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SCO Sells Its UNIX Product Line To London Firm

An anonymous reader writes "SCO just forged a deal to sell its UNIX product line to Gulf Capital Partners LLC of London. Under the terms of the deal, SCO would continue to exist as a separate company helmed by Darl McBride, with its primary remaining assets being related to its mobile platform offerings. However, it's noted that this deal must be approved by the court, and should not be considered 'done' yet. It could fall through as others have in the past."

25 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. products? by conspirator57 · · Score: 3, Funny

    SCO have products? when did this happen? i thought all they did was patent troll.

    --
    "If still these truths be held to be
    Self evident."
    -Edna St. Vincent Millay
    1. Re:products? by MBGMorden · · Score: 3, Informative

      The also used to make one of the nicer X11 servers for Windows machines way back when. I would have likely bought it had my university not had a site license for Hummingbird eXceed. These days though Xming does everything I need it to. Same story for all of SCO's products - and the reason for their 5 year hissy fit. All of their products have free and open source replacements available that match or even exceed them in functionality. Personally preferences aside, nobody is going to pay sticker price for a Chevy if the Ford dealer next door is giving cars away for free.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  2. A wise man once said... by Jaysyn · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ...there is a sucker born every minute!

    --
    There is a war going on for your mind.
  3. A tale of two courts by RichMan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A while back a Judge ruled SCO does not own the UNIX(tm) copyrights.
    ((That would be SysV copyrights that were gutted by the BSD settlement, but that is a whole other story.))
    SCO's argument in that case was that they could not run the UNIX business without the copyrights. And thus when they bought the business they must have bought the copyrights.

    Now SCO is in BK court and in the processes of selling the business. The problem is they are also in the appeals court where their argument that the only way to sell the business is with the copyrights is being evaluated. So SCO is
    a) selling the business without the copyrights in the BK court.
    b) arguing that to buy the business you must get the copyrights in the appeals court.

    It is supposed to be bad practice to argue different things in different courts at the same time.
    But that does not stop SCO.

    1. Re:A tale of two courts by rdavidson3 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Now SCO is in BK court

      I've heard of kangaroo courts, but not burger king courts.... mmmm... getting hungry... what were we talking about it?

  4. Someone probably wished for immortality by Daimanta · · Score: 4, Funny

    and didn't specify whom to make immortal. SCO was the receiver of that power and we have to live with the consequences of that wish. Fact: You can't kill SCO.

    --
    Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
  5. Re:Who? by gmack · · Score: 4, Informative

    People with large legacy infrastructures who didn't want to pay to have their software converted to Solaris, BSD or Linux. They buy the upgrades so they can run old software on new hardware because in the short term it's cheaper.

    Used to be very common for restaurant chains on their cash registerslLike McDonald's. Also Autozone had their ordering system on SCO but left(and got sued).

  6. Nearly had a heart attack by jd · · Score: 5, Funny

    This article on the BBC news website was pointed to by a link saying "China lends SCO $10bn". Turns out it was a different SCO. Thank all the gods (and ceiling cat)!

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    1. Re:Nearly had a heart attack by cdrudge · · Score: 2, Informative

      Both versions of SCO can use the same trademarked name of "SCO" without infringing on one another. Not only is similarities of the mark considered, but also the industry that the mark is used in. SCO the operating system company works in the computer industry. SCO the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a intergovernmental mutual-security organization similar to NATO between Russia, China, and a few other *stans. There wouldn't be a whole lot of confusion between the two marks.

  7. Gulf Capital Partners by Phroggy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They're an investment banking firm. I see two possibilities: either SCO managed to convince them that if they only had enough funds, they could turn their flavor of UNIX into a hugely profitable product, or Gulf Capital Partners is already one of SCO's few customers and they want to make sure they don't lose support when the company shuts its doors.

    The latter would surprise me.

    Maybe somebody should ask them what the hell they're thinking?

    --
    $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
    $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
    1. Re:Gulf Capital Partners by Phroggy · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'd like to know what they are thinking for 1) considering buying SCO and 2) leaving Darl McBride in charge if allowed to purchase SCO.

      One would think after where the company ended up a leadership change would be the first order of business.

      Darl wouldn't be in charge of what Gulf Capital Partners would be buying. He'd be in charge of the even-emptier shell they'd be leaving behind. They're not buying SCO, they're buying SCO's UNIX product line.

      --
      $x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
      $x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
  8. What about Novell? by jbengt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does SCO even have the right to sell their Unix business without the approval of Novell?

    1. Re:What about Novell? by drgould · · Score: 2, Informative

      Does SCO even have the right to sell their Unix business without the approval of Novell?

      I don't think SCO requires Novell's approval, I don't think the original SCO required Novell's approval to sell their Unix business to then Caldera, but I admit I could be wrong.

      But they most definitely require the bankruptcy court's approval.

      And if it's anything like SCO's last "deal", Novell, IBM and the US Trustee are going to have a lot to say about it in court.

  9. Why did you headline this as a done deal? by John+Hasler · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > However, it's noted that this deal must be approved by the court, and should not be
    > considered 'done' yet.

    Then why did you headline it as if it were?

    --
    Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
    1. Re:Why did you headline this as a done deal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > However, it's noted that this deal must be approved by the court, and should not be
      > considered 'done' yet.

      Then why did you headline it as if it were?

      Because he's a Slastard "editur"

  10. Re:Worst thing to come out of this SCO mess by MaerD · · Score: 2, Informative

    ... Darl, is that you?
    Seriously, I don't mean to feed the troll, but I don't see any bullying of the "IT press". Unless you mean Maureen O'Gara.. but I remember reading her crap from before SCO and thinking she was a muck-raker. I was rather worried when the SCO thing first came out, but they never produced any solid evidence. The "SCO may not own the copyright" bit aside, they never actually gave any bits that were copied.

    They also then proceeded to try and sell everyone who runs Linux a "license" and threatened to sue you if not, while trying to distribute the unmodified kernel under the GPL! And we're not talking about suing IBM or Red Hat (or even Novell, again, copyright issues aside), they wanted money from everyone running a server, a desktop, or an embedded device.

    Who Tried to bully whom here, exactly?

    --
    I put on my robe and wizard hat..
  11. Re:Who? by itomato · · Score: 4, Informative

    Pizza Hut also used OpenServer.

    Now they're a SUSE shop! :)

  12. why doesn't the board fire the managers? by astrashe · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's amazing how they keep going, and going and going. And how a management team can fly the plane into the side of a mountain and keep their jobs.

    1. Re:why doesn't the board fire the managers? by nizo · · Score: 2, Funny

      The weird thing is they somehow keep reassembling the plane and immediately crashing it again and again.

  13. Re:Who? by legirons · · Score: 2, Funny

    Pizza Hut also used OpenServer.

    Now they're a SUSE shop! :)

    no, they're still a pizza shop

  14. Re:Wait... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wonder where they'd be if the had put half as much effort into selling their products instead of lawyers fees.

    If they put the same amount and quality of effort as they did into their legal arguments?

    Probably same place they are now, in bankruptcy court, but instead of their creditors being Novel and a pipe fund, it'd be all the plaintiffs' owed damages when SCO was ruled liable for their servers exploding.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
  15. Re:Who? by DrXym · · Score: 2, Interesting
    People with large legacy infrastructures who didn't want to pay to have their software converted to Solaris, BSD or Linux. They buy the upgrades so they can run old software on new hardware because in the short term it's cheaper.

    I'm surprised they bothered. If systems are that legacy it would probably be cheaper to virtualize them. More interesting but perhaps legally iffy would be to fund an open source project to emulate the SCO system calls and core libraries. Something like lxrun but for SCO so that apps can be ported and run on any other x86 OS.

  16. All joking aside, what inspired this? by jimicus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have trouble believing Microsoft are pulling the strings here - I'd have thought they'd have realised by now that this was a complete waste of time.

    Unless, of course, their aim isn't to destabilise Linux completely but just give their salesmen a bargaining chip in large negotiations - in which case there may be a return on investment.

    Assuming Microsoft aren't pulling the strings, what on Earth would possess any company to even consider this? Even the tiniest bit of due diligence - so tiny that you don't even read the IT press to get the IT world's view on it - would show that SCO have been doing this for five years without so much as an iota of success and quite a lot of defeat.

  17. Re:Who? by Kozar_The_Malignant · · Score: 2, Funny

    Pizza Hut also used OpenServer.

    Now they're a SUSE shop! :)

    no, they're still a pizza shop

    But only for certain extremely broad definitions of "pizza."

    --
    Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
  18. Care to be specific? by walterbyrd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Is the huge stain splashed on the open source community by PJ and her gang of thugs at Groklaw. Bullying and intimidation of the IT press and individuals was all you ever got from Groklaw... well, that, and a lot of amateur legal advice.

    Please give a specific, verifiable example?