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SCO Springs a Prospective Buyer
clemenstimpler sends a link to Groklaw, which has been following the proceedings dealing with the conversion of SCO's bankruptcy to Chapter 7 (i.e., liquidating the company). SCO has announced a prospective buyer. "...SCO has suggested it has a buyer. That doesn't mean it will avoid Chapter 7 of course, nor does it mean that the bankruptcy court will OK the suggested sale. But it likely does mean more delay, which is what this is likely all about. SCO very much wants to wait until the appeals court rules in SCO v. Novell. ... Hearing set for July 16 with backup for July 27. SCO has already moved to make it July 27. combo hearing on convert and sale. Frankly, it would not totally amaze me if the three entities that filed motions to convert were to appeal this. If not, SCO got its desired delay."
This article's title gave me the mental image of a decomposing zombie clawing its' way up out of the ground.
Hopefully as the article suggests, the sale will be forestalled, and some judge will finally put a stake in this monster once and for all. ;)
This image, http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/5233c6cac0.jpg was a little un-called for.
Richard has done quite a good job, imo. I met him once at an "overnighter" kind of rally for political refugees when we both entered this country almost at the same time. I never could quite figure-out his political views beneath all the "free software" senses that he advertised using all his "free labor" methods of devoting all that time to such strategy. It appeared effective at a fiscal scale, but not at a family one.
I must say, though Caldera was a completely different company these past years since Darryl gave direction, the true Caldera Linux lives-on in the servers that still run it. I fondly remember administering Caldera 2.2 and 2.3 using their excellent-at-the-time Novell Netware extensions for IPX disk shares and this eased integration with existing Novell-dominated environments in the civil service sections of the government institutions whose documents I helped archive and maintane with complete satisfaction. Somtimes I sit and think just what happened to such a great company, it having the only Linux distribution with DOSEMU to Caldera's DR DOS at the time as would seem the perfect replacement for a Windows For Workgroups, NT, and 95/98 installation while all the other distributions leached off it's tuned perfection.
It will sadly be missed, but still runs on my old 486 network gateway with a IPX Meridian SCSI 14-drive CDROM array.
I very much hope the Office of the US Trustee, IBM, Novell and others do not appeal the delay. Of course, they have excellent grounds for doing so, but the result would likely just be a longer delay. SCO has successfully gamed the system, and will probably gain a six week delay in the process. If this is appealed, it will probably take longer than six weeks just to argue and get a decision. Meanwhile, SCO will argue that the purchase agreement cannot go forward with the Chapter 7 conversion hanging over their head (BS, of course, but prove it).
Perhaps, but with the current administration, and the new legislation winding it's way through, it could conceivably get easier to pierce the corporate veil. This lawsuit represents the height of corporate avarice. What makes it all the more interesting is that the only newspaper willing to continue to run stories on it seems to be the Salt Lake Tribune. Yet the lawsuit will have worldwide influence once the appeals have run their course.
I'm really looking forward to the trial of IBM's counterclaims, and the damages decided from them. At that point, we're very likely to see where the money for the suit came from.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
As Willy Wonka said, "The suspense is killing me. I hope it lasts."
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
I would buy SCO if I had the money. Not because I think it is a gold mine or anything but because of all the people claiming rights to Unix, SCO is the only company trying to claim Linux is a derivative and do something about it.
If a few geeks, maybe backed by Novel, IMB, or some other companies using linux in their products purchased SCO at the liquidated price, they could operate their own distro, are large enough to demand Unix drivers and could open enough specs to allow OSS drivers, and put an end to this saga once and for all. We could call this pack, GLOSCO or Geeks for Linux and getting Over SCO.
I'm seriously wondering why we have seen talk of something like that. SCO or SCOGQ is trading for around 15 cents a share now, if every geek in the world contributed $100, that would be 666 shares. With 15.2 million shares outstanding, it shouldn't take much more than 22 or 23 thousand people to buy it outright at $100 plops. Get IBM, Hitachi, Motorola, Novels, perhaps a few of the distros to donate and that number drops fast. All the IP gained could be placed into a trust account and SCO can operate as a commercial development platform with OSS driver access and open improvements for the rest of us.
Anyway, the suitor has been announced: Gulf Capital Partners. Which raises the question: is there a Microsoft connection to these guys? The only company with any discernible reason to keep Sweet Zombie SCO alive is Microsoft.
I have answered my question: yes there is a definite MS connection. "The issue is not if you're paranoid, it's if you are paranoid enough." -- Max, "Strange Days"
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