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Final Judgment — SCO Loses, Owes $3,506,526
Xenographic writes "SCO has finally lost to Novell, now that Judge Kimball has entered final judgment against SCO. Of course, this is SCO we're talking about. There's still the litigation in bankruptcy court, which allowed this case to resume so that they could figure out just how much SCO owes, which is $3,506,526, if I calculated the interest properly, $625,486.90 of which will go into a constructive trust. And then there's the possibility that SCO could seek to have the judgment overturned in the appeals courts, or even the Supreme Court when that fails. Of course, they need money to do that and they don't really have much of that any more. Remember how Enderle, O'Gara and company told us that SCO was sure to win? I wonder how many people have emailed them to say, 'I told you so.'"
Good DAY, sir!
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I picture Judge Kimball reading his judgement in the governator's voice....
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
There is no "finally" with SCO
Can't wait to hear the last SCO story. Barring appeals, I really hope this is it.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Seriously... isn't SCO just like the Energizer Bunny. I keep hearing that we've heard the last of these pukes, and then I hear it again, and again, and again...
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Of course, they need money to do that and they don't really have much of that any more.
They could always apply for a government bailout package.
... which own patents on both sliced bread and wheel is great idea. Way to go fuckers!
Now can we dismember the corpse, seal it in a hardwood box, put the box 12 feet under ground, cover it with at least a couple of tons of concrete, and then build a parking lot over the spot?
I don't want any chance of this zombie coming back again and demanding royalties.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
Anyone that would write an article extolling his Ferrari branded laptop and how the prancing horse logo adds raw ultimate power should never be taken seriously.
I guess some people do listen to that hack.
Well, perhaps a few less are listening to him now.
*shrug*
What about SCO's suit against IBM which started this entire mess? I assume that that is still going on.
SCO gets a final judgement and loses $3.5m. Someone (Missouri) finally files a RICO suit against the RIAA. Our do-nothing Congress actually gets the balls enough to stand up to the automotive industry.
At this point I'm halfway expecting to see a copy of Duke Nukem Forever in my stocking.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Your ultimate goal is coming true anyway. The vast majority of people who used to be Linux users are now OS X users. Linux is dying on the vine, and while it is not because of your lawsuit, at least it IS happening, so that should be some consolation.
Don't forget the garlic you need to put in the coffin.
And make sure and kill any ghoul servants. They're always trying to resurrect their masters.
I suggest you start by a scheme of napalm applied liberally to the offices of their legal representation.
I've been waiting such a long time to afford one of these to try that Linux thing legally.
@neonux
I wonder about those companies who paid the SCO license fees to use Linux? Are they free now to sue SCO for the license fees they have paid?
Proverbs 21:19
I am sure it does sting, considering they have spent quite a bit of that money on lawyers, corporate executive benefits, etc.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
boo whoo
cry me a river , we all knew they were full of it.
Next up
How much did it cost to defeat SCO and stop their nonsense? I'd be shocked if the legal bills on just the Novell/IBM side were under $10M.
The system worked once, at least in rendering the right decision. But few can afford to spend the amount of money this took.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
$x++;
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
"I suggest you start by a scheme of napalm applied liberally to the orifices of their legal representation."
Shower, rinse, repeat.
I thought it was extremely gratifying to look at the graph of the stock price and see that Yahoo had thoughtfully provided some space on the y axis for negative values.
Find free books.
So they now owe Novell $3.5 million or so. A look at their June '08 financials ( http://finance.google.com/finance?hl=en&fkt=917&fsdt=2133&q=SCOX&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=we ) makes it look like SCO is currently worth $8.96 million. Of course, then they have $5.85 million in current liabilities. Add in this $3.5 million and SCO's wallet runs dry (and then some). Of course, this doesn't take into account liabilities that they don't need to pay back immediately. Things like that will come up in any bankruptcy hearing.
The end result is that the amount of the award is basically meaningless. Novell may not see that entire figure (if anything) due to SCO going bankrupt. It's the ruling itself that is important. All of SCO's claims were knocked down. Novell's claims were either upheld, made moot by further developments, or voluntarily dismissed. SCO got beat down hard and I don't think they'll be getting back up anytime soon.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
YAY! :D
Thank you for wasting five years of the Linux community's time and casting a shadow over the legitimacy of the world's countless open-source projects. Think of all the interesting things we could have devoted our time to if we hadn't been dealing with you assholes. I hope you rot in Hell.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
I understand your anger, being spit and pissed on, having to take beating after undeserved beating. Well a new future is dawning and great evil has been defeated. Rejoice my brother, now is the time for healing.
I wonder if there will be a point that Novell can force SCO into an involuntary Chapter 7 (liquidation) bankruptcy? Especially in light of the ruling that this money isn't a "normal" debt but a "conversion" - does that take it outside of what the bankruptcy court can protect?
Nuke them from space... It's the only way to be sure.
The sad part being that the old SCO and its UNIX had to be affiliated with the litigation hound that SCO is today...or was yesterday.
The $3.5M exceeds their current market cap. which appears to be only $2.81M. (pretty far fall from the $2.54B they had in 2000.)
Don't quite know what that means but I'm hoping it means the judgment effectively wipes them off the map entirely.
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Especially seeing as how that was 4 years ago.
I still don't understand why the stock price is so high at $0.13 a share.
I would expect it to be at 1 cent.
What is keeping it up?
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
Remember how Enderle, O'Gara and company told us that SCO was sure to win? I wonder how many people have emailed them to say, 'I told you so.'"
Agreed - these tech pundits were complete tools. O'Gara was shallow enough to stalk Pamela Jones of Groklaw in 2005 and publish alleged photos of her apartment. Only Daniel Lyons (he of the Fake Steve) later admitted he was wrong.
But this gets into a bigger pet peeve of mine: the tendency of people to disregard details in pursuit of what they wish were true. These pundits really wanted Linux to fail massively, either because their bread and butter was covering the developments of Microsoft and other proprietary OS vendors or because they equated Linux and free software with anti-capitalism. This led a lot of these shrills to cling to a very silly, unsubstantiated lawsuit long after it became clear that SCO had no concrete evidence to present in court and clearly hadn't thought through licensing considerations (BSD-licensed code in both Linux and System V, for example).
Many people really don't like delving into the details before forming an opinion and sticking to it. See also: religion, politics.
Cheer up, we didn't lose a SCO, we got a Novell.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
And that pretty much wraps it up. Now I need a new name...
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
This only goes to show that the old addage is true. The only companies that end up worse off than the ones that compete with Microsoft are the ones that cooperate with Microsoft.
McBride and his cronies my be at the moment... but SCO the organization is not. SCO has been bleeding worse than a freshly-amputated pig, with no signs of slowing down its losses. Nobody (especially in this economy) would want to buy such a toxic and radioactive property.
I also suspect that whoever is left holding the by-now worthless SCO stock would have little trouble in finding a contingency lawyer willing to sue McBride (and his buddies) personally for fiscal irresponsibility.
There is also the chance that the SEC may get in on the act as well.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I still don't understand why the stock price is so high ... What is keeping it up?
a) People making very long-shot bets.
b) People who didn't "do their due diligence" and are buying it without understanding the real situation.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
What about all those companies that paid those don't-sue-us fees to SCO back in 2002? Are they going to step forward and demand their money back, now that the entire basis for this shakedown has been invalidated? And what about companies like Chrysler which also won against SCO? It seems to me they didn't get as much press as the IBM-SCO case did.
One might also ask, whither Microsoft, now that their $86 million investment in Baystar has turned out to be a complete waste. Shouldn't some executive's head roll for this? God, if someone can waste that much money at Microsoft and get away with it, they must be either Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates, either of whom is too powerful to reprimand.
I will say, SCO in its day was very intimidating, with Darl Bride as an eloquent and persuasive spokesman. His pronouncements sounded factual and reasonable, until people like Groklaw looked behind the curtain and showed us the truth. Well, it's just a testament to the power and resiliency of the open source community that Linux and friends will be around long after the world has forgotten what SCO was.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Back then, 50M bucks was a lot of money.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
When a litigant runs out of money, the correct reaction — or so one would conclude from reading Slashdot's descriptions of some other lawsuits — is to donate to their cause, so that the truth and justice prevails regardless of which side has deeper pockets.
Right?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This time for sure, really really, we promise after burring them 9 feet under, just this last little side arm remaining..
Generalisimo Francisco Franco is stiil dead.
Sadly , the same can't be said of SCO.
whither Microsoft, now that their $86 million investment in Baystar has turned out to be a complete waste.
Ummmm, that $86 million was the best money MSFT spent since the $50,000 for QDOS. The chilling effect that the SCO suit produced for the Linux community was huge, and bought MSFT a lot of extra time. And you can't even begin to imagine the degree to which it has slowed innovation in IBM Software Group. IBM engineers can't post without 10 person-months of review from Legal.
Would that be jail time calling? Here's to hoping.
I want to know how much these pirates bilked Joe Investor for. Furthermore, I hope both IBM and Novell are interested in cooperating with bodies such as the SEC in holding SCO and Canopy management personally responsible for any and all wrongdoing, including both legal malpractice and stock manipulation, during the SCO race towards infamy.
So can we launch the class action suit against McBride & co for mental anguish and psychological damage now? Every single nerd and most ex SCO stock holders should be eligible.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
A constructive trust is a trust (a legal duty to a beneficiary by the person in possession of something) that has been created by a court. There are many types of trust, but they all essentially mean the same: There is something (in trust) that you never had the authority over in the first place because it belonged to someone else (the beneficiary).
As an example, in many places a constructive trust in bankruptcy exists over employee wages such that employees have a superpriority over other creditors (i.e. employees get all their money before creditors get any), but further a the thing held in trust (wages) that was previously given away (to pay creditors) can actually be taken back from subsequent possessors ("restitution"). In other words, anyone given anything by an insolvent (that state of not being able to pay bills that typically precedes a declaration of bankruptcy) company may have to give it up so that employees can get their wages held in trust. Employment law varies wildly- many jurisdictions don't enact a trust- but it's a decent example, easy to relate to.
In the SCO case the trust is over funds, meaning the court has said (by declaring the construction of a trust) that the beneficiary (Novell) of the trust can "follow the money" from SCO to whomever may now hold it because SCO never had a right to the funds in the first place. That may include wages to directors, bank transfers, rent, etc. Further, if SCO is unable to pay the money, and it cannot be traced, anyone that encouraged SCO to spend money that SCO didn't have a right to may have committed a wrong (intentionally, having been complicit or willfully blind) related to the breach of trust.
These are just common law principles for the edification of anyone interested, and the law may very well be quite different in Utah (or most anywhere else). But it's also an oculus into why a constructive may be relevant- and it's not well explained in the article.
"Remember how Enderle, O'Gara and company told us that SCO was sure to win?" No, no, no. You misunderstood. Enderle always says the opposite of what will be, or what is, or whatever is logical. So if you're tuned in to what he really means, he predicted this correctly just as he does everything else.
If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
Don't forget that DNF is written to require a BitBoys Oy Glaze3D video card as well.
Seems fitting that they should OWE money now. Since they're bankrupt, I suppose it's only symbolic.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
When will the multiple demonstrably false statements made by McBride, et al come home to roost? If stockholders bought SCO based on those statements, isn't it fraud?
Back when the SCO scandal broke on Slashdot several years ago, I remember reading several posts by guys who said they had been ordered to wipe SUSE/Red Hat/whatever off their servers and install 2003 Server.
I wonder... Have they wiped 2003 Server and put Linux back on? Are the bosses that ordered this still around?
I'll stop now because not only am I getting depressed, but this is turning into a Dilbert cartoon.
But don't forget that there's a new word in the English language:
McBride (verb): To accuse open source software of a patent falsehood in the hope of pecuniary advantage.
Usage: "Hey, did you hear Steve Ballmer the other day? He was on stage at the Windows Expo and McBriding like crazy. The dude said that Linux stole the idea of sudo from Windows!"
For trying to sell us "Linux Licenses" in order to use Linux legally. Turns out they had no legal basis for those licenses, which is of course "fraud" via a civil court lawsuit.
Now how many Linux users are there? Let's get $1000 each.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I don't know this "hp" metric you are referring to.
Horsepower.
Can you explain it in Library of Congresses (LOC)?
It depends on how many BD-Rs you can fit in a covered wagon.
Well, no, not finally. They've got more losing to do in the Suse arbitration. And they've got a lot of losing to do yet in the IBM case, as well as the Autozone and Red Hat cases.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
There remain a few dedicated and extraordinarily talented kernel engineers embedded within the parasitized husk that now goes by the name "SCO". Among them are people who started work at Bell Labs decades ago, and have thereafter worked continuously on the same evolving UNIX code base through numerous renamings and acquisitions. They have been ill-served by their management for years, and while some ignoramuses will consider them tainted by their association with SCO, they have my greatest respect.
I now return you to the usual hate-fest already in progress.
Novell's 2008 fiscal year net income jumps 8% to -$44.5 million.
1. Claim you own Linux
2. Sue other Linux companies and your own customers
3. ?????
4. LOSE!
Yes, they lost the case, they may have to pay some money but they won by what I'm guessing is their criteria for winning going into this fudcast.
Nullius in verba
That's the very definition of American-style capitalism, and globalisation.
you had me at #!
NOVELL WINS!
FATALITY!
-wk
The featured video is "downsizing executive pay" too. Yahoo Finance seems to have SCO pegged...
You fail at quoting Aliens.
"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. "
None of this matters: Darl McBride et al were still personally enriched by all this shenanigans, and they are all still alive and able to run off somewhere else and pull yet more shenanigans.
The bad CORPORATION was slapped, but its ORGANS still won and will get "transplanted" somewhere else. Until we get rid of the ethical shield that corporate law provides, people like this will still rule the roost.
Top men are handling it. TOP MEN!
A stock "price" isn't really a price. It's the price of the last trade. SCO is not a very active stock. You also have to consider that someone who have to want to sell it for 1 cent. Why? It's not worth the effort to sell at that price, except so that you can have a loss to offset a capital gain in another stock and reduce your taxes. Since most stock are down, I don't think people are looking for a way to offset gains. If you sell your SCO stock in January, you can use the loss against gains later in the year. Anyway, you can see, the price little to do with SCO anymore and more to do with the people who own the stock.
Sorry, no.
They knew what their management was doing, and they tactitly condoned it.
Five years is *way* more than enough time to find work with a company that isn't run by lying thieves. Especially if they are as "talented" as you claim.
alt.wesley.die.die.die or alt.sco.die.die.die Seriously... This SCO thing is like a bad batch of cockroaches. I got some very aged rum which I'm waiting to pop open when this company goes away forever. Why don't they die?
There's no Freedom like UFP-dom
$ umount /dev/sco
"Three eyes are better than one" -- Lieutenant Columbo
SCO stock is so freaking low right now, I suggest we all buy one, insist on the paper stock certificate.
Once that arrives, print, staple, glue, etc an image of McBrides head on it. Then you can use it for a dart board, shame-frame, incentive poster, Halloween mask, etc.
Also, being an actual stockholder, assuming SCO doesn't totally cease to exist before the mail arrives, you can send them letters regarding their business activities that they (in theory) have to take into account since you would in fact, be a stockholder.
(Run-on sentences: Love/Hate?)
Alternately, you could do a small performance piece about McBrides business acumen by folding it into a paper airplane, lighting it, and tossing it off a moderately tall building. As long as you don't break any fire or safety regulations in the process.
(I wonder if Novell has any company branded lighters available for the procedure...)
Later peeps!
Not even Henry Paulson?
Squirrel!
At long last Novell and Sun have the opportunity to kiss and make up over their little Open Solaris argument. Or not.
Will they? Sun paid millions for the right to open Solaris to a company that was suing Novell. That money was rightly Novell's, as the right was theirs to sell and not SCO's. That money prolonged the unjust suit for a long time, costing Novell more than just the lost revenue, but also legal fees for their own lawyers to defend against the very lawyers funded by Sun's investment.
This should be interesting, but we're not going to get the real story - just the announcement. How forgiving is Novell?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It's about damn time...
Most of the engineers did find jobs elsewhere. Those who remained did so despite salary cuts and other hardships, including the knowledge that basement-dwellers everywhere scorned them for their association with the corporate raiders and lawsuit-happy lawyers who had taken over the company.
Perhaps after having spent decades of their life putting heart and soul into something they were proud of, they were hoping against hope that it could be kept alive, instead of walking away and watching their legacy, the direct descendent of the original Bell Labs UNIX, get flushed down the toilet.
Knock Knock Dr. Evil...all that work for 3 MILS? I mean, all AIG and eventually the Big 3 had to do was give some bjs and guaranteed 30 BILS, right?
Nonetheless, thank god this ordeal is over, so I can finally get my copy of United Linux
Mission accomplished.
Next.
Garlic is good, but there's the obvious little matter of driving a f***ing stake through its heart. And toss a silver cross in there while you're at it. SCO has caused more frivolous waste of time, money, and attention than should be allowed. They need to be made an example of. Not sure the best way to do that. Tar and feathering "Darl"? That would work for me.
In all seriousness, it couldn't (and most likely, wouldn't) have happened to a nicer bunch of guys.
Seems like just desserts from this corner.
--
I want.. 10,000,000 GroupWise licenses! Ha ha ha ha!
Is that Darl will never be another CEO, anywhere, at any time, unless it is CEO of his own house cleaning company.
Also good news that evil ba$tards that try to sue their own customers lose.
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
McBride should never work again. What he did was malicious, stupid and didn't benefit anyone but himself and the lawyers working for him. Greedy bastards.
Four years from now $50M might be a lot of money. Or it might be enough to buy a single sheet of toilet paper.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I wonder why you would patent the sliced wheel.
It's "et tu, brute?". Not brutu.
The 3.5 million is only what they have lost to Novell.
There is still damages for IBM's counterclaims to come, and also I think RedHat has a very good Lanham Act case against them still.
I've been on these forums for a few years, and I have never seen such a concise explanation of what the hell this is all about.
Cheers for clearing up my confusion on all this.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
SCO isn't dead until someone drives a wooden stake through it's heart.
Novell actually countersued SCO. SCO had sued them first for publicly contradicting SCO's claim to hold the Unix copyrights.
Oh, and Novell's countersuit included the claims that SCO did not have the rights to make the deals they did with Sun and Microsoft without Novell's approval.
The judge agreed with Novell on the copyrights, the license payments, and the Sun deal, but not the Microsoft deal.
SCO lost a lot of ammunition against IBM due to the Novell rulings as well as rulings in IBM itself, but not all the claims have been lost yet, and IBM has also countersued.
So, don't put the popcorn away yet. More smackdowns of SCO are yet to come.
tar cvf scum.tar ./DarlMcbride
not sure about the feathering though...
MP3 Search Engine
"I am sure it does sting, considering they have spent quite a bit of that money on lawyers, corporate executive benefits, etc."
That's not the definition of "sting", if spending that money before the ship sank was one of the objectives in the first place. Companies aren't "people", they are an utterly expendable construct. Accomplish objectives, get paid, move on. A few million dollars seems like a lot to the peasantry, but for real players it's pocket money.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."