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Predicting SCO's Actions Post Bankruptcy
eldavojohn writes "SCO lost last year and began the bankruptcy filings a long time ago but PJ has some speculative bad news on what they retain through the bankruptcy proceedings. SCO proposes to sell a number of assets to an outfit called UnXis, which PJ characterizes this way: 'It starts to hint that this is more a renaming, taking in some new management who seem to have financial expertise, and SCO keeps skipping along as unXis, with the dangerous litigation spun off safely into a litigation troll.' In their filings SCO says they retain 'their litigation and related claims against International Business Machines Corporation, Novell, Inc., AutoZone Corporation, Red Hat and certain Linux users which are not material customers of UnXis (excluding certain large-scale users of Linux servers) that are claimed to have infringed against UNIX copyrights.' So that's still a possibility they could go after anyone who is a 'certain Linux user.' And what's even worse is that they'll retain a patent for running multiple Java applications on a single Java virtual machine. We may not be out of the SCO litigation woods yet."
A wild party. With hookers and fire trucks.
Sig this!
We'll have to nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
Caveat Utilitor
Microsoft Corp. announced today that they were planning on acquiring SCO for $1985.67. "I believe this is a great opportunity for us to diversify our product portfolio", Steve Ballmer said in a press conference.
We'll have to nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
They're like roaches.. They can withstand a nuclear apocalypse..
SCO or whatever they become will keep losing cases. Those who are supporting them are treating it like a high risk investment and hoping it pays off.
They're a parasite with no turnover of any significant amount, you can't keep a business going if the sole source of income is from court cases.
So what does SCO have other than a few patents that may or may not be invalid, the name, and a whole lot of bad press?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
"... with the dangerous litigation spun off safely into a litigation troll."
Don't count on it. The deal with their lawyers for the lawsuits was, a cut of the winnings if they won, a cut of the company if they lost. They lost. The landsharks inherited big chunks of the bloody corpse. Just imagine them trying to keep from turning the company into a perpetual replay of the last couple years. They'd bust a vein with the effort. I say the company will become the lawyers' hammer for every nail worth suing.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
[French_accent] I fart in your general direction.[/French_accent]
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Whatever they do, it will be the most ridiculous, idiotic, and/or moronic and asinine thing possible!
Pretty much nobody here is warped enough to predict it right!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
RIAA attacks consumers, typically middle class or lower individuals who can't afford to fight back.
SCO attacks large corporations. IBM, for example, can't afford not to fight back. IBM has deep pockets, and a very diversified business. If it was known as an easy target, anybody and their cousin would sue it for the money.
Note: I am an IBM employee, but my job doesn't get me anywhere near legal strategy. This is purely my own opinion, and does not represent IBM in any way, shape or form.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
To be honest we've been worrying about SCO for years now, "the sky is falling" worrying, a couple front page /. articles a month kind of worrying, and to date SCO has won basically nothing, and have done very little actual harm excepting that caused by people worrying about and being scared by them enough to do stupid things they didn't need to do. They've run up some legal bills but they were mostly paid by companies that could afford them like IBM and Novell, and those big companies usually have lawyers sitting around spoiling for a fight anyway.
I'm making a resolution to absolutely stop caring about SCO until they actually win something in a courtroom or do ANYTHING which actually proves to be a real and substantive threat. Everyone constantly worrying about them has done more damage than if we had just yawned, and said "move along, nothing to see here".
@de_machina
Ah, SCO the crap corporation that won't die.
I had a girlfriend who worked for them in the 80's, and she said they were a bigger clusterfuck than Borland was.
I know nothing about the company, but I hate it passionately, if only because of its name.
UnXis. How the hell are you supposed to pronounce that? Unzis? Unks-is? Un-Eks-is? Damn them to hell.
Orwell summed it up pretty well: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
1. excessively ingratiating: attempting to charm or convince somebody in an unpleasantly suave, smug, or smooth way
2. oily, fatty, or greasy: resembling or containing oil, fat, or grease
Post-SCO fiasco trial that was a waste of the court system's time and money, I'll go out on a limb here and predict my own actions post-SCO-bankruptcy.
I predict my respect for the legal system will fall several notches on a permanent basis if Darl McBride doesn't do jail time.
it would be a real disservice to allow SCO to drop their obligations/debits to Novell and the other legal agreements they signed, then broke (allegedly)
No. Not allegedly. A federal court judge has ruled that this actually happened. It is not merely an allegation, they really did break the agreements.
A lot of issues and claims have already been resolved in prior cases. A thorough analysis of the risk of future SCO-Spawn-Litigation depends upon the preclusive effect of those cases. In other words, SCO's children don't get to relitigate things that SCO has already litigated (and lost) once.
The instant discussion isn't very informative because it appears to omit a thorough discussion of the effect of SCO's previous defeats on SCO's children's future prospects.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
...on how long they still find some total retard, who is willing to throw money in a defunct company with a clear course towards making it even worse.
Wait for Cramer to advertise them on his show. :P
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
We need to catch them while they sleep, just after dawn, drive a stake through the heart, cut off it's head, surround the body with blessed hosts and sprinkle it with holy water.
Worse thing about Salt Lake City, could never get used to all the damn Mormons^H^H^H^H^H^H^HVampires.
It hasn't interfered with Linux in the least actually. Since the lawsuits have started (2003) Linux's growth has been tremendous especially RedHat. Linux's growth is about the only thing that has kept Novell afloat and IBM is thriving under Linux.
I don't see the interference you are referring to.
Can't IBM, or IBM+Novell+Redhat+maybe Oracle up the bid for the "assets" and then just shut it all down? Not that I'm sure I trust any of these companies with this sort of thing.
JX, a java operating system that does what their patent covers, was in development long before they filed that patent application.
Very well done, sir!
I would tip my hat to you but for two reasons:
1. I refuse to wear a hat unless it's a warm one during winter.(it was 100+ F[38+ C.] here in Oklahoma today, so no hat in sight)
2. Your User Name lists you as a Colonel, and I only ever made it to Corporal...**twice, and still came out as a Private, First Class[PFC]!
So, I hereby salute you, proper-like, Colonel, sir.
I am curious what comes about with their claimed Java patents, but I am personally getting tired of this circus.
Daryl and company reminds me more and more of a regional, severe cockroach infestation every day, just laughing at the exterminators since they have somewhere else to move to/change company names, etc.
This is a prime example of where corporations are not 'real' individuals/people, even though US law treats them as such at other times.
It seems like evidence that corporations have undue influence in politics here. (how much does a congressman or senator cost now days?)
I wonder how this will play out, and what effect it will have on cases like this whole SCO circus in the future.(I imagine it will not affect this specific case)
Sorry for the ranting, but an intelligent discussion seems to be a rare thing on /. anymore, so I had to try!
**US Army claimed I did/could not respect Authority; I claimed that respect is earned, and thus could not respect assholes and idiots...rank be-damned. They 'won' the argument, but I came out having learned a lot.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Yeah, but you're overlooking Daryl's 'golden parachute' in your 'EVERYTHING!'
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Pretty much nobody here is warped enough to predict it right!
Your UID precludes me from asking if you are new here, but seriously?
Mhuwahahahahahahahahhah!
I can ask this:
Have you visited here lately...actually reading the comments?
Funny, man....very funny!
BTW, I agree with you on the rest of your comment, but that one sentence just jumped out at me.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Kim Jong-il will 'love you long time, GI!'
Time to scrub my brain with bleach, now...
Karma be-damned, this could not be passed over!(good job)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I have to say even though I LOATH the man and SCO I have to be impressed with their legal jujitsu. If I ever want to stretch a case out SO long that rocks erode first I KNOW who I'll be contacting! The threat alone that they will pursue a water dripping torture like gorilla jungle warfare legal strategy should be enough to force whomever to settle (except IBM of course! The Nazgul are patient)
Here's the part that surprised me in all this... "Most of the current SCO staff, including developers, support personnel, sales and marketing are expected to join unXis."
They still have developers? And marketing staff? Beyond the guy writing the BS on their website?
SCO was a respectable Unix company once, "first UNIX company" according to Eric Raymond. They also were Caldera which may have never been the biggest player in Linux distros but was certainly an interesting one and not a bad Desktop environment for the time. I can't find any evidence of this on Google today but I'm sure I remember that it was actually Caldera not RedHat that wrote the first version of RPM. They did this not for themselves but under contract for RedHat thus RedHat owned it and RedHat got their name on it.
Is there actually something of this still alive? With SCO containing the distilled evil could there actually be something good to come from unXis? It's hard to believe but it's an interesting idea. Kind of like a glimpse into an alternate reality where the combined Caldera/SCO remained a Unix/Linux company rather than become what it is.
On another note, aren't corporate executives legally bound to do what is in the interest of shareholders? Hasn't SCO pretty much been gutted for it's executives personal project of Linux FUD? Can the shareholders sue the executives? It does seem like a form of theft. My mother has SCO stock. She wanted stock in a Linux company back when the internet boom was tapering off and some people were looking to Linux companies for the next boom. I told her to buy RedHat when they first come out. She waited and it went up w/out her. She asked if there was another, I told her to buy Mandrake but don't keep it long as it is over-hyped and would shoot up then down. She passed on it and it did exactly that. Then one day out of the blue she informed me she just bought Caldera stock. WTF!?! She said she read it was really big in Asia or something like that. Now she has a stock shaped piece of toilet paper.
/*stolen SCO code */
/* end of stolen code */
int Darl;
int douchebag;
Darl=douchebag;
Bury it in the kernel and expose it in court for a good laugh
"You can't really dust for vomit" --Nigel Tufnel
It looks like a unxis.com is currently one of those "this domain might be for sale" pages. Minimum bid is $60, don't know what it would take to get them to actually sell if someone wants to get it before SCO does!
One of the outcomes of the Novell Vs SCO case was that the SCO group were not permitted to pursue action against Redhat and the SCO Vs Redhat case was dropped.
The truth is and the outcome of the trial was : SCO leased UNIX from Novell under a license and SCO thought that they had bought it outright or thought that they could get away with stealing it by claiming that they owned it just by buying a license.
Even if SCO did own UNIX (Which they don't) There is no UNIX code in Linux and it's extremely likely that Linus has or can prove that without a shadow of a doubt. So spreading FUD like saying "SCO's filling for bankruptcy and then re branding, we may not be out of the SCO litigation woods yet." Makes absolutely no sense.
Linux has NOTHING to fear from SCO, their staff and lawyers are morons and sleeping dogs should be left to lie.
This story is obsurd.
So what does SCO have other than a few patents that may or may not be invalid, the name, and a whole lot of bad press?
Their thin and questionable patent portfolio is probably a diversion tactic. The takeover of its legitimate operations by the shell corporation unXis is, as PJ concludes, a crass attempt to shelter assets from losses related to litigation, the way a deadbeat tries to avoid child support by selling all his assets into a corporation in the Cayman Islands. It leaves SCO itself to be the little rubber room in which Darl can bounce around his delusional claims. Of course, the devil is in the details, and though they would be two corporate entities they'd be involved in each others affairs like dirty shirts...meaning that the smaller or weaker customers of unXis could be offered for sacrifice before the altar of Darl, in return for being isolated from IBM and Novel's countersuits.
One thing PJ doesn't highlight but sounds "interesting" to me is that significant investment through unXis will be directed toward the development of a "next generation UNIX platform". This bears some attention as far as interaction with SCO goes as well. In weird and wacky SCO-land they believe Linux is a derivative of their own "one true UNIX". Their wild Dr. Evil plan could involve the development of a Linux-based distribution. unXis would provide "enhancements" to their own distribution including DRM and activation, perhaps through technology licensed from Microsoft (who, based on their own filed patents, are at the forefront of crippleware technology). Needless to say, they'd provide no source code at all and would break Linux compatability or retain it where they feel it makes strategic sense in the marketing dept. This would be an unXis product, but the SCO litigation machine would continue to exist to continue the litigation circus claiming that since the "UNIX IP" belongs to unXis (because SCO sold it to them) and that Linux stole important parts of UNIX, that Linux is unXis' to steal back, so the GPL be damned. Though the courts have ruled that UNIX wasn't SCOs to sell, that is under appeal and being delusional, they are optimistic the decision will be reversed on appeal and some day decades from now they'll be awarded billions from IBM that they can invest in the legal destruction of Linux and perhaps the GPL itself.
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