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Novell Wins Against SCO Again

Posted by Unknown on from the case-finally-closed dept.

duh P3rf3ss3r writes "The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has just affirmed the District Court ruling in SCO v Novell (PDF) in its entirety. The decision is quite a good read and lays out the reasons why the court has rejected, in toto, SCO's attempt to re-argue the case before the Court of Appeals. Is this the last gasp for SCO or will they try to appeal this to the Supreme Court? The betting lines open at 11..." Realistically this is the end of the line for the case.

152 comments

  1. its like star wars.... by RyanCheeseman · · Score: 0

    it never ends...

    1. Re:its like star wars.... by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

      I'm just surprised that there was enough of a horse's corpse left to beat up this time.

      Cripes - even McBride is pretty much toast these days.

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    2. Re:its like star wars.... by spazdor · · Score: 1

      Lucky lawyers.

      --
      DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
    3. Re:its like star wars.... by sortius_nod · · Score: 1

      I have a sneaking suspicion that one dead horse has already decomposed and they're on to a new one!

    4. Re:its like star wars.... by Low+Ranked+Craig · · Score: 1

      It ended. In 1983. The new shit is shit and doesn't count.

      --
      I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
    5. Re:its like star wars.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Zombie.

  2. Not Dead Yet? by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Seriously, how does SCO _still_ have any money left to pursue legal costs??

    1. Re:Not Dead Yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The real question is: does the big money company that backed SCO's legal costs want to waste some more on this...

    2. Re:Not Dead Yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
      Seriously, how does SCO _still_ have any money left to pursue legal costs?

      Microsoft.

    3. Re:Not Dead Yet? by bmo · · Score: 3, Informative

      BS&F signed a contract saying they'd help pursue the case until the heat death of the universe.

      Because Ralphie had them bamboozled at the beginning citing "Sagans" of dollars if they win.

      No scam without a greedy mark.

      --
      BMO

    4. Re:Not Dead Yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was actually gonna ask the same question... This story relates to two companies that I thought were long dead to be honest...

    5. Re:Not Dead Yet? by SnarfQuest · · Score: 0

      Because Johnny Carson pays their gas bills.

      Look for larry darryl and darryl (mcbride?)
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newhart

      --
      Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
    6. Re:Not Dead Yet? by nyet · · Score: 5, Informative

      Answer: BS&F are still hoping for brazillions back, even though SCOG is broke.

      A better question is, where did all the money go anyway? Novell never got paid the money that SCOG owed them.

      Answer: Delaware bankruptcy court (specifically Judge Gross in this case) is utterly corrupt and broken. They siphon money away from creditors and towards lawyers, making sure that ALL creditors get stiffed, until there is no money left.

      Why do you think incorporating in Delaware is so popular?

    7. Re:Not Dead Yet? by shentino · · Score: 1

      More importantly, if they do, why is it being wasted on lawyers instead of being paid out to creditors?

      Particularly Novell which actually has a constructive trust on a large chunk of that money, which means that it actually belongs to Novell and is merely in SCO's custody.

      Which means that SCO had no legal right to spend it in the first place and is therefore liable for tortious conversion.

      Novell might consider *personally* suing whoever at SCO authorized the payments without first coughing up Novell's funds.

      I'm also curious if the bankruptcy trustee has been negligent in its fiduciary duty to the creditors by allowing the bankruptcy estate to be diminished.

    8. Re:Not Dead Yet? by shentino · · Score: 1

      Since Novell had the benefit of a constructive trust, would somebody at SCO be personally liable for tortious conversion?

    9. Re:Not Dead Yet? by Eggplant62 · · Score: 1

      They do not. They've sold off all assets. All that's left is a shell.

      Personally, since helping to cover the case when it was SCO v Daimler-Chrysler in the Oakland County, MI District Court, I'm happy to see that it's played out to this end. We've known for years that SCO hasn't had a case since day one, and now this is the final nail in the coffin.

    10. Re:Not Dead Yet? by shentino · · Score: 2

      Which also means massive clawback from breach of contract if BS&F backs out.

      They quit and they have to refund their legal fees.

    11. Re:Not Dead Yet? by Drishmung · · Score: 1
      By 1842, the failure of the Chancery courts, wherein the substance of the litigants was entirely consumed by the legal system was recognized, and the system began to be reformed. The situation was dramatized by Charles Dickens in "Bleak House"

      Is it not a good thing that such abuses have been eliminated in these modern times?

      --
      Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
    12. Re:Not Dead Yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't think a certain big company worth billions of dollars and that's been butthurt about Linux since the mid-90s is funding SCO?

    13. Re:Not Dead Yet? by shentino · · Score: 1

      And why are they still paying their legal bills instead of coughing up Novell's constructive trust?

      That money doesn't even belong to SCO to begin with, so they (and possibly the legal firm they are paying) would be hard pressed to justify it.

    14. Re:Not Dead Yet? by RobbieThe1st · · Score: 1

      Just to waste it so Novell can't get it back?

    15. Re:Not Dead Yet? by shentino · · Score: 1

      At this point I would put it on simple greed. The lawyers want to hog the kitty for themselves and are doing everything they can to milk SCO dry just to make sure NOBODY else gets anything, since a dollar going into a creditor's pocket is a dollar not going into theirs.

      They probably know they haven't a snowball's chance in hell of winning, but since they made a deal to keep the case alive they may as well keep charging legal fees while they are at it.

      Of course, considering that Microsoft was caught backdoor funding the whole thing, a bit of spite against Linux might not be out of place here either.

      Deliberately violating Novell's constructive trust could however be seen as tortious conversion, and any bigwigs knowingly allowing it to happen may well be personally negligent in not stopping it, if not outright deliberately letting it fly.

      If I were Novell I would start suing SCO's financial bosses individually. Maybe even the bankruptcy trustee as well if he was negligent in his duties as guardian of the bankruptcy estate.

    16. Re:Not Dead Yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I would answer this, but I have no idea what "tortious conversion" is.

    17. Re:Not Dead Yet? by shentino · · Score: 3, Informative

      Conversion is the tort of wrongfully disposing of someone else's property.

      For example. If you loan someone your car, and they sell it, they have converted your car.

      It's the civil version of embezzling.

    18. Re:Not Dead Yet? by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 1

      I would be curious to see what connections the SCO lawyers have. I can't help feel there was some embezlment going on. Basically carrying on a court case, that has no chance of winning, to channel a corporation's money into some black hole.

      How come the stock holders didnt vote the CEO out of power?

      What are we all missing? I would love to have some investigation performed into all this to identify the real crooks and what the real crime was.

      --
      Jumpstart the tartan drive.
    19. Re:Not Dead Yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is what happens when corporations are recognized as people. If CEO's and corporate officers had more liability, it wouldn't just be SCO in the coffin. It would be golden parachutes down the toilet.

      Think about it, SCO loses - bye bye. So what? Darl was very well compensated by ruining the company for the benefit of Microsoft. It is not even gambling, because he had nothing to lose. He even tried to purchase the assets. If he got the Bernie Madoff treatment, corporations might get the hint.

      They execute people for this kind of thing in China.

    20. Re:Not Dead Yet? by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No matter how you look at it, SCO was basically reconfigured by McBride and Co. into a scam. At first it was simply trying to extort IBM into paying it off in a now all-too-common form of IP extortion. When it became clear that IBM had no interest in undermining its investment in Linux, it basically evolved into a pump and dump. SCO and its allies took the opportunity to use disgusting little fuckers like Daniel Lyons to give their ludicrous claims weight. Of course, greedy morons gathered from near and far to hand SCO money because it was going to be getting all these licensing fees from every copy of Linux out there. Once that plan flopped spectacularly and SCO's underlying claims finally deep-sixed completely, it then transformed into a lawyer's scam.

      The whole thing leaves me very disgusted with the civil law system. That a company who could not even produce any clear evidence of IP theft or infringement was allowed to just keep reinventing its case over and over for years, to make ever more shrill and absurd claims, is beyond me. Why the system isn't built so that if you don't have the goddamned evidence clear as a bell ready to submit when papers are field, you're not even allowed through the door, is beyond me. This is truly a system built simply to make lawyers lots of money.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    21. Re:Not Dead Yet? by symbolset · · Score: 1

      This made us some quarter of an hour late, and when we came to Westminster Hall we found that the day's business was begun. Worse than that, we found such an unusual crowd in the Court of Chancery that it was full to the door, and we could neither see nor hear what was passing within. It appeared to be something droll, for occasionally there was a laugh and a cry of "Silence!" It appeared to be something interesting, for every one was pushing and striving to get nearer. It appeared to be something that made the professional gentlemen very merry, for there were several young counsellors in wigs and whiskers on the outside of the crowd, and when one of them told the others about it, they put their hands in their pockets, and quite doubled themselves up with laughter, and went stamping about the pavement of the Hall.

      We asked a gentleman by us if he knew what cause was on. He told us Jarndyce and Jarndyce. We asked him if he knew what was doing in it. He said really, no he did not, nobody ever did, but as well as he could make out, it was over. Over for the day? we asked him. No, he said, over for good.

      Over for good!

      When we heard this unaccountable answer, we looked at one another quite lost in amazement. Could it be possible that the will had set things right at last and that Richard and Ada were going to be rich? It seemed too good to be true. Alas it was!

      Our suspense was short, for a break-up soon took place in the crowd, and the people came streaming out looking flushed and hot and bringing a quantity of bad air with them. Still they were all exceedingly amused and were more like people coming out from a farce or a juggler than from a court of justice. We stood aside, watching for any countenance we knew, and presently great bundles of paper began to be carried out—bundles in bags, bundles too large to be got into any bags, immense masses of papers of all shapes and no shapes, which the bearers staggered under, and threw down for the time being, anyhow, on the Hall pavement, while they went back to bring out more. Even these clerks were laughing. We glanced at the papers, and seeing Jarndyce and Jarndyce everywhere, asked an official-looking person who was standing in the midst of them whether the cause was over. Yes, he said, it was all up with it at last, and burst out laughing too....

      "Pray what has been done to-day?" asked Allan.

      "I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Kenge with excessive urbanity.

      "What has been done to-day?"

      "What has been done," repeated Mr. Kenge. "Quite so. Yes. Why, not much has been done; not much. We have been checked—brought up suddenly, I would say—upon the—shall I term it threshold?"

      "Is this will considered a genuine document, sir?" said Allan. "Will you tell us that?"

      "Most certainly, if I could," said Mr. Kenge; "but we have not gone into that, we have not gone into that."

      "We have not gone into that," repeated Mr. Vholes as if his low inward voice were an echo.

      "You are to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt," observed Mr. Kenge, using his silver trowel persuasively and smoothingly, "that this has been a great cause, that this has been a protracted cause, that this has been a complex cause. Jarndyce and Jarndyce has been termed, not inaptly, a monument of Chancery practice."

      "And patience has sat upon it a long time," said Allan. "Mr. Kenge," said Allan, appearing enlightened all in a moment. "Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand that the whole estate is found to have been absorbed in costs?"

      "Hem! I believe so," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes, what do YOU say?"

      "I believe so," said Mr. Vholes.

      "And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?"

      "Probably," returned Mr. Kenge. "Mr. Vholes?"

      "Probably," said Mr. Vholes.

      - Bleak House, Charles Dickens

      --
      Help stamp out iliturcy.
    22. Re:Not Dead Yet? by julesh · · Score: 1

      Why the system isn't built so that if you don't have the goddamned evidence clear as a bell ready to submit when papers are field, you're not even allowed through the door, is beyond me.

      That was always the intention. The problem is that SCO and their victims got caught up arguing about whether or not the court should open the door, and spent their millions litigating over that issue. The entire case was decided in requests for summary judgment, which is basically the courts way of deciding whether or not to take the case seriously. The problem is that SCO produced so much paperwork that looked like it might be evidence, their victims had to spend a fortune debunking it. It's hard for an outsider like a judge to just look at the evidence presented and determine its validity, so there have to be arguments over it, which is what happened. I honestly don't know how this could have been handled better.

    23. Re:Not Dead Yet? by sumdumass · · Score: 2

      Sort of. Conversion generally doesn't pertain to the complete loss of the item or privilege, it's more of the loss of control over it.

      A better example might be instead of someone selling the car they borrowed from the op, they rent it to someone else after the op said you could only drive it to and from the hospital to visit your sick mom.

      Embezzlement might be a better way of describing it. Suppose you owned a business and I managed it. But instead of making nightly deposits, I saved them all and made 1 weekly deposit. You decide to do a mid week inspection to find none of the money was on site and after drilling me for the whereabouts, you find that I was depositing it into my bank account in order to collect interest on it before it was deposited into your bank account. You further find that I withdrew part of the quarterly budget and invested it into a short term CD, again to collect the interest for myself.

      This is conversion, I used something of yours without your permission but you didn't lose anything you already had as the money was always deposited into the right accounts by the times it was supposed to be deposited. Another example along the same lines of embezzlement, suppose I have a company car that i am supposed to drive to and from work and use while working and when entertaining clients. But I use the car for personal things like taking the rug rats to soccer and going to my underwater basket weaving classes before hitting the clubs on the way home. That is conversion to and the company doesn't lose out on anything (other them maybe mileage on the car).

    24. Re:Not Dead Yet? by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      There's got to be some one to require that clear evidence be provided. SCO was literally throwing out thousands of pages of code and pointing at the stack and saying "There's the evidence." The judge should have the power to say "Please show clear passages showing infringement by the next hearing or your case will be thrown out."

      A judge doesn't have to know anything about programming to know that he's witnessing a snow job. Do you think, for instance, in a plagiarism trial that a judge even during a preliminary hearing would accept the plaintiff pointing to a stack of novels and saying "There's your infringement!" No, he'd want to see specific passages between the plaintiff's work and the defendant's that showed where text had been lifted.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    25. Re:Not Dead Yet? by jonadab · · Score: 2

      > The whole thing leaves me very disgusted with the civil law system.

      Civil law isn't the problem. Common law is the problem. It doesn't matter what the law says. The lawyers can argue forever, dredging up and misapplying the history of every even marginally similar court case in the history of the Western world. If one judge or jury ever caves in to a sob story and steps away from what the law clearly intends, every case from then until the end of time can cite it as a legal precedent.

      The intent of a common law system is to avoid having to endlessly recursively define things that everyone bloody well understands just fine -- if the law has always been understood a certain way, as having a certain intent, then lawyers aren't supposed to be able to fiddle around with semantic games and make loopholes out of thin air. In principle, this makes sense. In practice, however, the cure is worse than the disease. Each injustice becomes a stepping stone for lawyers to stand on while building further injustice.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
    26. Re:Not Dead Yet? by jd · · Score: 1

      I imagine gifts can be written off for tax purposes, so said Big Name Company might actually be making a profit by giving the money to SCO.

      --
      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)
    27. Re:Not Dead Yet? by rgviza · · Score: 1

      Well the "system" is designed _by lawyers_.

      Getting congress (or any legislative body, federal or state) to change it would be just about as likely as getting congress to impose term limits.

      Ain't gonna happen because they are screwing themselves if they do it. Never mind what's "right" for the country and it's legal system... they are all far too greedy to do what's right. Law is big business and so is elected office. Our entire government is designed in such a way that it makes as much money as possible for those in the legal and elected government business, and that's what it is exactly, a business.

      The country and states are run by lawyers so they run them and design laws in a way that serve their own best interests. I'm actually surprised that this is news to anyone. "Right", "Fair" and "Just" are concepts they don't care to implement in the law because they don't make any money by doing things the simplest and fair way.

      It's quite possible for someone that's done nothing wrong and hurt no one to be bankrupted by the courts and lawyers. That's pretty fucked up and it happens every day.

      --
      Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
    28. Re:Not Dead Yet? by julesh · · Score: 1

      The judge should have the power to say "Please show clear passages showing infringement by the next hearing or your case will be thrown out."

      I may be remembering a different case, but I thought this is exactly what did happen in the end. The problem is that the judge is then bound to listen to them argue about whether or not the claims are clear enough, and that argument descended into the ridiculous mess we remember...

      Do you think, for instance, in a plagiarism trial that a judge even during a preliminary hearing would accept the plaintiff pointing to a stack of novels and saying "There's your infringement!" No, he'd want to see specific passages between the plaintiff's work and the defendant's that showed where text had been lifted.

      Yes. Of course it got a little trickier in SCO's case, because SCO did (in the end) identify sections of code that they thought were infringing. It turned out that the allegations were invalid (in many cases the code was part of the permissively-licensed sources of early Unixes -- the Ritchie/Thompson memory allocator is the original example; in others it was code that was effectively dictated by the POSIX standard -- errno.h is the classic example here), but that generated yet more argument.

    29. Re:Not Dead Yet? by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      In the end SCO did, but initially basically what they provided were huge data dumps. Initially they did not make clear where the alleged infringements were. It was very much a case of pointing to a stack of books and claiming "there's the infringement." My point is that I don't think they should even be allowed into a courtroom until they provide clear evidence, and not just vast claims that the court then has to oversee. The court should never have even heard this case, so far as I can see.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  3. The horror... by tripleevenfall · · Score: 1

    Does SCO even exist now? Do they have an office or any employees? Or is SCO the same as it ever was, a legal instrument for patent trolling?

    I guess they were fairly innovative in their field (patent trolling), you can give them that much. Even evil can be exquisite.

    The genius of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.

    1. Re:The horror... by the+linux+geek · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Back in the day, they (and their predecessor companies) made good products. Caldera OpenLinux was one of the most user-friendly Linux distributions of the day, and the two flavors of SCO UNIX had a large customer base. There are still a fair number SCO UNIX customers left, but I would assume they're seriously evaluating their migration options.

      That side of the business is now owned by an entity called Unxis, and I would guess the remainder of SCO itself is mainly to continue this lawsuit.

    2. Re:The horror... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      www.sco.com = the worst corp web site I've seen easily this week, possibly this month or last year.

    3. Re:The horror... by Plombo · · Score: 1

      You mean copyright trolling, not patent trolling.

    4. Re:The horror... by BigDaveyL · · Score: 1

      It's so 1995

    5. Re:The horror... by fermion · · Score: 1
      The SCO Group, AFAIK, is not Santa Cruz Operation(SCO). SCO did provide some products many years ago, but when I last looked at them 25 years ago they could not make a competitive case in the small bussiness arena competing against MS and Apple.The pricing was to compete against IBM, not against the new agile model based on redundant cheap hardware. Like MS now, they were a primary player, but not flexible enough to respond to new competition.

      Never did anything with Caldera. It is clear that they SCO group, like the record labels, are trying to milk a relatively short term business model for as long as they can.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    6. Re:The horror... by RenderSeven · · Score: 2

      If you navigate to the 'press releases' section of their web site, its 404'd. That cant be a bad thing...

    7. Re:The horror... by Teancum · · Score: 1

      I knew a couple of SCO developers in Utah County, Utah (yeah, the state is actually named after the county, to show how weird this universe can really get) where there was an honest attempt to make a legitimate business. There certainly were some pretty interesting products developed and they had a reasonable number of developers and engineers considering the markets they were pushing for.

      And then came Microsoft and the people who got greedy within the company, where the rest as they say is history. It was when the developers were jumping ship early on that you knew the company was in trouble.

      This was even after the "Santa Cruz Operation" buy-out. I'm just glad that I never got hired by them.

    8. Re:The horror... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The SCO Group, AFAIK, is not Santa Cruz Operation(SCO).

      They're not in almost precisely the same sense that AT&T is not AT&T Corporation -- different people wound up with the name rights and the software rights, the company was considered gone, but the undead pieces possessed their new owners and and made them merge/buy each other until the unholy entity was mostly reconstituted.

      The only difference is AT&T was evil to begin with, while SCO only turned evil through this corporate necromancy.

    9. Re:The horror... by Eggplant62 · · Score: 1

      Patents were never an issue in this case. SCO never held any that were relevant to the case. No, it's been about copyrights and who has the keys to the castle that would open up the litigation win treasure chest. Unfortunately for them, SCO has gasped its last.

    10. Re:The horror... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was what, 1999 when you could get a Caldera LiveCD? I've got a phone that old, but man you should see the looks people give when I use it.

      Follow the devs, follow the engineers, don't follow the corporate nameplates. If they're not paying research and development salaries, then they're not a tech company no matter what go-faster stripes you paint on them.

    11. Re:The horror... by Low+Ranked+Craig · · Score: 1

      I have to disagree. In the mid 80s to mid 90s the case for UNIX, particularly SCO UNIX was particularly strong, and we typically 50% or less that the cost of a Novell or NT based network, especially if using dumb terminals. The problem was all the people who knew DOS couldn't figure out UNIX and would choose Novell or later, NT by default, even though it cost twice as much and ran half as fast and was half as reliable.

      --
      I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
    12. Re:The horror... by salesgeek · · Score: 2

      Facts: Caldera purchased SCO, Inc. Life was good. Then investor Ralph Yarro pushed Caldera into a radical direction in 2002. First, most of SCO was spun off as Tarantella. Second, SCO was renamed the SCO Group and began trying to extort license revenue out of companies that used Linux.

      It was bizarre. A near 100% reversal of direction. To date, no one, and I mean no one, from Ransom Love (former Caldera CEO) to Darl McBride (CEO pushed in by Yarro who displaced Love) can explain what happened. Up unitl 2002, Caldera had fought tooth and nail to get Linux into the enterprise (that is what their distribution was) and suddenly did an about face and started attacking Linux.

      At this point, I'd love to hear the story of what cause the change in 2002.

      --
      -- $G
    13. Re:The horror... by poetmatt · · Score: 1

      SCO group (AKA SCO). So, same group in it's entirety.

      Just a small clarification.

    14. Re:The horror... by portforward · · Score: 1

      I knew a couple of SCO developers in Utah County, Utah (yeah, the state is actually named after the county, to show how weird this universe can really get)

      You mean, kind of like New York (City) located in New York (County) located in New York (State)?

      I was going to get snarky but then I saw your name and thought, oh it's ok. Although I didn't grow up in Utah, and don't live there now, I did go to school and got married in Utah County so I'm a little protective. (Plus I have to teach some teenagers early tomorrow morning, so I should be behaving anyway. : )

    15. Re:The horror... by EdIII · · Score: 2

      Even evil can be exquisite.

      Somehow that reminds me of......

      Dr. Evil: The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.

      I guess it is just your wording.

    16. Re:The horror... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The SCO Group (Formerly Caldera) is not The Santa Cruz Operation (which became Tarentella and was bought by Sun), even though both have used SCO for short.

    17. Re:The horror... by Teancum · · Score: 1

      In fairness to the people of Utah, Congress didn't accept the #1 choice for the state name (Deseret) and the translation of the word "Utah" can mean "Mountain of God", which is something that most people of Utah really don't mind and was generally considered acceptable at the time the name was chosen. The name for Utah County (or Utah Valley) was selected much earlier and before the name of the state/territory was decided upon. So there was a delegation of elected representatives from Utah County in the Deseret territorial legislature.

      This is just a minor bit of trivia that I guess in the long run doesn't really matter. It is amazing though to see intellectual property law being decided in the federal judicial district of Utah which may have national significance.

    18. Re:The horror... by mu51c10rd · · Score: 2

      I worked at Caldera when the buyout occured. There was a complete shift of focus away from the OpenLinux line. I gladly left a few months after the purchase, but I do recall in the immediate aftermath, many of the SCO eployees came in and many of the developers/staff from Caldera leaving. Ransom Love was respected and created a great company (OpenLinux bunlded in Grub, Webmin, and a graphical installer before the other major distros at the time), but that buyout of SCO was a fiasco.

  4. It's me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've been giving them $5 a week.

    Look, I'm sorry, but it's the best entertainment available. :(

    1. Re:It's me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I blame the Tea Party. I hear they never forgot to pay their $699 license fees.

    2. Re:It's me. by Nimey · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Oh, those cock smoking teabaggers.

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    3. Re:It's me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sadly, the entertainment value here is accurate!

      I only gave a $1 a month.

    4. Re:It's me. by Nimey · · Score: 1

      Some idiots weren't around for the old SCO $699 fee troll, I see.

      "Don't forget to pay your $699 license fee, you cock-smoking teabaggers!"

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
  5. Best quote of the article by Meshach · · Score: 5, Funny

    Over SCO’s objection, the district court allowed Novell to show the jury a slide containing a quote from a BusinessWeek article referring to SCO as “The Most Hated Company in Tech.” (R. Vol. VIII at 2815; R. Vol. XIV at 5091).

    From the PDF, Page 11

    --
    "Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
    Aldous Huxley
    1. Re:Best quote of the article by gstrickler · · Score: 2

      And it was allowed only because SCO's "expert witness" included damages from after the initial ruling in Novell's favor. Had the expert properly stopped his estimate as of the date of the initial ruling, Novell would have had no grounds to introduce this quote to contradict the expert testimony. So because of SCO's own mistake, we now have evidence in the trial record that SCO is "The Most Hated Company in Tech.". Classic.

      --
      make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
    2. Re:Best quote of the article by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      Also it counters SCO's claim that because Novel claimed SCO didn't own Unix, SCO's reputation was damaged. The article as well other sources noted by the court confirmed that SCO's low standing the tech world had sunk more because of the hated Linux licensing program.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    3. Re:Best quote of the article by gstrickler · · Score: 1

      Yes, but since the ruling is that SCO never owned the copyrights, Novell did, SCO's claim was factual and therefore, not libelous. Therefore, this quote was irrelevant outside of countering SCO's expert witness.

      --
      make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
    4. Re:Best quote of the article by residieu · · Score: 1

      No, at the trial the ownership of the copyrights was still in question. The Judge had previously ruled in Novell's favor, but it had been reversed on appeal. SCO didn't want that previous ruling mentioned, but Novell was allowed after SCO claimed slander damages from after that ruling. Even if it was overruled, Novell couldn't be claimed to be maliciously slandering SCO if they had good reason to believe what they said was true.

      The "Most Hated Company" bit was just to further cut at the damages. Novell's claims weren't the only thing that lost SCO money, their own actions (in suing their former customers) hurt them badly as well.

    5. Re:Best quote of the article by UnknowingFool · · Score: 1

      SCO objected to their article being mentioned because they claimed it might prejudice the jury; however, they opened that door when they claimed that it was only due to Novell's actions that their reputation was damaged and business was lost. Novell was able to show otherwise.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    6. Re:Best quote of the article by jd · · Score: 1

      As far as I can tell from the document, that one slide is the only thing SCO had anything close to a reasonable objection to. I'm forced to agree with SCO that it was hearsay (although I'd argue that it's also probably entirely accurate), although as grstrickler notes it was only in the case because of mis-steps by SCO over the objections of the trial judge. The appeal claimed that it probably had no effect. I don't like that kind of reasoning because each piece of evidence can't really be considered independently. There are bound to be interactions in people's minds between pieces of evidence. As such, the direct impact could be immaterial in some cases. Given the nature of this case, I'd have to say that interactions between pieces of evidence were likely more important than any piece in isolation.

      However, there's a difference between what I like and what the law likes. Those steeped in the law concluded that the evidence was lawful. That, ultimately, is the viewpoint that matters, not mine. 4-digit UID notwithstanding.

      If I'd been in the judges' shoes, would I have decided differently? Hard to say what I'd be thinking if I were a law geek rather than a tech geek. I'm inclined to think I'd have come up with a more rigorous reason than the judges did, but would not have come to a different conclusion. That, after all, is where my concern lies - I don't think the reasoning behind the ruling on that evidence was as strong as I would have liked. The ruling itself I had no problems with.

      --
      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)
  6. "Realistically"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    After years of this nonsense? Long after 99.99% of people could see that it was nonsense, including the courts? Since when have "realistic" evaluations of the legal case ever mattered to SCO's legal efforts? I expect it to go to the Supreme Court, and after that to various international courts. And maybe after that the interplanetary court.

    The answer to "Will they try to appeal this to the Supreme Court?" can be found in the answer to the question: "What strategy will net the SCO lawyers the most money?"

    1. Re:"Realistically"? by v1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The SCOTUS doesn't have to hear your case, they only take on cases with merit. Even if they do request this case to be heard, it has zero chance of actually happening. So they're done now. At least in the courtroom.

      If anyone has them, I'd love to see some actual statistics of how many cases are presented and how many are heard, giving a percentage. (on the average, over the last few years, or even to see how the numbers change over the years) I bet they have a fairly low percentage of cases heard. (10%?)

      --
      I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    2. Re:"Realistically"? by rkfig · · Score: 4, Informative

      According to supremecourt.gov: "The Court receives approximately 10,000 petitions for a writ of certiorari each year. The Court grants and hears oral argument in about 75-80 cases." So, roughly, just shy of 1%

    3. Re:"Realistically"? by Teancum · · Score: 1

      The only reason why the Supremes would hear this case is to not only nail the coffin together for SCO, but to hammer home to the entire computer industry to never pull a stunt like this again and to basically do something ugly to the lawyers who put this case together in the first place and possibly go after the major shareholders and financiers of this whole endeavor and tell Novell "anything you wish will be granted".

      Since Novell isn't really asking for much here other than purely money and a few legal trinkets, I don't see it getting to that level. Regardless, this is still going to be a precedent setting case on a number of levels, and it did solidify the legitimacy of the GPL in a number of ways where the legality of the GPL is no longer really in question. I call that a win for the good guys.

    4. Re:"Realistically"? by rjh · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is pretty close, but not quite accurate. SCOTUS takes cases principally according to:

      1. Issues of original jurisdiction (cases involving diplomats or ambassadors, or in which a state is a party). For these cases, SCOTUS is allowed, but not required, to be the trial court. In practice, only cases involving two states get this expedited original-jurisdiction treatment: everything else gets to go through normal federal channels.
      2. Statutes which expressly state they may be only heard by the Supreme Court (yes, there are a few)
      3. Cases in which two different appellate courts, applying the same SCOTUS precedents to similar cases, have reached different decisions

      The first category is really astonishingly rare. The second is almost as much so. The third accounts for the overwhelming majority of SCOTUS's workload.

      Note that SCOTUS really doesn't care if your case "has merit." No judge really does. A judge's job isn't to decide if your case has merit: that's the jury's job. A judge's job is to make sure the laws are applied fairly and without bias to both parties.

      At the SCOTUS level, SCOTUS cares whether their precedents are creating confusion among the appellate courts. If two appellate courts come to two different readings of SCOTUS's precedents, then SCOTUS will generally hear a case so that their opinion can help bring clarity to the courts.

      With respect to the number of cases heard per year, approximately 1 in 200 cases appealed to SCOTUS will be heard by the Court. The buck stops at the appellate level 99.5% of the time.

      (Source: David R. Hansen, former Chief Judge of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. IANAL: I'm just reporting what he's said.)

    5. Re:"Realistically"? by Dhalka226 · · Score: 1

      More to the point, the Supreme Court looks for cases with a constitutional question and prefers cases in which lower courts have disagreed. This has neither.

    6. Re:"Realistically"? by v1 · · Score: 1

      Thank you for the clarifications, I'm poor at doing that sort of research :)

      --
      I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    7. Re:"Realistically"? by jd · · Score: 1

      I always thought The Supremes were adequate singers but made lousy judges.

      --
      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)
    8. Re:"Realistically"? by Teancum · · Score: 1

      I was expecting that comment. BTW, I've also heard the term applied to the judicial variety as well.

  7. Again? by MrEricSir · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Realistically this is the end of the line for the case.

    How many times have we heard that?

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
    1. Re:Again? by Zocalo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Too damn many.

      I'll believe it's all over when SCO's articles of incorporation have been burnt, the ashes salted, placed in a silver box, surrounded by garlic and placed outside the courthouse of the eastern district of Texas as an example to other patent trolls. I'd also like a waiver on public indeceny laws to permit pissing on the box, but you have to draw the line somewhere...

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    2. Re:Again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      as an example to other patent trolls

      Patents? This case was entirely a contract dispute about copyright transfer.

    3. Re:Again? by sconeu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Except there are no patent claims in either Novell or IBM.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    4. Re:Again? by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      You left out the part where we burn their headquarters to the ground and sow the Earth with salt to ensure that nothing ever grows there again.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    5. Re:Again? by EvilAlphonso · · Score: 1

      2012 will be the year of Linux on the deskop^w^w^w^wthe last nail in SCO's coffin.

  8. Bless the rains? by SoupGuru · · Score: 0

    Did the court also bless the rains down in Africa?

    --
    What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
    1. Re:Bless the rains? by Lemming+Mark · · Score: 1

      They're saying it's the end of the case but I think we should just hold the line for now...

    2. Re:Bless the rains? by Psychotria · · Score: 1

      Rains, or reigns?

  9. Rinse.. by Dynamoo · · Score: 2

    Rinse and repeat. Until dead.

    --
    Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
    1. Re:Rinse.. by Teancum · · Score: 1

      If a corporation is legally a person, when is it dead? This company is a zombie that has more lives than several dozen cats.

      The whole case seems like an episode of Get a Life, where the main character dies in each episode only to come back to life in the next episode as if nothing happened. That pretty much defines SCO.

      My question is more in terms of who has SCO stock certificates? Those are most certainly collector items now.

    2. Re:Rinse.. by 6Yankee · · Score: 1

      Then rinse in one of these: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14114555

    3. Re:Rinse.. by jd · · Score: 1

      It is dead when making sequels falls out of fashion. And Hollywood will never let that happen.

      Actually, it's more like a cross between Goundhog Day and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

      --
      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)
  10. Realistically? by Blackeagle_Falcon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Realistically this is the end of the line for the case."

    SCO has not been realistic at any time during this case.

    1. Re:Realistically? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      Granted, but there's only so far you can (even unrealistically) pursue things. If SCOTUS doesn't pan out, where do you appeal next? The UN Human Rights Council? The Pope?

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    2. Re:Realistically? by hesiod · · Score: 1

      Sue the Supreme Court? Sue the American people for not supporting them (cue "Coupon: The Movie")!

    3. Re:Realistically? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      You can't sue the supremes without permission from the federal government. Hilarity ensues.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Realistically? by hesiod · · Score: 1

      So sue congress for making a law that says they can't sue the supreme court? Sue the American people (again) for electing people who would limit their right to sue. Sue themselves for nearly bankrupting themselves in the crazy effort to sue everyone!

  11. No, this is not the last grasp for SCO by unity100 · · Score: 1

    When all appeals in courts fail, they can go door to door, appealing to ordinary americans. similar to what the below article portrays :

    http://www.theonion.com/articles/marilyn-manson-now-going-doortodoor-trying-to-shoc,459/

    --
    Read radical news here
  12. Yeah, but since Novell's been bought by Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Or basically bought by Microsoft, the manipulators behind the scenes get to bury this particular poison dart and try a different weapon against free software.

    tl;dr= In other words, Same crap,different day

  13. Sing along, everyone: by Hartree · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is the lawsuit that doesn't end
    Yes, it goes on and on my friend
    Some people started litigating it not knowing what it was
    And they`ll continue litigating it forever just because...

  14. Oh no! What will the Lawyers do?! by bengoerz · · Score: 1

    Without SCO to suck dry, the world's IP lawyers might just get bored and fire the first shots in the Technology Patent Armageddon.

    1. Re:Oh no! What will the Lawyers do?! by fostware · · Score: 1

      Or move to APPL?

      --
      "We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." - Aneurin Bevan
    2. Re:Oh no! What will the Lawyers do?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What does Appell Pete Corp have to do with this?

  15. Just when we thought it was dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    George Romero will revive this company for another feature.

  16. It's only been eight years by walterbyrd · · Score: 2

    Considering that scox's case was obviously meritless from day one, you can't expect the courts to move too fast.

  17. software patents by alienzed · · Score: 1, Insightful

    really need to die.

    --
    Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
    1. Re:software patents by jbeaupre · · Score: 1

      Uh, you do realize this case is about copyright contracts, not patents, right?

      --
      The world is made by those who show up for the job.
  18. Why this went on so long by clemenstimpler · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The lawyers were paid upfront - so they may be forced to beat single bones of this skeleton to an en-banc-hearing or the Supreme Court. Both are dead ends.

    I guess this charade will have taught Boies Schiller & Flexner that such arrangements are a bad deal. Larry Ellison will have to cough up money for every step he wants to go in Oracle vs. Google (maybe the best coming out of this case).

    And, of course, the counterclaims of SCO vs. IBM may have to be dealt with.

  19. Just one case by Xtifr · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is just one case. There's still several other cases to be resolved: SCO v IBM, Red Hat v SCO, SCO v Autozone (or Daimler/Chrysler), and, of course, the upcoming SCO v Boies, et al, where SCO sues their own lawyers for not winning these unwinnable cases. :)

    I'm also hoping to see SCO v Microsoft, where SCO sues Microsoft for not providing sufficient funds to slow the growth of Linux as agreed, and Microsoft countersues because SCO didn't achieve the success they promised with the initial round of funding.

    1. Re:Just one case by gstrickler · · Score: 1

      Actually, the results of the previous trial and this appeal clearly indicate that SCO never owned the copyrights and so never had standing to sue IBM. IBM should file for immediate dismissal for lack of standing and/or summary judgement in IBM's favor. I don't know as much about the Red Hat or Autozone cases, but those may fall into the same category.

      SCO's stockholders and creditors should consider suing Darryl McBride and/or other officers responsible for pursuing this baseless litigation in breach of the fiduciary responsibilities. But only if any of them are left with enough assets to make it worth the fight.

      --
      make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
    2. Re:Just one case by Teancum · · Score: 1

      I totally forgot about SCO vs. Autozone. Yeah, the zombie is going to continue to crawl out of the ground for some time to come.

      Perhaps SCOTUS will simply merge all of the cases together and tell SCO to die once and for all. Somehow I doubt it.

    3. Re:Just one case by Severus+Snape · · Score: 1

      I totally forgot about SCO vs. Autozone. Yeah, the zombie is going to continue to crawl out of the ground for some time to come.

      Perhaps SCOTUS will simply merge all of the cases together and tell SCO to die once and for all. Somehow I doubt it.

      The SCO v Autozone case was settled confidentially out of court in 2009 after SCO had entered bankruptcy.

    4. Re:Just one case by mad-seumas · · Score: 1

      I'm also hoping to see SCO v Microsoft, where SCO sues Microsoft for not providing sufficient funds to slow the growth of Linux as agreed, and Microsoft countersues because SCO didn't achieve the success they promised with the initial round of funding.

      Woohoo! Microsoft gets to double their investment!

      The sad part is, the only ones who made out on the original investment are a bunch of greedy,slimeball shyster lawyers and a greedy, scumsucking worthless CEO. Whoops, I just made a tautology train. Everyone on board! WOO WOOOO

    5. Re:Just one case by jjohn_h · · Score: 1

      >>>
        There's still several other cases to be resolved: SCO v IBM, Red Hat v SCO, SCO v Autozone (or Daimler/Chrysler)
      >>>

      SCO vs. Autozone is settled. SCO vs. Daimler/Chrisler was lost by SCO long ago. RedHat is moot because SCO does not have those copyrights.

      The only one that matters is SCO vs. IBM which was administratively closed late 2007. This one will loose plenty of mass because of the SCO's lack of copyrights but can still continue because its focus was contractual violation.

      Will SCO (nowadays alling themselves TSG) revive the case? Of course, they will since the lawyers, Boies & Co., are supposed to have already been paid.

    6. Re:Just one case by jd · · Score: 1

      If corporations are people, do zombies have citizenship?

      --
      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)
    7. Re:Just one case by Teancum · · Score: 1

      As a philosophical exercise, I think the definition of citizenship is undefined in that situation. Besides SCO, do you know of another zombie?

  20. Ha! by superdave80 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Realistically this is the end of the line for the case.

    You must be new here.

    1. Re:Ha! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But we *actually* saw Duke Nukem Forever actually appear. There is a possibility that....

      Ok, ok. Yes. I will read about this again, next year.

  21. $699 please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    You cock-smoking teabaggers

  22. Closure needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I realize that McBride long ago moved on, yet I feel many would feel a sense of closure if he were to slip in the shower or contract something both painful and fatal.

  23. In toto by Culture20 · · Score: 1

    Huh, I always thought lawyers that said "in toto" were just saying "in total" with a folksy accent.

    1. Re:In toto by sjames · · Score: 1

      Nah, it's just fancy lawyer talk for Dorothy's dog ate it.

    2. Re:In toto by SIGBUS · · Score: 1

      Or flushed it down a toilet.

      --
      Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
    3. Re:In toto by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And here I thought it was a reference to either Africa or Hold The Line...

  24. Yeah right. by Arancaytar · · Score: 1

    Realistically this is the end of the line for the case.

    Realistically, this is also the year for Linux on the desktop.

  25. Career Opportunity by tiny69 · · Score: 1

    Me, Inc is hiring.

    --
    Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
  26. Sued into oblivion... by gstrickler · · Score: 1

    Yes, SCO has, in effect, sued their own business into bankruptcy. That's a pretty amazing feat considering they never sued themselves. Slow death by initiating baseless litigation.

    --
    make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
  27. Still claiming ownership though. by pionzypher · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Seriously.... at what point do they have to remove this shit from their site?

    SCO is the owner of the UNIX Operating System Intellectual Property that dates back to 1969, when the UNIX System was created at AT&T's Bell Laboratories. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, SCO has acquired ownership of the copyrights and core technology associated with the UNIX System.

    --
    I'll believe in corporations having personhood when Texas executes one... - advocate_one
    1. Re:Still claiming ownership though. by gstrickler · · Score: 1

      And who are you to question the almighty SCO? Just pay the license fee and ask no questions. -- The opinions expressed in the post are not the actual opinions of the poster.

      --
      make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
    2. Re:Still claiming ownership though. by julesh · · Score: 2

      That's an interesting question. There's a possibility Novell could sue them for slander of title. Ironically, this is one of the things SCO sued Novell over. See groklaw here.

    3. Re:Still claiming ownership though. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They don't have any staff left to edit the website details to update them :-)

    4. Re:Still claiming ownership though. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Personally, I love the text embedded in the graphic of that page:

                                                            "Protection"

      Such blatant honesty is rare these days

  28. In slow motion. by mikael · · Score: 1

    It's like watching a star falling through the event horizon of a black hole.

    --
    Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
  29. Darl by Morky · · Score: 1

    SCO could have been Red Hat. They were THE Intel UNIX, and could have moved their huge, loyal base to Linux, and continued to grow it. They even had large hardware vendors supporting their OS when Linux was still a baby. Unfortunately, they decided to hire a short-sighted, litigious CEO. Good night, SCO. Good riddance, Darl.

  30. Red Hat vs SCO by JSBiff · · Score: 1

    Red Hat vs SCO, if I recall correctly, was an action brought by Red Hat *against* SCO - basically saying that SCO was making unfounded threats against Red Hat's customers, and interfering with their business (I might not have that exactly right, but I think it was something like that - essentially Red Hat was on offense, trying to get damages from SCO).

    If anything, the fact that SCO never had the copyrights it was basing such threats against Red Hat's customers, strengthens Red Hat's case.

    I just went back and found the very first filing by Red Hat which started the case, at Groklaw. Looks like I basically remembered it correctly:

    http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090625114814535

    I see no reason the Red Hat case can't proceed full-speed ahead now. . . except for the fact that SCO has no money or assets left for Red Hat to collect. Did SCO ever even exit bankruptcy? I don't think RH vs SCO can proceed until such time as SCO exits bankruptcy, and if SCO gets liquidated, it can never proceed because there will be no SCO left to sue.

    1. Re:Red Hat vs SCO by gstrickler · · Score: 1

      You're partially correct, Red Hat vs SCO "On the 11th of October 2007 the case was closed with leave to reopen after the SCO group leaves Chapter 11 bankruptcy." However, first, SCO must emerge from bankruptcy. Given that there is no money to go after, I believe that case is dead.

      SCO vs Autozone is already settled. "On October 22, 2009, Edward Cahn, SCO's Chapter 11 trustee, sought bankruptcy court approval for an agreement he reached with AutoZone. According to the court filings, the confidential settlement resolves all claims between SCO and AutoZone."

      SCO vs Daimler-Chrysler was dismissed. "The parties agreed to a stipulated dismissal order on December 21, 2004. The case was dismissed without prejudice, but if SCO wishes to pursue the timeliness claim again, it must pay DaimlerChrysler's legal fees since August 9. On December 29, 2004, SCO filed a claim of appeal notice. On January 31, 2005, the claim of appeal was dismissed." I would say the chance of SCO paying Daimler-Chysler's legal fees in order to continue the suit are really close to zero.

      In SCO vs IBM, the copyright violations should be dead as a result of the SCO vs Novell ruling. That still leaves the breach of contract claims. So this one might not be dead yet.

      --
      make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
  31. Is this a Monty Python skit?? by LVSlushdat · · Score: 1

    This whole SCO drama reminds me of that Monty Python skit where these two guys are fighting and one keeps whacking off limbs of the other guy and the limbless guy just keeps on taunting the other guy with the sword... Best entertainment around...

    --
    THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
    1. Re:Is this a Monty Python skit?? by gstrickler · · Score: 1

      That you didn't refer to it as the Black Knight scene from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" is grounds for revoking your nerd credentials.

      --
      make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
    2. Re:Is this a Monty Python skit?? by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      In this case, the "Black Knight" (aka SCO) has had his arms, legs, torso, eyes, ears, chin and nose hacked off.

      SCO: "Come on, then. Have at thee!"
      Novell: "Can't you see you're beaten? You're nothing but a disembodied mouth."
      SCO: "I'll bite ya."
      Novell: "You haven't any teeth. I knocked those out already."
      SCO: "Well, then I'll give you a good gummin'."
      Novell: "It's over. You're beaten. There isn't even any of you left. I think we're done here."
      SCO: "What are you? Chicken? I win by forfeit. Nobody beats the great SC...."
      (Out of nowhere a large bare foot comes down and crushes SCO.)

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  32. Just in case... by symbolset · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just in case somebody thinks this anonymous coward is a member of the slashdot tinfoil hat brigade, blaming Microsoft for everything...

    Halloween Document 10 lays out in intimate detail how Michael Anderer, a consultant to SCO, used Microsoft to gain up to in his on words "$82-86 million." Baystar's manager of their $50 million SCO investment complained: "Mr. Emerson and I discussed a variety of investment structures wherein Microsoft would backstop, or guarantee in some way, Baystar's investment ... Microsoft assured me that it would in some way guarantee BayStar's investment in SCO."

    The documents are in the public record, confirmed by all parties and well reported in the press. This is almost all of the money SCO used to fund their meritless 8-year legal campaign against Linux.

    /And I'm not that AC either.

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
    1. Re:Just in case... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The documents are in the public record, confirmed by all parties and well reported in the press.

      Confirmed by all parties? LOL.. your second link mentions that SCO & Microsoft actually deny your particular spin on the story. The person from Microsoft who wrote that email was fired immediately. And he was a senior corporate VP. Those guys are just like janitors !! They get canned all the time ! But alas.. without such half-truths and spin how would anti-ms trolls like you give us such entertainment over the years.. :(

  33. bankruptcy trustee's role in theft! by anwyn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The most outrageous thing about this whole fiassco is the bankruptcy's trustee's complicity in SCO's theft. This is not money that SCO owes Novell. This is money that never was SCO's in the first place. Courts have ruled it was "converted" which means stolen. Yet the backruptcy trustee corruptly continues to hold and spend Novell's money. This makes him complicit in that theft.

  34. When hell freezes over by hb79 · · Score: 0

    Here at Slashdot we love our future proof predictions of things which wont happen: "The year of the Linux desktop", "when Duke Nukem Forever is released", etc. However, the last one already happened. Bummer. "When SCO is dead" is the replacement.

  35. Gaddafi is in the market for a job by biditm · · Score: 1

    I heard Gaddafi is in the market for a job. His ability for ludicrous claims will be a great asset for the SCO lawyer team. Get Chemical Ali and you have a party :-)

  36. Pure entertainment for years.... by rts008 · · Score: 1

    No kidding.

    This one has been more dramatic than the 'Duke Nukem Forever' vaporware series that run on for years.
    Season after season, it kept getting renewed for another yet another season.

    I heard the next season will be renewed for SCO, with IBM's Nazgul guest starring as their foes...

    --
    Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
  37. False. Check up negative knowledge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, that's right, the patents on display were ones that were knowledge of how NOT to do something because SCO had tried and failed.

    They asserted real patents, too, though they didn't last.

  38. Novell - SCO by hardware1949 · · Score: 0

    Seriously. I thought Vampires disintegrated when exposed to either sunlight or truth.

  39. Now stay lying down, you bstrd! by aunt+edna · · Score: 1

    Silver bullet day!

  40. Mod parent sack of lies. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Delaware bankruptcy court (specifically Judge Gross in this case) is utterly corrupt and broken. They siphon money away from creditors and towards lawyers, making sure that ALL creditors get stiffed, until there is no money left.

    Whoa, whoa there hoss, what hat did you pull that crap out of? I guess you think Delaware Chancery Court was wrong, and that SCO's suit was justified?

    Why do you think incorporating in Delaware is so popular?

    There's two reasons. One is the laws governing credit and collections, which are among the most lax in the nation, and that's why every US bank I can think of (including the ones with other states' names like Maryland Bank and Chase Manhattan) is incorporated here. The other reason is Delaware's Chancery Court system, which is rather famous in corporate legal circles.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_Court_of_Chancery

    These corps don't come to Delaware to dodge taxes, you know. The state actually has fairly high corporate tax rates, compared to most US states, and it's one of only three states with a gross receipts tax. This extra tax burden is worth it to the zaibatsus because the Delaware Chancery Court is believed by corporate lawyers to be faster and more effective than any other court in the nation for resolving corporate legal battles.

    http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/230.html

    Now, if you want to argue that the rest of the Delaware state government is corrupt, you won't get any argument. We are lucky to be between New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland so our endemic political corruption seems relatively minor! But Chancery's our bread and butter, and we damn well keep it clean.

  41. ZOMBIES! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's the only logical explanation! They are always comming back even after they are long dead. It's a bunch of zombies in a company that refuses to die. Shoot them or feed them BRAINS.

  42. Re:Yeah, but since Novell's been bought by Microso by jd · · Score: 1

    I am still not convinced that this was a waste from Microsoft's point of view - there's a lot of ways to write off donations for tax purposes. Microsoft buying Novell is a problem for Unix (since Novell owns Unix), which in turn means that it could be a serious problem for the [Free|Net|Open|Dragonfly]BSD series. However, SCO failed to show in court that Linux actually contained any Unix code (despite promises to do so) and I'm inclined to feel that this would curtail Microsoft attacking Linux via the Unix copyrights.

    Even if such code existed in Linux, it only exists in version 2.7, which in turn only exists in an alternative universe. This would force Microsoft to develop TARDISes, which will lead to Earth becoming Gallifrey II. (The Matrix on Gallifrey is, after all, just a very large Beowulf cluster.)

    --
    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)
  43. That is not enough, and thus far too dangerous! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not enough that Texas thing. It's far to near and tempting to patent troll laywers try to resurrect it some sad day they have run out of all better ideas.

    Anything even remotely SCO needs at least to be shipped to pacific and sunken to Marianna trench, but even better being sent to Sun (the real one, not with the one Oracle bought) with a rocket.

  44. SCO and its new owners by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Does SCO even exist now? Do they have an office or any employees? Or is SCO the same as it ever was, a legal instrument for patent trolling?

    No, it's been acquired by the UnXis group - a visit to sco.com would reveal this. Although looking @ both SCO and UnXis websites, doesn't look like a lot has happened here, despite the new company's claim that they want to 'a bold vision to develop the full potential of UNIX technology for businesses worldwide.' Like that potential hasn't already been stretched to the limit by Sun, and in its freer form, BSD. Today, anyone who wants FOSS has Linux or *BSD, while those who want proprietary Unixes can go w/ HP/UX, Solaris or even AIX. One just doesn't see an opening for Unixware or Open Server - that too for just the x86 platform.

    Maybe if UnXis focussed on Itanium, and that too, not just the OS, but also other server software of theirs, they might have better luck. Any new OS written for x86 is a wasted effort, quite frankly, given how congested it already is w/ Windows, OS-X, Linux and *BSD.

    Oh, and they should drop the lawsuit, and decide whether SVR5 has a future, or whether they should just embrace *BSD and move on. Same question on whether Unix as a proprietary software has any future - it's not MacOS that it can survive despite Linux & *BSD.