US Trustee Asks To Send SCO Into Chapter 7

Several readers including Pop69 inform us that the US Trustee's office has asked to convert SCO's Chapter 11 bankruptcy to Chapter 7 — a.k.a. liquidation. Groklaw has the text of the filing: "...not only is there no reasonable chance of 'rehabilitation' in these cases, the Debtors have tried — and failed — to liquidate their business in chapter 11."

Comments

I wonder...

[erroneus]

...where would SCO be today if it hadn't started filing lawsuits? Sure, it wouldn't have had that cash infusion from Microsoft, but what was the state of that company and where was it headed prior to the suits? Would SCO still be a respected Unix vendor?

Re:I wonder...

[rackserverdeals]

When were they ever a respected Unix vendor?

SCO had the lead in Unix on x86 hardware and apparently were used widely in certain sectors.

Unline, IBM, HP and Sun, SCO didn't have their own processor architecture so they weren't resistant to having their OS run on commodity hardware like the other big Unix vendors did.

This whole SCO lawsuit thing confuses me. At least the reaction to it and SCO going after Linux users.

SCO was under the Canopy Group and every time Ray Noorda spun a company out of Novell, it usually resulted in an IP lawsuit. Usually against Microsoft. Strange or ironic that SCO and Novell would go head to head this time.

I can understand why SCO sued IBM. IBM, SCO and Sequent got together to work on Project Monterey. SCO's role in that was providing their leading Unix on x86 work. Then the project fell apart, IBM bought Sequent and SCO got nothing for their efforts.

Then all of a sudden, IBM puts more effort into Linux, an alternate Unix like OS that can run on x86.

If you were SCO, had spent a lot of time with IBM showing them your Unix/x86 secrets, then they ditch your work and all of a sudden put a big push into a competing unix like os on x86 that could benefit from the knowledge you shared with IBM, you'd probably want to sue too. I would.

Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, but you'd have to go to trial to get to the bottom of it.

Somehow it all turned into a giant circus and SCO seemed to start it by going after licensing fees for Linux users, but people on the sidelines, in either camp really made a mess of things. I think it's probably one of the most ridiculous moments in technology history.

I dont understand

[onyxruby]

I don't understand, their reality distortion field has got to be worth millions in it's own right. Nice thing about chapter 7 is they have to auction /everything/. I wonder if you can buy their data and load up their servers to see what they were really thinking. Perhaps someone can buy whatever rights they thought they had and donate everything to the FSF.

Save Their Publications

[RAMMS EIN]

Let's not forget to archive the materials they have published (mostly as Caldera). There is some useful information there.

Same place, most likely

[Weaselmancer]

I wonder...where would SCO be today if it hadn't started filing lawsuits?

Same place, chapter 7.

They knew they were tanking and that's why they did this hail mary "let's sue IBM" nonsense. Their UN*X product was not spectacular. They didn't really offer anything unique or give any compelling reasons to do any business with them.

People do this sort of thing all the time. There is something nearly universal in the human psyche that says that it makes sense to spend your last five bucks to buy a lottery ticket.

Just like I knew Nortel was in trouble ...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

... when they started suing everybody who did anything SONET (including our company) over potential infringements of their patents. (I got dragged in because a chip I had co-architected included a SONET-like framer and some other telecom carrier framer stuff.)

When the company is sinking and the management is grabbing any floating debris that might keep their heads above water, the patent portfolio that USED to be just for protection against suits from others suddenly becomes a potential cash cow. (Or an inflatable life raft to continue the previous metaphor.) And a technology company starts taking on the appearance of a patent troll operation.

Of course in SCO's case it looks like the patent trolls bought into the sinking company so they could use it for trolling...

Re:Where's Darl now?

[palegray.net]

While I'm certainly no fan of SCO, in The Real World you use what works. If it still works, there's no need to replace it. Here's the thing about IMS about related systems: they solve what's largely understood to be a "known domain" of problems. You can still use third-party systems to link the central DBs to more modern systems if your business rules change, but the basics of managing inventory and keeping sales records haven't changed since pencil-and-paper ledgers.

Short version: If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It.

Re:Liquify what?

[Animats]

Seriously. What assets do they have left that are worth selling? Patents? Software?

The way this works is that the Bankruptcy Trustee brings in an auction house. Assets like intellectual property and lawsuits are usually handled directly by the Trustee. The auction house handles the physical assets.

There's a whole food chain in Silicon Valley for disposing of defunct companies. Action Computer buys up many of the old PCs, the ones that work. Weird Stuff Warehouse buys up old networking gear and miscellaneous electronics. Consolidated Office Distributors buys much of the furniture (Their warehouse in San Jose looks like the one from Raiders of the Lost Ark, only bigger. That's where many of the Aeron chairs from the dot-com boom ended up.) There's a place in San Jose that buys steel shelving. Quickly, the office buildings and factories are cleaned out, cleaned up, and put on the market.

Re:Where's Darl now?

[evilviper]

To hell with Zales' POS systems. McDonalds is a MAJOR user of SCO Unix, and they just keep growing.

Maybe they'll buy-up the IP rights for in-house development, or spin-off a small company to maintain it for their own needs and make a bit of money off selling to others at the same time...

Or maybe their contract works out better if they go out of business, then McD gets the software, with full source code, and unlimited rights, automatically. Who knows?

Re:Where's Darl now?

[Kjella]

In the real world it's also incredibly fun to watch the scramble when some ancient system nobody knows, supports or maintains goes postal, if you're not responsible for fixing it. Maybe it's nothing more than the inventory hitting more than MAX_INT items or whatever, but the day production is down and keeps going down every time you bring it up someone will wish they had a vendor to scream at.