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SCO Group Files For Chapter 7
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."
Hopefully this will be a lesson to other companies who compete using lawsuits rather than customer service.
... not a single f_ck was given.
SCO got on the shitlist of many a person and corporate entity with their senseless trolling. I'm surprised that it took this long for them to finally hit rock bottom.
Fifty watts per channel, baby cakes.
And nothing of value was lost.
the Witch is dead!
Ralph Yarro enriched himself tremendously. While SCO the company might be bankrupt, a lot of the money ended up with him.
Robert Penrose and Val Kriedel (Noorda) both committed suicide over their involvement.
Tens of thousands of us were damaged in some way.
Bruce Perens.
I'll chip in $5.00 if they provide it on a nice big flash drive.
I'll chip in $6.99. ;)
First posting isn't trolling. It's...first posting.
I went to www.sco.com and lo and behold a new company has emerged from the ashes!
Nobody who died on that show stayed dead. Like SCO, they kept bringing them back for one more episode. Well, its time to let go, SCO. Walk off into that bright light.
SCO fits the 'green and warty' set pretty well. :)
Although the Scooby Doo ending is also appropriate; "They'd have gotten away with it, if it hadn't been for PJ."
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Ding, dong, the witch is dead...
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
You gotta shoot the zombie in the head........
I am curious what SCO will do with its UNIXWare product portfolio. I would love it if Unixware source code would be made publicly available on a public domain license. There is no telling what exciting things will change in the current open source world.
SCO filed for chapter 11 back in April of 2011 and now they're filing for chapter 7. Can someone explain what the two together might mean for SCO Group?
As a former SCO Unix user (for work) I just want to say that nothing of value has been/will be lost.
Chapter 11 was a corporate adjustment to try and get the company going again. It could not happen so Chapter 7 is invoked which is liquidation. The company goes out of business and its assets are sold off with the proceeds divided among creditors.
Where else am I going to buy that cutting edge modern SCO OpenServer that runs on so many different varieties of hardware that has a steal price of only $1800 for a TCP/IP stack to connect to the internet plus +$799 per core!
http://saveie6.com/
SCO filed for chapter 11 back in April of 2011 and now they're filing for chapter 7. Can someone explain what the two together might mean for SCO Group?
Chapter 11 means you're trying to reorganize the company to come out of bankruptcy protection again, typically by making a deal with your creditors and/or selling off assets, IP rights or parts of the business. Chapter 7 is liquidation, it means all their assets will be sold and the company will cease to exist.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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.
Apparently, a shell company called UnXis bought all that was left of SCO (except the lawsuit) for $600K. I'm assuming SCO lawyers got some money from some Dubai emirate to set UnXis up and then proceeded to dump that money into SCO so they could bleed it out. Now that money is gone, so Chapter 7 it is...
All that Unixware/OpenServer source base belongs to them (not us).
I have a feeling that they will be one of those corporations that rise back from the grave in a few years to continue to attempt to survive off others.
Can we just skip ahead to whatever comes after, "the lawyers will suck the marrow from the carcass and leave the bones to bleach out in the sun."? These guys are like one of those bad zombie movies where the zombies keep coming back; even after the credits are done.
I've got an accumulator bet on a number of horses at odds of 1/2349088560, would anyone here like to invest in this legitimate business opportunity.
--
ref: "the Chapter 11 Trustee believes that it is in the best interests of the Debtors' estates and its creditors to continue the prosecution of the District Court Action, which was the subject of this Court's Order Granting Stipulation and Order Modifying the Automatic Stay [D.I. 1396]. Based on these circumstances, the Chapter 11 Trustee requests that this Court grant the Motion to convert these cases as soon as possible".
AccountKiller
Aren't you dead yet?
Do I get my 699 bucks back?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
But I don't think they actually have anything salable no matter how hard they try. There are enough court findings about the provenance of this IP that any going back to that will just cause a motion for sanction under Rule 11, which is about frivolous and factually baseless proceedings.
Bruce Perens.
Don't forget to pay your $699 licensing fee you cock smoking teabaggers.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Darl McBride will be reduced to offering hand jobs at freeway on-ramps just to earn a living.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
SCO filed Chapter 11 back in 2007, on the eve of the Novell trial.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Don't sugar-coat it, PJ.
Tell us how you really feel.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Ralph Yarro enriched himself tremendously. While SCO the company might be bankrupt, a lot of the money ended up with him.
Robert Penrose and Val Kriedel (Noorda) both committed suicide over their involvement.
There was a veil attempt to clear the name of Val Kriedel after her suicide - http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20050407113517663 - but anyhoo, what do we do with Ralph Yarro ?
We should not leave him scot free after what he had done to thousands and thousands of us
If we let Ralph Yarro go we only send a clear signal to the world - come and troll us, hurt us, impair our ability to renovate, and at the end, we will let you go scot free
I am not calling for a violent vengeance or a jihad or anything like that, what I am saying is we should not let that motherfucker go scot free, just like that
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
...SCO was a respectable UNIX vendor. Then the bean counters and lawyers took over; they became hungry for power, and turned to the Dark Side. They built a Death Star of litigation, confident that they could use it to crush the rebel Linux alliance. But ultimately the rebels prevailed. (The End?)
Already happened. They've "transferred all their assets" to Unxis Inc, which according to Groklaw seems to be comprised of many of the same people from SCO Group. Even their website has been hastily and lazily re-branded in a "we barely care if you don't believe us" sort of way:
http://www.sco.com/
If you read the source (the Groklaw article) you will see that it's far from over yet. SCO is asking the judge to be allowed to keep the litigation alive, despite SCO being in chapter 7.
If anything this sets an awful precedent: as in create a shell company (or bankroll an existing one) have it start litigating, pay the lawyers in a share of the proceeds, sink it in chapter-7 protection when the money runs out, and let the litigation roll on. Especially effective against Open Source.
If you feel this is far-fetched, please read up on the case (e.g. on Groklaw) because this is exactly what happened here but for the judge's assent. And this particular judge has been favouring SCO ever since he inherited the case.
What was that again you said about "good riddance" ???
(The End?)
Well, I hope there aren't as many sequels and edits in this saga......
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
PLEASE! Have some compassion for the zombies.
# touch universe # chmod +rwx universe #
...anything about SCO, or what they have done... So I looked it up on Wikipedia.... Yep, they are pretty evil.
"A 'person' is smart. 'People' are dumb, panicky animals and you know that."
You're falling into the same trap the SCaldera management did when they started this mess. The legal agreements, and the Novell board minutes from the time approving the sale, clearly state that the copyrights to UNIX were retained by Novell.
The old Santa Cruz Operation wanted the codebase, but couldn't come up with the money, so as a consolation they got the license fee collection business from Novell, keeping 5% for administration. Other than that they had a source license same as the other UNIX vendors
A judge can say, tell us which patents, or we'll place all employees under arrest, and suspend all financial transactions from said company, ie, a full corporate Coma.
ps. dont buy win-v8 Win2012 whatever its called.
Does that mean win7 is out of sale, and now can be considered free for all , pirate all you like, since its out of sale, never to be sold again.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I thought PJ closed Groklaw. Did she change her mind?
No, she handed it off. Still pops in sometimes, though.
Thanks to such shenanigans as the Apple sueage machine and Oracle v. Android, there's more than enough fodder to keep Groklaw going even if SCO could finally be reduced to its component atoms.
Are you serial?
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
I've got my buck o'five ready... if you don't give your buck o'five, who will?
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Good luck with that.
IIRC, a couple of the former SCO honchos offed themselves (quite literally), and last I heard, Darl McBride had to file for bankruptcy.
Long story short?
* Microsoft got what it wanted (delayed/slowed Linux acceptance) without Joe Sixpack or the DOJ being too aware of it
* Mr. Boies (as evidenced by his previous public loss in Bush v. Gore) proved that with a bit of name recognition, you can be a shitty lawyer but still get rich.
* SCO's board of directors proved that if you're going to die anyway as a corporation, you may as well use some fantastic claims to kite your stock one last time.
* Originally, SCO did a lot of good things with Caldera... pity that they had to fuck it up with their stupid licensing on the modifications.
* A couple of good Linux-oriented companies that were also under the Tarantella umbrella (and were also in Utah, in the same literal neighborhood even) got fucked thanks to the poisonous reputation that SCOX gave 'em. Watching that happen up-close was pretty painful.
So - when's the asset sale? I think someone needs to buy the SCO logo sign, mount it with antlers, and present it to Mr. Torvalds as a trophy.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Yup. I had the unfortunate chance to study the various options for myself, finally choosing to just pay my debts myself, instead, since a bankruptcy is so invasive and expensive. Student loans are choking me, but those ones are unassailable by bankruptcy, anyway. The chapters are similar for businesses, but an order of magnitude more complicated to file, due to the various assets and debts a business owns, compared to an individual. If interested, here's what I found:
;)
7 is a "cut and run", admitting total inability to pay, wiping all un-secured debts (credit cards, medical bills, etc but NOT secured debts like student loans, mortgages, or liens). They take anything considered an asset, too, such as a second car, etc. They leave you a total value allowance to keep some of your stuff, and take the rest to sell off. The recommendation I got was to sell off these items myself prior to filing bankruptcy, applying the proceeds to secured debts, or else I'd lose them to the unsecured debt settlement. 11, on the other hand, is a "buy a few years to pay off debts, at a (hopefully) reduced rate". You get to keep most everything, and get the chance to settle or negotiate reduced payments, but every creditor gets a piece.
Chapter 13 is a kind of the weird one: it's basically a court-appointed debt consolidation, with weirdo or specific rules set by the court. It's usually used to prevent foreclosure during repayment, though the foreclosure resumes at the end of the bankruptcy repayment time (assuming the home isn't brought out of foreclosure proceedings in the meantime). It also lets you discharge (wipe clean) certain debts that 7 doesn't allow.
Then you have Chapter 12, which is only for farmers and fishermen. From what I gather, it's an 11 with much better repayment and negotiation options options.
Lastly, a 7 is cheaper to file than an 11, or a 13. Amusingly, the lawyer will only bill you AFTER the bankruptcy.
I'm sure the US Trustee could get lots of money for the cardboard box Darl Mc Bride was living in, under one of the Interstate 15 overpasses in Lindon, UT, after he lost his McMansion to foreclosure... because he wasn't as smart as Ralph Yarro, who transferred ownership of his house to his wife...
We all knew it was going to end like this, didn't we?
Here's a hearty FUCK YOU to everyone who concocted up this scam, and to everyone who helped promote it - from Brian Skiba, to Microsoft (for funding the scam in the first place), to Rob Enderle, to Dan Lyons, to Maureen O' Gara, to Ryan Tibbets, to Ralph Yarro, and all the other scumbags who tried to extort money for something that they didn't deserve, or even own. Fuck you all, in the ear.
I am equally bothered, especially with the companies that do their best to encumber us with their patents and also act (in their own interest) as members of our community. Many of them have joined the Linux Foundation, and some are on its executive board. Many of them (including Microsoft) are part of organizations like Apache Foundation, etc. Some of them are Linux distribution companies. Try to get one of those to take a real stand about software patenting.
Bruce Perens.
Check out:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3026767&cid=40881041
And that guy was modded +4 Insightful!
I'm tagging this story "zombie".
By the way, maybe we should give up on having a closure for this. Some smart and powerful people are behind SCO. They will continue to enrich themselves, even if the small shareholders get nothing. Paying attention to this will do nothing but depress us.
survive off others
sounds like the motto of every corporation
That's one less patent troll company in this world a crap more load of them to go.
we recently had a wheeler-dealer in our area who was trying to turn $2 billion in bad debts to carmakers, finance companies, and the like into 6 billion bucks. bankruptcy court threw his chapter 7 out because he was gaming the system. this is exactly what should happen to SCO, as they are trying to maintain operations (lawsuits) while filing for dissolution. dismiss the petition with prejudice, judge! they are scamming you, too!
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?