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SCO Preps Appeals Against Novell and IBM
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like SCO will be emerging from the almost dead soon, with new owners and $100 million on board. SNCP is adjusting the business strategy, according to this report on TG Daily, SCO is saying goodbye to CEO Darl McBride and is also preparing to appeal the summary judgments in the cases against Novell and IBM. If you have thought the chapter was closed, think again. Those $100 million can go a long way (even if SCO has to pay 17% interest on it)."
Use your bail-out money to dig the hole deeper.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It looks like SCO will be emerging from the almost dead soon, with new owners and ... is also preparing to appeal the summary judgments in the cases against Novell and IBM.
This time please use holy water and lawyers made of silver.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Doesn't the bankruptcy trustee have to approve the sale first? The article sounds like this is already a done deal.. Dang, I need to start reading Groklaw again.
This is like a bad Ed Wood movie. "Plan 10 from SCO"
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
They won't be emerging from the almost dead, and they won't have $100M, and it's not 17%
They're still almost dead - this deal doesn't change anything about the fact that they owe a ton of cash to Novell, and will soon owe more to IBM.
The $100M is really $5M, plus a LOAN of *up to* $100M.
And the loan's interest rate is 17% plus prime (so closer to 21%.)
This is like you claiming that MBNA invested $50,000 in you when you signed up for a new credit card.
First of all this is at least a few weeks old. Check Groklaw. Second they are not giving SCO $100 mil outright. They are giving $5 mil with an option to loan another $95 mil over 5 years.
In a way, it's kind of poetic that these trolls are going to get raped by a loan shark (SNCP) at 17% interest. 95 million times 17% times 5 years is 80.75 million dollars, not compounded. That's an ass raping if I ever heard of it. Plus, they're going to have to pay 37 million to Novell, if they lose their appeal. It feels like something much deeper and more sinister is going on here, and it stinks. I just can't put my finger on it yet.
Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
Who keeps giving/lending these clowns money?
Pay no attention to the largest proprietary software company in the world behind the curtain.
Who keeps giving/lending these clowns money?
Wouldn't it be more correct to call them zombies at this point? Vampires? The undead?
Something like that.
Je me fous du passé
They don't have squat until the BK court approves it. Even then they only get 5 million and 95 million in flash cash. If the trustee tells them to put the money in escrow against potential judgments from IBM and Novell, that will flush this deal. This is all show but I haven't figured out who the audience is supposed to be. The BK court isn't going to be impressed.
I'm not sure what they're going to appeal. SCO dug themselves a really deep hole, an appeal is a long shot.
No one with a brain would loan SCO a nickel. It would take a cash cow like Microsoft to convince anyone to get in bed with SCO. Maybe that answers who the audience is supposed to be. Like there are serious players who think SCO's IP claims have merit. Ooooo, scary. If that's the case this is to business strategy what the Zune is to Apple.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Why in the world would someone take $100 Million perfectly good dollars and just throw them into this worthless money pit? Incidentally, if you write SCO as $C0, and then move the C to the front, you've got, "See? $0." And it seems to me that's what everyone ends up with who touches this thing with a 100 million foot pole! Who in the heck wants SCO's OS anymore? You know what? Even if they do want it, does anybody really want software from a company that might disappear at any moment due to all this litigation drying up it's well of money? Where will they get support?
Especially, why would they do this when Linux and the *BSDs are so far superior at this point due to the efforts of millions and the incredible amount of support, mindshare, and money behind them from individuals, small businesses, large businesses, and even governments. Not to mention that all modern Apple Macs are running a UNIX operating system that can accomplish all, or at least nearly all, of the functions that can be accomplished by any other UNIX or UNIX-like system out there. Not to mention further that all of the aforementioned OSes are superior in an uncountable number of ways to SCO's OS. Not to mention that the entire code to Linux and the *BSDs is available for your perusal or participation, as with a tremendous variety of programs that are run on these systems, from Apache to something that starts with a Z. Why would anybody pay good money to SCO for it's stuff when SCO is acting like the bully at the playground and when all of this is available for free, both libre and if you want to download and build stuff yourself, gratis...
In my opinion, SCO is no longer a software company, but a litigation company.
Actually, Groklaw has begun to deal with other cases of dubious IP claims and attacks on free software, open standards, and so forth, so it will still have a reason for existence once SCO is kaput. The current top article, for example, is about the ISO BRM on OOXML.
I think this comic applies here too...
:(){
Using this 21% loan to file appeals is a lot like using your credit card to buy lottery tickets.
They're that desperate, and I can live with that.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Even a large infusion of cash is unlikely to do SCO any good. They have no income to speak of and no product likely to generate any. Their lawsuits have no chance of succeeding given the ruling that they never acquired the Unix copyrights from Novell. Even in the extremely unlikely event that this is overturned on appeal, they still have to prove infringement of their copyrights, which, with discovery complete, they have still been unable to do, and they have to overcome the problem that they themselves distributed Linux under the GPL, which is a huge problem for them. Finally, no matter what happens, they are going to have to pay millions to Novell since they failed to pass on to Novell the income from their franchise to sell Novell's Unix property, for which they (SCO) were merely to receive a 5% fee. Money will pay the lawyers a little bit longer, but it isn't likely the lawyers can postpone the end very much.
Serious answer: Apparently this is Saudi money.
However the jury is still out on weather this is another Microsoft thing like BayStar
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/Whats-Behind-the-SCO-Buyout/ SJVN's oppinion incase you are interested
Make SELinux enforcing again!
SCO is a penny stock now. Somewhere between $0.17 and $0.20 a share. Market cap is $4.3 million.
/. regulars that read this were willing the company could be taken over and put down, permanently.
How many of you would contribute $50 to take a controlling interest in this festering pimple of an "IP" company? If the next ~80,000
Create a non-profit (name it SLASHX, perhaps) or some other legal entity, raise funds and buy shares. The percent of ownership remaining appears on a sidebar with a link to some collection agency. Make Stallman or some other credible figure chairman and just keep buying shares till "we" hold 51%.
I'm no financial guru. Perhaps the idea is naive. However, you can damn well bet I'd contribute.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Undead clown lawyers... I'm not gonna be able to sleep tonight.
I had the impression that in both cases the judges have been extremely scrupulous in framing their judgments to rule out successful appeals. It's not as if SCO had any facts to present for consideration, let alone new ones. Appeals to clearly shut cases get dismissed, right?
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=EOG
Read the business summary and note the previous name. Bankruptcy, especially Chapter 11, doesn't mean a company disappears. If there are parts of the company that are viable, a reorganization means these parts get a new lease on life.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
I wonder if there's any way to find out who else this firm has invested in? I'd like to contact those companies and explain that I'm boycotting them and their products out of spite.
Yeah, but notice the bottom line. They're only giving SCO 5 million. The other 95 million is available to SCO as a loan, but not actually given. I thought the blurb was a little misleading.
I don't care how slick the lawyer is, SCO had a summary judgment against them. Provided the judge in the case dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's those things are damn near impossible to successfully appeal. I'd put the odds against successful appeal at 20 to 1. More likely than not the appeals court will simply say, 'No' and that will be the final whimper of SCO.
is a death will.
Just a FYI, this deal has not been approved. So all this "SCO is going to be saved" stuff, has no factual basis whatsoever. Bankruptcy court would have to approve of it, and that is not likely at all. So the slashdot article here = incorrect.
This seems like the most sensible way of funding them to me, I'm not an expert on these matters at all but it seems to me that by loaning SCO the money as and when they request it they have ensured that when SCO loses ( first of all to Novell ) in court and has to pay massive damages the only money Novell will be able to claim is that 1st 5 Million because SCO would not then request any more loan money.
But in this case, there are no legitimate viable parts of the business. Suing your customers is NOT a viable business, and suing your suppliers for owning stuff you stole from them isn't either.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
The current top article, for example, is about the ISO BRM on OOXML.
I am really amazed that Slashdot hasn't picked up this story yet. I mean, I just can't believe it! This is the story of the week. This is a huge thing, as those who have been following it are well aware. The process at the BRM was so flawed as to bring into serious question the integrity of the ISO/IEC JTC-1. I won't add to the tens of thousands of lines of text that have been written about it here, in fear of being ruled off-topic. I only want to question why this hasn't been aired on Slashdot.
Beginning on Friday, I was scanning the news anxiously to see how the BRM went, and shortly the first reports began to emerge. By Monday, the first report from an actual BRM participant came out. By Tuesday, the available information was growing exponentially. I was following all this on Groklaw, and kept flipping back and forth from Groklaw to Slashdot to see if they had picked it up yet. When a second blog by Andy Updegrove became a resource of links to every report by BRM participants, I could wait no longer. I wanted to see how this story was viewed by my fellow Slashdotters, naturally. I was so concerned that this still hadn't reached Slashdot that I reluctantly submitted the story myself. Then I started backtracking on the Firehose and discovered that there had already been 6 submissions at that point, and that was on Monday. I'll bet there have been dozens by now, besides thousands of people people clicking on those "Submit to Slashdot buttons all over the place". I just can't imagine why the editors haven't put this important story in front of Slashdot readers yet.
Please forgive me for interrupting the current story. I just had to get this off my chest.
What about Darl? I've heard he'll be made a Microsoft Fellow, in recognition to his outstanding contributions to that company. He'll begin a new role there as a Microsoft Technology Evangelist ;-)
Now that SCO actually have $100 million, doesn't this mean that Novell (or whoever) can actually claim the money they're owed but had until now been unlikely to see due to SCO's impending bankruptcy?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Check out the research done on groklaw, the additional 95 million dollar loan might not even really be available. HA.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
That's one of the problems with US corporate law. There are reasons, perhaps good ones, why corporate officers aren't directly penalized for making wrong decisions (in a company running legally and ethically, the company can and will administer appropriate penalties). However, when the top officers of a company like SCO or Enron do the things that they have done, there needs to be personal responsibility.
Not that it's simple to draw the line.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Cant sleep, clowns will sue me ...
Cant sleep, clowns will sue me
Cant sleep, clowns will sue me
Cant sleep, clowns will sue me
It's always important to notice when an article starts off with "The SCO Group plans ..." and then doesn't seek out any verification or outside opinions. It's probably another lazy journalism piece where the author simply rewords a press release and calls it "news". All this article does is lay out a motion with no investigation into the context.
For example, you would think he would have noticed that Novell has already objected to the reorg because of the sketchy details. Like, does SNCP even have access to that kind of money? There is this article that says Norris might have Middle East connections, but no explanations of why those connections would want in on the SCO case. Or how much of the bill they'd be willing to cough up. The schedule's a bit iffy too. Novell points out that SCO's hanging on to the "definitive documents" on the reorg and isn't planning on releasing them until the day that objections to the reorg are due. Read carefully and you'll see that objections are due by March 26th at 4:00pm, while the documents are to be released on March 26th, but with no time stated. Any bets on SCO planning on providing those at 4:01pm?
Keep in mind that SCO has already proposed and scrapped a bailout deal. In that one, they were playing a shell game where all the company's assets (and execs) went one way, while all the company's liabilities went the other. Needless to say, the courts weren't going to let that happen.
The bottom line is that this is SCO, so you already know it's a scam. It's just a matter of waiting and watching to determine what kind of scam they're trying to run this time.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
If they've got their mitts on some more money then more legal work is a good way to pump some of that cash into a safe place. No point in them leaving cash in a sinking ship.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The court ruled that SCO *converted* money that was actually Novell's in the licensing racket, so SCO never had actual ownership of that cash. That is way different from normal debt, and can't be discharged under bankruptcy. The only reason this liability isn't "on the books" yet is that the original court hasn't figured out how much it is, but it's safe to assume that it will be "a lot".
As a bonus, the court that will be deciding how much it is will be the same one that SCO told no trust fund was required because bankruptcy wasn't imminent just a few weeks before they filed for bankruptcy. They are almost certainly well and truly fucked here, and "spin" isn't going to change that. Their whole strategy seems to be to provoke the judge to anger so they have an issue for appeal, but Kimball is a pretty cool customer who will make sure that his ruling is air-tight.
The Utah court's summary judgment held that SCO does *not* own the copyrights to the code they are licensing. SCO built their entire case around a theory of "but... we paid a lot of money for this business, and of course it transferred the copyrights to us! Never mind what the actual contracts said." Too bad for them that the court rejected that argument totally.
And, this article presumes that the BK court will approve the deal, and do so over the objections of the major creditors. The judge may well not approve the deal as written, as there is no real guarantee of the additional $95M being actually available, and further since the $95M is a line of credit at a 17% interest rate it could magically evaporate at any time.
The deal really doesn't provide any security for the creditors at all, nor does it put the post-bankruptcy SCO in a financial position where it is unlikely to be back in bankruptcy in the near future. Indeed, it puts the company squarely in debt for even more than it faces to begin with due to the interest. The creditors names change, but the debt remains and really grows exponentially.
The only way I can see the court approving this is if the entire $100M were a straight-up equity purchase which was a cash infusion sufficient to pay off and retire all the debt. Just moving the chairs around on the deck isn't going to pass muster here.
As for the appelate courts, SCO's behavior prior to summary judgement will be a huge factor. They dragged the case out, refused to comply with discovery orders, and changed their arguments constantly.