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SCO's "Least Supported Idea Yet"
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Unsurprisingly, all of SCO's creditors have objected to the plan to reimburse York for the failed 'emergency' deal. Novell's tiny seven page objection (PDF) is hilarious and very readable. They don't hold back at all, saying that 'all that happened is that the Debtors spent money needlessly on a proceeding that was, to all intents and purposes, stillborn had it not been for the stubbornness of the Debtors' management and the avarice of York,' and that it was 'another really bad deal they have chased in ceaseless pursuit of their dreams of a litigation bonanza.' They top it off by concluding with the line, 'for the reasons explained above, the Court should deny the Motion as the Debtors' worst and least supported idea yet in these cases.' One can only wonder how SCO will respond to this."
Commentators note this is the first example of vermin joining a sinking ship.
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
That's easy. They'll sue Novell for defamation!
yes, they had a nightmare using these exact same words.
Sue!
Sue!!
Sue!!!
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Really? I feel like Peter Griffin standing outside the newsstand for 48 hours trying to understand the New Yorker comic.
(closes PDF)
I am convinced that SCO and their lawyers are a zombie process at this point. The bankruptcy was an attempt to kill the pid with some hope of clean up, but i fear we are to the stage of kill -9. I don't know what the legal equivalent of this is, except to get the sheriff in his off-hours to go in and lock the doors and just physically seize everything.
MAKE IT STOP!!!!
davejenkins.com |
...I'd want "The Avarice of York" as my alias. Who'll bet that it's taken by the end of the day?
Novell: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty case from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time.
IBM: SCO's but a walking shadow.
Groklaw, chorus of Slashdot readers and industry analysts: Out, out brief candle!
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
orly?
I read the headline and feared this was a new revenue-generating plan from the mind of Darl McBride. "There's this completely untapped market! All we need is a basket of kittens and a commercial-grade deli slicer...no no, listen! When it doesn't make money, we sue Quizno's!"
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
As a side not the motion really is pretty readable and worth it.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Now is the sunset of our glorious SCO
Made winter by the discontent and avarice of York...
And I thought the Nazgul played rough..
After Novell won partial summary judgement against SCO that SCO owed them money for the MS and Sun deals, SCO declared Chapter 13 Bankruptcy. Chapter 13 bankruptcy means that the debtor (SCO) needs time to reorganize and some temporary protection from creditors (Novell, etc) while they figure a way to get back to solvency. This was Sept. 2007 and, the bankruptcy stopped the Novell trial.
SCO then tried to broker an emergency sale of assets to York Management. Well, under bankruptcy, all deals must be approved by a bankruptcy court. Novell and other parties objected because SCO failed to disclose (like usual) exactly what assets were being sold and how it would help SCO recover and get out of Chapter 13. The court agreed and SCO withdrew the proposed sale motion in Nov. 2007 without really disclosing what were the terms of the sale. So now SCO wants to pay York $150,000 for their less than 2 months worth of work for a failed deal.
IANAL but Novell had a reason to object to the sale. Among the things that SCO alluded to selling (but never fully disclosed) were obligations and assets that it owed to Novell in their case. If the deal would have gone through, Novell might have to battle it out for years between York and SCO to determine which one owed them the money. SCO could point to York and vice versa. It appears the SCO tried to scam their way out of paying by using a shifty sale.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Other reply other than a rejection would be saying something akin to: "We approve of SCO continuing to attempt to sue us."
SCO should be torn up for parts, Chapter 11 is not the right state from them to be in, they are unsalvagable, Chapter 7 time.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Sorry to respond to myself, but it's York Capital Managent.
And since it's Thursday I deduce that Zonk must be related to Arthur Dent, who had trouble with Thursday as well!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Thanks for taking the time to show us how many Slashdot user accounts were created to this day ;-)
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
Well, before the firehose broke in IE (I'm at work. I'm on break.) I voted most of his stuff up. Note that most of what I submit gets voted down or is credited to someone else, even though most of my comments get modded up.
I'm modding myself down for this offtopic comment with the "no karma bonus" box.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I think it's been widely established that SCO's case is a bunch of hogwash, but this has gone too far for too long. I now question the sanity of SCO's people and of those who keep investing in SCO. And I feel sorry for the judge who has to put up with this nonsense.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
It's nice to see the phrase "to all intents and purposes" actually being used correctly for a change. Considering it's originally a legal term, it makes sense that it would be the lawyers who know when and how to use it.
You must be new here.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
If only I could pull that line off with my coworkers...
import system.cool.Sig;
That's a very funny collection of filings. It doesn't stop with the comments about SCO, either. Remember, the proposed deal now is that Steven Norris Capital Partners (SNCP) proposes to buy SCO's assets for $5 million plus a "loan guarantee" of $95 million at somewhere around 20% interest to cover future claims by IBM, Novell, Red Hat, SuSE, etc. So who is SNCP? The filings tell us.
In filing 412, Novell says "The Disclosure Statement says that SNCP was founded by Steven Norris and & Co. Capital Partners for the purposes of this transaction". So SNCP is a shell corporation. "It has a brief statement about SNCC's partners, Steven Norris and Mark Robbins, and sweeps breezily through a short statement of some of their past activities, making some very general grand claims about their past successes."
In filing 408, IBM points out, "the Partnership (SNCP) does not seem to have any operational or investment history."
Filing 414 points out, "Also, SNACCPLP failed to pay its annual tax assessments, and it thereby allowed its status to lapse to "CEASED GOOD STANDING" back in June 2006 (see Ex. 7). Thus, it is unlikely that the Florida LLC, formed in July 2007 (see Ex. 7), was truly "formed by Stephen Norris & Co. Capital Partners, L.P. for the purposes of this transaction." (Incomplete Disclosure Statement at (V)(B), p. 18)."
This is not looking good.
Steven Norris himself had a great reputation in finance until this month. His big claim to fame was the Carlyle Group. They created Carlyle Capital, which just went spectacularly broke, losing about $21 billion. If the main asset of SNCC is the reputation of Steven Norris, it's worth far less than it was a month ago.
Seriously, what I want to know is exactly what is left of SCO that is worth anything to anyone at this point. Dragging this whole thing out in court is just delaying the inevitable death that we all know is coming.
If there is anything wrong our system right now, its that we allow a company in its death throws to file Bankruptcy to delay the inevitable. Just do a freaking organ transplant already and kill the brain dead child of Darl.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Thanks for the summary and saving me hours digging through the details!
At the corporate level Evil is often complicated.
I'm modding myself down for this offtopic comment with the "no karma bonus" box.
I *never* use my karma bonus when posting!
Well actually, since it would be spinning to begin with, I guess we'd have to use two nuke chain reactions, one to stop the spinning and one to start it.
I saw a documentary on it once...awful, I don't recommend it.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
For those of you not following the SCO debacle, the SNCP deal was being pushed as a last desperate attempt to head off what's coming next month:
U.S. District Court - District of Utah Court Calendar
Honorable Dale A. Kimball
Room 220. Tuesday, 04/29/2008 08:30 am. SCO Grp v. Novell Inc 2:04-cv-00139-DAK-BCW Bench Trial
This is SCO's upcoming Really Bad Day. The issue of whether SCO owns the UNIX copyright has already been decided - they lost on that issue. The only issue for trial is how much money SCO owes Novell. Which may be more than SCO has left.
SCO went into bankruptcy late last year to stall that trial, the Friday before the trial was to start on Monday. That didn't work; the bankruptcy court un-stayed the Novell trial. SCO tried the York deal to transfer their assets to York. That didn't work. Now they're trying the SNCP deal, which looks very unlikely at this point.
http://www.nationalreview.com/document/document073001.shtml
Anytime a Judge uses the words "most amateurish pleadings", "bumbling", or "a pig is still a pig" to describe the efforts of the attorneys, it's going to be a bad day for someone. Or in this case, both someones.
"Now, alas, the Court must return to grownup land." - priceless! We need more people as judges with a biting sense of humor (and the nerve to use it liberally!) like this!
-- Ravensfire
"But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion"
Plus a pile of unpaid bills and judgements, assorted countersuits, and a management team either being sued out of their shorts, or on the lam to the Seychelles, or both. SCO's assets aren't worth anything to speak of at this point.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
It doesn't send me to goatse... Sounds like a failed troll.
+5, Truth
He's not exactly who we want on the bench
Acid toungue, funny as hell, complete jackass in RL.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
this guy is trying to generate hits on his pathetic site. he's been doing this for about a month now. just don't click links by ACs and you're on the safe side.
Novell's legal team needs to hire better proofreaders.
Sometimes I think it would be easier to just kill the user...
But that's *usually* where morality kicks in. Well, that and I don't keep a firearm at my desk. This is probably the reason that I never became a police officer. "That guy didn't merge properly - I'ma' shoot him..." - Yeah, good thing...
[I can resist anything. Except temptation...]
It is vultures descending on a carcass.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
As comical as the SCO proceedings have been to read over the last couple of years, it is time to put this beached whale out of its (and ours) misery.
I highly recommend reading the motion.
On a related note, it fills me with great satisfaction that SCO management is continuesly shown to be the scum they are.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Someone writes a script. This could be funnier than Office Space and be 100% true! Great movie idea!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
The karma bonus is opt-out. You get the karma bonus as a method of modding yourself up. If you didn't think your comment was worth modding up, why would you comment in the first place? The "no karma bonus" checkbox is for times you are making an off-topic response to someone's comment ("ot- your sig") or, well, like this comment here.
It should be assumed (but unfortunately can't be) that someone with excellent karma won't be deliberately trolling of baiting for flames.
And if you never use the karma bonus, why is your comment at 1 when there's no moderation for it?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Because registered users start at 1. Only AC starts at 0, or very low karma users.
That which is done from love exists beyond good and evil
After reading through the uncharacteristically informal language of the motion, I was not at all surprised to see that it was authored by Morrison and Foerster LLP. They're known for being rather...unconventional. After all, their web address is http://www.mofo.com/.
Is he still employed at SCO, or is this latest brilliance the result of someone ELSE at SCO?
Another question might be... does SCO have no shame? Apparently not...
At this point the corpse of SCO has to be worth less than the continuing legal wrangling... so who is paying for all this?
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
As much as I hate the term, it seems nothing will ever get done as quickly as daring geeks to do it, or stating that something is impossible.
Deliberately trolling and flamebaiting is a privilege earned by those with excellent karma.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"How humiliating for SCO"
"SCO?"
"Yeah, you know, SCO, they tried to sue IBM"
"Did they?.. . . ",long pause , "Who?"
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Wow.
I work in a court house, and I must say that is the best legal document I've ever read.
I sure I wish they all read like that....
Regards;
...to pay your $699 licensing fee you cock smoking teabaggers!
Seems to me that Deliberately trolling and flamebaiting will destroy your excellent karma, and how would a troll get that excellent karma to begin with?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest