Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

UnXis Group To Acquire SCO

Posted by Soulskill on from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed dept.

Evil-G writes "In an email on Friday, SCO informed its partners that UnXis Inc. was chosen as the successful bidder for SCO's Unix software business on 26 January. The slightly convoluted phrasing is probably due to SCO's current reorganization under Chapter 11. On 16 February, the transaction is to be submitted for approval to the bankruptcy court where SCO's case is pending."

42 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. SCO has a software business? by fish+waffle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I thought they were just patent trolls.

    1. Re:SCO has a software business? by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 2

      They owned linux? Were you under a rock for a decade?

      No, Darl McBride is just posting on /. again.

    2. Re:SCO has a software business? by Insanity+Defense · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's because you are an ignorant cunt. They owned unix and linux you know.

      They claimed that Linux has substantial amounts of Unix in it which gave them "control" of Linux in their fantasy world. The problems with this were threefold. 1/ that they never proved the presence of Unix code in Linux and 2/ They have repeatedly been ruled in court not to own the required copyrights to back up those claims 3/ The moment the claimed code was identified it would begin to be removed. The legal owner of those copyrights says Linux doesn't violate them.

      So no ownership of Unix or of Linux. All they are really trying to sell is the Unixware and Openserver businesses right now. Last time UnXis tried to buy it the bankruptcy judge said no deal, they need to get his agreement. Also Novell claims the right to veto such a sale and last time said they would.

    3. Re:SCO has a software business? by the+linux+geek · · Score: 2

      A few years ago, UnixWare and OpenServer actually had pretty impressive marketshare. SCO's increasing insanity, and total neglect of those products after ~2006, caused almost all of their customers to jump ship. It's sad, really... those weren't bad operating systems at all.

    4. Re:SCO has a software business? by Penguinisto · · Score: 3, Informative

      Slight pedancy... they were copyright trolls. Nothing really to do with patents (if they were squabbling over patents, they might have had half a chance).

      But yeah - they (as sibling pointed out) used to have some halfway decent products. I think it was around the time they sued a couple of their biggest customers (Chrysler and AutoZone) that their other customers began phasing out (with extreme prejudice) UnixWare, OpenLinux/OpenServer, and damned near everything else that SCO owned and/or sold.

      By 2006 or so, about the only folks left giving any money to SCO was Microsoft (by proxy, and directly) and I think Sun Microsystems (licensing SysV bits for Solaris), though I think Sun did that last back in 2004 and pretty much stopped after that.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    5. Re:SCO has a software business? by postbigbang · · Score: 2

      No. Not patent trolling. Microsoft has made those claims; SCO asserted it owned the copyrights behind code in Linux, and other insane theories of ownership.

      Ballmer claimed 140+ patents over what the Linux kernel does... along with GNU utilities, the number could be in the thousands-- and in all probability, a math major's way of holding on to his goose that lays the golden eggs called Windows. In this way, Microsoft is patent trolling.... along with buying certain components of Novell's patent intellectual property-- if they get away with it.

      SCO is likely to get slapped down by the court; it's been done before, specifically with this purchaser. Who even knew it was up for auction?

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    6. Re:SCO has a software business? by Ritchie70 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think you will find that there is still a large installed base of SCO products in the various vertical markets. It's hard to change that sometimes.

      None of that, of course, means that anyone is still paying for support...

      --
      The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
    7. Re:SCO has a software business? by 1s44c · · Score: 2

      I thought they were just patent trolls.

      They sold servers and software for years before becoming patent trolls. They were once an IT company and some of their stuff is still around.

    8. Re:SCO has a software business? by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You know what I find hilarious? The fact that Linux guys as a group are fricking obsessed with getting "the big bad MSFT" and completely missing the real enemy about to seriously hurt them. It reminds me of "Pirates of Silicon Valley" where Jobs was completely obsessed over IBM and Gates quietly snuck in and stomped his ass. It is like the sheep laughing at the old toothless tiger while leaning up against his bestest buddy the BB Wolf.

      Who is the hidden enemy you might ask? :Let me put it this way: Notice anything...funny...about Android? Like the fact that there is not a spot of GPL V3 code to be found? Why do you think that is? I'll tell you, because thanks to "the TiVo trick" GPL V2 is about as worthless as can be. Hell you might as well release it all as BSD, because that is what's gonna happen anyway. That is why RMS had to come up with GPL V3 in the first place, because thanks to the TiVo trick the four freedoms mean squat as long as they stick with GPL V2, and Google hasn't touched a single drop of GPL V3.

      So you might want to be looking closer at who is guarding the henhouse instead of caring about the old grudges. MSFT is the past, sure they'll keep the desktop and office but just like the mainframe was once the center of computing so too will the office PC end up with a niche that frankly doesn't really grow. PCs have gotten "good enough" for the vast majority and people don't just upgrade everytime MSFT does a new OS anymore. They are the past and mobile is the future and if you don't watch it Linux will end up winning the battle but losing the war. After all what good is Linux being everywhere if there is no more freedom than any proprietary OS thanks to the corps simply using GPL V2 and the TiVo trick?

      As for TFA, just let them fricking die already. Hell it isn't even any fun making fun of them anymore, McBride has lost everything and the company is a corpse. It's like going to laugh at your asshole neighbor for old times sake now that he is sleeping in his car by the 7/11. Sure McBride was a douche and the company went from being an actual company with actual products (I kinda liked DR-DOS back in the day myself) to yet another worthless troll,but its over. Now more drama, no more McBride crazy talk, the fat lady is down the street having a sandwich. What's next /. gonna have an article when they sell the office furniture?

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    9. Re:SCO has a software business? by kwark · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Notice anything...funny...about Android? Like the fact that there is not a spot of GPL V3 code to be found? Why do you think that is?"

      Because it's not (any version of) GPL. Except the kernel it runs on (which is GPLv2), it is mostly Apache.:
      "The preferred license for the Android Open Source Project is the Apache Software License, 2.0 ("Apache 2.0"), and the majority of the Android software is licensed with Apache 2.0. While the project will strive to adhere to the preferred license, there may be exceptions which will be handled on a case-by-case basis. For example, the Linux kernel patches are under the GPLv2 license with system exceptions, which can be found on kernel.org. "
      source: http://source.android.com/source/licenses.html

    10. Re:SCO has a software business? by jimicus · · Score: 2

      So no ownership of Unix or of Linux. All they are really trying to sell is the Unixware and Openserver businesses right now. Last time UnXis tried to buy it the bankruptcy judge said no deal, they need to get his agreement. Also Novell claims the right to veto such a sale and last time said they would.

      Can't think why you'd want the Unixware and Openserver business. Unless you were getting it stupidly cheap and were going to use it to convert the few remaining Unixware/OpenServer customers to Linux (and bill them handsomely for the privilege).

    11. Re:SCO has a software business? by jimicus · · Score: 3, Informative

      The rot set in long before then. IIRC this started to blow up circa 2002, and by mid-2003 I was meeting people who'd never even used Unix professionally and had independently reached the conclusion that SCO were doing some very odd things.

      IMV suing your customers is generally considered to be a Very Bad Idea. Suing your customers and then announcing this fact proudly to the press is... well, it's mind-boggling. Seriously, I cannot for the life of me figure out why anyone running a business would authorise a press release which essentially said "We're suing our customers". The only rational explanation is that there was something else - unrelated to SCOs continued business as an OS vendor - that was pushing Darl to do this.

      I generally shy away from conspiracy theories because they almost inevitably end up with some absurdly convoluted idea that includes Elvis still being alive and in cahoots with Dracula - but it's really hard to avoid here.

  2. So all SCO has left is lawsuits? by grapeape · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wow looks like all that is left of SCO are lawsuits, debt and a pending appeal. You have to wonder why in the world anyone would want to buy the business division, considering the SCO name is poison to just about anyone who knows anything about Unix. My guess is they will do anything in their power to distance themselves from the SCO name.

    1. Re:So all SCO has left is lawsuits? by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You have to wonder why in the world anyone would want to buy the business division, considering the SCO name is poison to just about anyone who knows anything about Unix.

      Maybe because they have a 3-letter domain name? Probably their most valuable asset ;-)

    2. Re:So all SCO has left is lawsuits? by petermgreen · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because they do still have customers who want/need support, updates (at least enough to keep it running on new hardware as their old hardware dies) licenses etc. That buisness is clearly worth something. How much is debatable but it's almost certainly not zero.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    3. Re:So all SCO has left is lawsuits? by fucket · · Score: 2

      From your description, it sounds like it could be worth less than zero.

    4. Re:So all SCO has left is lawsuits? by jnelson4765 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm in that situation - we've got a proprietary point of sale system that a lot of our customers run, that was written for SCO OpenServer. To move to Linux would cost $7,000 - $15,000 in license fees for the license transfer, so they're staying on SCO. An SCO OpenServer 6 license is a lot cheaper than the Thoroughbred software stack it's written in.

      It's not a bad system - the problem with SCO was never their technical abilities. I really can't complain about its stability either - that damn things just keep running, and the most we have to do is replace tape drives and fans every once in a blue moon...

      --
      Why can't I mod "-1 Idiot"?
    5. Re:So all SCO has left is lawsuits? by Ritchie70 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I know of a large SCO customer who is running OpenServer 1.6 in a VM rather than pay for upgrading the thousands of systems to a version that can support modern hardware like sat a and USB.

      --
      The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
    6. Re:So all SCO has left is lawsuits? by symbolset · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, they have a netblock. That may be worth more than the rest of the company in two weeks.

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
  3. All of this has happened before... by Mark19960 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And will happen again.

    They tried once before and the judge blew their ship out of the water.
    What makes their chances any better this time?

    1. Re:All of this has happened before... by Z00L00K · · Score: 2

      A different judge - one that can be bribed, but it may only take one that doesn't understand the concept of Open Source.

      Don't forget that cases like these are executed by lawyers and they can be extremely sticky and slippery at the same time if they can sniff out a huge pile of money. They don't need to win the case to get the money - just get paid by the hour. A long case with a "customer" with little sense and deep pockets attracts lawyers like a pile of fresh cow dung attracts flies.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    2. Re:All of this has happened before... by Xtifr · · Score: 2

      A different judge - one that can be bribed, but it may only take one that doesn't understand the concept of Open Source.

      It's not a different judge. The previous UnXis deal was rejected by the same bankruptcy judge in DE that's being asked to look at this one. Furthermore, the reasons for rejecting the deal had (and have) nothing to do with Open Source, and everything to do with standard finances--something a bankruptcy judge generally has a decent grasp on.

      In fact, almost nothing in any of TSCOG's cases (bankruptcy, Novell, IBM, RH, Autozone, etc.) hinges directly on anything to do with an understanding of Open Source. The only exception I can think of is some of IBM's counterclaims involving the GPL.

  4. Service Contracts by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 2

    About the only thing of value would be the service contracts, I think. Certainly no can be interested in SCO "technology" who is not already using it.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  5. Just who is "UnXis Inc."? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Can anybody shed any light on just who "UnXis Inc." actually is? What is going on here?

    1. Re:Just who is "UnXis Inc."? by Enter+the+Shoggoth · · Score: 2

      Apparently you're not allowed to ask those kind of questions here:

      http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1882896&cid=34339448

      --
      Andy Warhol got it right / Everybody gets the limelight
      Andy Warhol got it wrong / Fifteen minutes is too long.
    2. Re:Just who is "UnXis Inc."? by happymellon · · Score: 4, Informative

      Back in 2009 Unxis and SCO seemed to be the same company.

      http://techrights.org/2009/07/14/sco-and-unxis/

      http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090711015440158

      http://www.unxis.ca/
      http://www.unxis.co.uk/
      http://www.unxis.com/

      So I would say it all seems like a scam to avoid having to do anything legal.

  6. UnXis is a shell company owned by SCO? by Aryeh+Goretsky · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hello, Groklaw seems to imply a relationship between the two: http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20090711015440158 Regards, Aryeh Goretsky

    --
    Dexter is a good dog.
    1. Re:UnXis is a shell company owned by SCO? by Insanity+Defense · · Score: 3, Funny

      http://www.peertopatent.org/video/pj/pj.png

    2. Re:UnXis is a shell company owned by SCO? by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 2

      What the link says is a former executive of SCO owns the domain name. And while it would be easy to build some paranoid scenario involving the evil Darl, a more reasonable speculation is that that a former executive with some knowledge of the assets sees some value in them outside of the IP lawsuit industry, which clearly failed for SCO...

      --
      If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    3. Re:UnXis is a shell company owned by SCO? by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That still doesn't make it relevant. SCO's case was garbage, PJ, whether a human being, the IBM legal team or Jesus Fucking Christ, did a considerable amount of analysis, and backed the analysis of experts in Unix, who said that McBride was nothing more than a common thug trying to use what his company did not possess to extort licensing fees from companies using Unix-like operating systems.

      At the end of the day, SCO failed because it had been taken over by dishonest and dishonorable scamsters.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:UnXis is a shell company owned by SCO? by MightyMartian · · Score: 3

      Then don't go there. I haven't visited Groklaw in a helluva long time. But there seem to be a lot of people who somehow think they're being clever by kicking PJ's name and reputation around, and that bothers me. She provided an incredible important purpose, and deserves better than some stupid fucking AC on Slashdot mouthing off.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    5. Re:UnXis is a shell company owned by SCO? by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 2

      t is revelvent because a lot of people think that GL is a front for IBM.

      A lot of people think an invisible man in the sky wants them to kill people, too. In both cases, they're best left to their delusions unless they actually act on their loony ideas, in which case it is incumbent on the rational people of the world to slap them down and get on with our lives.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    6. Re:UnXis is a shell company owned by SCO? by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Be that as it may, the fact is that SCO failed because they did not own what they claimed to own, and Groklaw played a part in that, at least so far as keeping the case out there even as the courts gave McBride and his legal team way too much rope. IBM can be a major asshole, but we were all on the same team at that point, and I'm damned glad that IBM didn't simply do the normal thing a large corporation would do and buy off the smaller company making the claims

      And, as I said, PJ's identity is irrelevant to all of this anyways. The only people who seemed obsessed with it were the crooks at SCO and a few incredibly dishonorable "journalists".

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    7. Re:UnXis is a shell company owned by SCO? by Junta · · Score: 2

      I would say that anyone trying to accurately report the state and actions of SCO can't help but to *seem* paranoid. You have to keep in mind how incredibly insane SCO people have repeatedly been. They charged at *IBM* with no case at all. They played all sorts of games with investors and regulatory agencies to cheat their way out of trouble and keeping as much money as possible. This 'Unxis' being nothing more than some sort of shell game to further misdirect things is not far fetched at all. It's not really paranoia if they really are out to get you.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  7. Hooray! by dexomn · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ding! Dong! The witch is ... Wait what? OH DAMN IT!!!

  8. Re:What is UnXis? by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 3, Funny

    Does anybody know what UnXis is?

    I think UnXis is the plural of Unix.

  9. Re:What is UnXis? by gman003 · · Score: 2

    No, you're thinking of "Unices", or perhaps "Unixen". I have never seen "Unxis" as the plural of "Unix", although it sort of looks like the negation of "axis".

  10. Re:UnXis is a shell company owned by SCO! by redwhine · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think Groklaw got it right... The UnXis URL http://unxis.co.uk/ takes you to a SCO page with the title "unXis - The future of UNIX is here"

  11. Re:What is UnXis? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    That domain is just some guy in North York, ON that does consulting (do a whois and look yourself).

    It's not related to this, so don't call the guy up and give him shit.

    The real domain, unxis.co.uk, as stated above, belongs to SCO since it redirects to SCO.

    The question is, does the guy in North York have a beef with SCO now?

    --
    BMO

  12. Not a good start given the new name by paiute · · Score: 5, Funny

    I read UnXis as "unctuous":

    http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unctuous

    Adjective
    unctuous
    1. Oily or greasy.
    2. Rich, lush, intense, with layers of concentrated, soft, velvety flavor.
    3. Profusely polite, especially unpleasantly so and insincerely earnest.

    --
    If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
  13. Sounds about right by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Informative

    it looks like SCO is trying to split off their still profitable software business from the dead and deader lawsuit business so when the whole thing gets dissolved by bankruptcy their creditors are left holding and empty bag.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  14. I see that all my usual meat is taken by symbolset · · Score: 2

    Normally I would post some information here that's relevant to the current squabble, some stuff that equates to the ultimate decimation of SCO and their trolling ways. But that's a foregone conclusion. Dissolution is waiting for SCO, and the only interesting thing about it is the way they do it.

    But that is settled, so if I want to educate and inform I have to go further afield. One of those ways is to teach folk about Ransom Love.

    You see, Ransom was a Linux geek, fully into the ecosystem. He understood why this would win, though he was ahead of his time by a decade. His company (caldera) made a Linux distro and it was seen for a while as the fusion of commercial VS free. He hit his IPO at the peak of the .com era, and for a time his company was worth billions of dollars. He looked at this and said, "well, if we're worth so much, why don't we buy Unix, which is worth so little today?" He was a true geek and admired the Unix in a way most of those who read this can't. And that was his undoing. He might have done it, but time and market forces blocked him.

    You see, the Unix Way isn't a software product. It's not a bulk of code. It's not a block of copyrights. It's a philosophy. It can't be owned, any more than the Scientific Method can be owned.

    So he bought it, and suffered therefrom. He's an IT geek for the Mormon church now. He'll carry what might-have-been to his dieing day, but he should let it go. He reached for a ring that was not there.

    Today mobile is taking over the IT revolution from desktops. The dominant forces are a derivation of BSD Unix (iOS) and Linux in the form of Android. Ransom was right. He was just too early, and some day we'll grant him his rightful place in the pantheon of tech visionaries. For now he suffers the fate of a local prophet, which is to say a local prophet is always stoned.

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.