash resources left, Novell doesn't stand to get much more than SCO's furniture, if even that.
Ding dong, is the wicked witch finally dead yet?"
Novell doesn't stand to get much more than SCO's furniture,
If there was any proof that this was by design (which it probably was) could the directors be held liable in the US?
$0.18 to $0.12 in 45 minutes. Impressive!
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I'm fine with that. One of my friends in Redmond could use a few more chairs.
Miguel.
Let us take a moment to remember SCO, and all that they did for us. For yea, they did take douchebaggery to new heights, and may their executives never again find work, and their lawyers develop sores. May their stockholders be infested with fleas in places they cannot scratch, and the offices that they occupied cursed for all time. As we prepare to bury this pitiful excuse for a company in the grave of history, may its death continue to be slow and painful.
And let us say:
Bwa ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha.
Ha.
Gifts for Geeks - Stuff that really matters!
Some of my favorite quotes from Darl McBride: "And C++ programming languages, we own those, have licensed them out multiple times, obviously. We have a lot of royalties coming to us from C++." "Obviously Linux owes its heritage to UNIX, but not its code. We would not, nor will not, make such a claim." "We didn't start this, but we're going to finish it."
Tis but a flesh wound.
.... Shuddup
----
I'm not dead yet
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
guess I should have paid my $699 licensing fee.
...is SCO's blurb at the bottom. I quote: "SCO owns the core UNIX operating system, originally developed by AT&T/Bell Labs and is the exclusive licensor to UNIX-based system software providers". Uhm, SCO...
The funniest IRC quote ever (and happy to burn modpoints for it, as this will doubtlessly be flamed down):
/msg atnt haha. idiot. :~(
From http://bash.org/?106579
Topic in #os: hey guyz, stop pickin on irix.
<SCO> w00t! i bought unix! im gonna b so rich!
<novell>
<novell> whoops. was that out loud?
<atnt> rotfl
<ibm> lol
<SCO> why r u laffin at me?
<novell> dude, unix is so 10 years ago. linux is in now.
<SCO> wtf?
<SCO> hey guyz, i bought caldera, I have linux now.
<red_hat> haha, your linux sucks.
<novell> lol
<atnt> lol
<ibm> lol
<SCO> no wayz, i will sell more linux than u!
<ibm> your linux sucks, you should look at SuSE
<SuSE> Ja. Wir bilden gutes Linux für IBM.
<SCO> can we do linux with you?
<SuSE> Ich bin nicht sicher...
<ibm> *cough*
<SuSE> Gut lassen Sie uns vereinigen.
* SuSE is now SuSE[UL]
* SCO is now caldera[UL]
<turbolinux> can we play?
<conectiva> we're bored... we'll go too.
<ibm> sure!
* turbolinux is now turbolinux[UL]
* conectiva is now conectiva[UL]
<ibm> redhat: you should join!
<SuSE[UL]> Ja! Wir sind vereinigtes Linux. Widerstand ist vergeblich.
<red_hat> haha. no.
<red_hat> lamers.
<ibm> what about you debian?
<debian> we'll discuss it and let you know in 5 years.
<caldera[UL]> no one wants my linux!
<turbolinux[UL]> i got owned.
<caldera[UL]> u all tricked me. linux is lame.
* caldera[UL] is now known as SCO
<SCO> i'm going back to unix.
<SGI> yeah! want to do unix with me?
<SCO> haha. no. lamer.
<novell> lol
<ibm> snap!
<SGI>
<SCO> hey, u shut up. im gonna sue u ibm.
<ibm> wtf?
<SCO> yea, you stole all the good stuff from unix.
<red_hat> lol
<SuSE[UL]> heraus laut lachen
<ibm> lol
<SCO> shutup. i'm gonna email all your friends and tell them you suck.
<ibm> go ahead. baby.
<SCO> andandand... i revoke your unix! how do you like that?
<ibm> oh no, you didn't. AIX is forever.
<novell> actually, we still own unix, you can't do that.
<SCO> wtf? we bought it from u.
<novell> whoops. our bad.
<SCO> i own u. haha
<SCO> ibm: give me all your AIX now!
<ibm> whatever. lamer.
* ibm sets mode +b SCO!*@*
* SCO has been kicked from #os (own this.)
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
SCO substantially slowed the use of Linux in corporations by suing IBM in 2003 and threating businesses with their own lawsuits if they used Linux. Their claims were on legally shaky ground and it was obvious to anyone who looked at the short "infringing" code samples that leaked out that their case was based on either gross incompetence or downright fraud. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO_v._IBM has a good summary of how that played out on the legal+technical side.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Novell doesn't stand to get much more than SCO's furniture,
I'll be happy to liquidate it for them. Imagine being able to sell SCO office furniture on eBay? Along with a certificate of authenticity. Heck, I'd bid on a piece myself. It's like owning a piece of the Titanic of tech history.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
In addition to what greg1104 said it should be noted that SCO already had prior history with patent/copyright trolling. Based on their previous history it was fairly obvious that they hoped the lawsuit they brought against IBM would be settled quickly out of court rather than having to actually defend their ludicrous claims earning them a quick cash infusion for little actual work. When IBM failed to roll over and instead bit back they got caught trying to prove the un-provable, but continued to insist all along that they were right while tossing out every excuse they could come up with to buy time. They probably would have been dead in the water long ago, but it seems that Microsoft and various parties (strongly suspected to be Microsoft shills) bought ridiculous numbers of bogus "licenses" from SCO to help shore up SCOs bank account. Of course after many long years of SCO screaming their fool head off that they own Linux (among many other stupid claims) they've finally been beaten into the smear on the concrete that we all knew they were to begin with. This is merely the final act where they get the hose out and wash them into the gutter.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
For those of you who don't follow this mess, SCO voluntarily went into bankruptcy in September, the day before the SCO vs. Novell trial was to start. This stopped that case. For about two months. Novell asked the bankruptcy judge to let their case continue. After frantic maneuvers from SCO, which went nowhere, the bankruptcy judge let the Novell case proceed. It will go to trial in January or February. The only remaining issue there is how much money SCO owes Novell. SCO already lost on the "who owns UNIX copyrights" issue; Novell owns them.
The IBM and Red Hat cases are still pending, so if anybody wants to buy up SCO (the company's entire market cap is only $2.4 million today), they'd be stuck with those potential liabilities, on top of the Novell liability. That's why nobody is snapping up the remains of the company.
Plan on visiting the liquidation auction some time next summer.
From SCO site:
SCO intends to maintain business as usual throughout the Chapter 11 proceedings. Subject to court approval, SCO will use the cash flow from its operations to meet its capital needs throughout the reorganization process.
Other companies such as Delta Airlines, Texaco, Dow Corning, K-Mart, United Airlines, Toys R' Us, Macy's Department Stores and others have emerged from Chapter 11 protection after restructuring themselves for success. We intend to do the same.
"If there is any justice, the executives and the lawyers are held liable. Why include the lawyers? While it was a frivolous lawsuit brought by the company, the lawyers were the ones executing dirty tactics in the court while getting paid by the millions. They knew well what they were doing."
It's worse than that - part of their compensation was stock. That means that they were
a) part owners of the company, and
b) they had an inherent conflict of interest as officers of the court. They had a huge incentive to act unethically with the lawsuit - they didn't get paid unless SCOX stayed at a high value, which is substantially different from getting paid if they won the suit.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Has Darl McBride got away with a fat severance package and a job at Microsoft, or did the directors of SCO go down with their ship in any meaningful way?
Darl McBride continues to be with the company, as do most of the other important company directors.
As with every other piece of SCO news, people around here are overreacting to this. Being de-listed from the NASDAQ doesn't really mean a whole lot, because they weren't counting on using any investor money at this point anyway. They've put all their financial eggs in one basket, and that's the lawsuits. And those are continuing; SCO has even said they'll appeal the Novell ruling.
This doesn't mean SCO is "dead", not any more than they were yesterday or the day before anyway. Essentially all that's changed is that you won't be able to point and laugh at them on Yahoo Finance anymore.
It's maybe one more nail in the coffin, but they've been building that coffin for a while now, and it's still not finished yet.
It is not likely that they will appeal. Standard operating procedure is they have to put up some money into a trust in case Novell does prevail. They don't have the money to put in the trust. Even if the US Bankruptcy Trustee would green light the deal. So they can claim they have been wronged all day long and that they will appeal.
Practically speaking the only way they can even have a chance with IBM is if they can fulfill step one in the process. Who owns the copyrights. SCO has to own them to be able to continue with the case. Until they win IBM or come out of bankruptcy, they don't have them money to appeal the Novell decision. Until they appeal the Novell decision, they don't have a chance of owning the copyrights they need to win the IBM case. Thus a perfect chicken and the egg or catch 22 scenario.
vi +