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SCO Group Files For Chapter 7

Posted by Soulskill on from the it-just-goes-on-and-on-my-friends dept.

New submitter rkhalloran writes "The remnants of the failed litigation engine that was the SCO Group has finally filed for liquidation under Chapter 7 of the bankruptcy code. 'There is no reasonable chance of "rehabilitation."' Groklaw describes the recent filing (PDF) thus: 'I will try my best to translate the legalese for you: the money is almost all gone, so it's not fun any more. SCO can't afford Chapter 11. We want to shut the costs down, because we'll never get paid. But it'd look stupid to admit the whole thing was ridiculous and SCO never had a chance to reorganize through its fantasy litigation hustle. Besides, Ralph Yarro and the other shareholders might sue. So they want the litigation to continue to swing in the breeze, just in case. But SCO has no money coming in and no other prospects, so they want to proceed in a cheaper way and shut this down in respects to everything else.' I guess that means the lawyers will suck the marrow from the carcass and leave the bones to bleach out in the sun."

2 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Let's not forget by Chas · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nonono.

    That was Santa Cruz Operation.

    COMPLETELY different outfit.

    The people hearing the *FLUSH* right about now were The SCO Group (aka Caldera Systems, later Caldera International).

    Essentially, they bought some of the original SCO UNIX IP when Santa Cruz Operation became Tarantella Inc.

    Later, they entered into a licensing agreement with Novell to collect fees based on THEIR copyrights.

    Caldera, having delusions of grandeur, decided that they'd *bought* all that UNIX IP, didn't pay Novell a dime, changed their name to The SCO Group, and decided that they'd try to take ownership of ALL *nix by trying to collect royalties on anything *nix derivative (including Linux, which they'd contributed to). They somehow thought that holding huge companies like IBM hostage. Apparently they forgot that IBM's lawyers were INFINITELY nastier predators than ANYONE they could afford to hire.

    Not to mention incoming and outgoing lawsuits squaring off against RedHat, AutoZone, SGI, and Daimler Chrysler.

    The only thing that kept them afloat that long was intervention by Microsoft, looking to chum the waters further.

    In short, the asscreants at The SCO Group (a group of litigation-happy IP trolls who didn't do their homework) have jack and shit to do with the original Santa Cruz Operation (a group of technologists).

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  2. Correctm they are just rebooting by tlambert · · Score: 5, Informative

    They are coming back as UnXis, and they are still asserting that Linux is infringing their intellectual property, including the McBride letter:
    http://www.sco.com/5reasons/#5

    It's a coventure between Stephen Norris Capital Partners and MerchantBridge Group. Stephen Norris' biography includes the former presidency of the Carlyle Group, who tried to invest in SCO in 1998, in a deal netting his group 51% ownership with a court filing that included the statement "provides that the reorganized SCO will pursue the Novell/IBM litigation and other pending litigation claims aggressively,".
    http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_8267122

    MerchantBridge Group is a very deep wallet:
    http://www.mbih.com/
    Eric le Blan of MerchantBridge is Chairman at UnXis.

    I do not expect this saga is over.