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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."

29 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. good riddance by gmack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hopefully this will be a lesson to other companies who compete using lawsuits rather than customer service.

    1. Re:good riddance by dbIII · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Not really. One of the lawyers sucking the marrow from the bones was Darl's brother.
      It's like deliberately crashing the company car into a wall so your family's repair business can get some work.

    2. Re:good riddance by postbigbang · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They're making scandalous sums in royalties from Linux and Android. What do they care, now that the IP litigation is impossible? For Microsoft, this is Profit: stand up you PC and Phone Makers: On the left, is the $$ you'll pay for using Linux (so you won't get sued) and on the right is the $$ you'll pay for integrating that Android Stuff.

      And if you think we were fooling, here's our RT tablet. Open the wallets or die! That's the mantra.

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    3. Re:good riddance by Quila · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not really. Those in charge get to skate with their money. They're free to try it again with another company.

      What they need in this case is piercing of the corporate veil. Those who started this, and cost other companies so many millions of dollars in this bad-faith fraud, need to be held personally accountable.

    4. Re:good riddance by whoever57 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm a little surprised that IBM didn't buy their portfolio a long time ago.

      Portfolio of what? A jury decided that Novell owned the old Unix copyrights and SCO only had one patent.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    5. Re:good riddance by FireFury03 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If they're making scandalous sums off of android and Linux that just means android and Linux are worth scandalous sums of money and then some. It legitimizes the platforms just that much more. Patents run out so the racket can't last forever and when it's over Linux will still be there. How much are they making off of windows phone again?

      By the time the patents have run out they will be obsolete and will have been replaced with something else that MS is claiming they own. The problem isn't that Linux might be infringing MS patents, its that MS will never tell anyone what those patents are to give Linux a fighting chance of avoiding infringement. Someone needs to call MS's bluff and go to court over this so the patents get exposed. Companies that threaten alledged infringers but won't say what is being infringed really should have to forefit those patents.

      --
      http://blog.nexusuk.org
    6. Re:good riddance by gmack · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Buying the portfolio would have been settling and it's also exactly what SCO(TSG) wanted them to do but IBM has a scorched earth policy when it comes to lawsuits. When sued, IBM will call in the lawyers and fight for every penny even if the resulting litigation is more expensive than the settlement would have been. It makes each lawsuit more expensive but it discourages others from trying and you can see the result: IBM doesn’t' get sued anywhere near as much as other tech firms.

    7. Re:good riddance by oakgrove · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Someone needs to call MS's bluff

      B&N did and apparently it worked out pretty well for them.

      By the time the patents have run out they will be obsolete and will have been replaced with something else that MS is claiming they own.

      True that but every Android or Linux unit that shifts may be 5-15 dollars in MS' coffers but it represents one atomic unit of less direct influence they have over the market. I'd rather they get a patent fee than an in the field Windows license.

      --
      The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
  2. ... and on this day... by logicassasin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... 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.
    1. Re:... and on this day... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ... 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.

      The reason why it took so long was the huge injection from BayStar and the cash train from Redmond. If you know anything about what really went on just look into how and why Novell/Suse is surviving this nonsense. Fact is the real target of all this crap was RedHat and the server side of Linux and the main antagonist was and still is Microsoft.

        Sco was just a fishing and fud throwing expedition and to a large extent it succeeded. Windows has gained server market share because of all the fud. The money channelled into Sco from Microsoft to do all this bullshit is small change in comparison to the market sales they gained in the high end server game.

    2. Re:... and on this day... by LordLimecat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There are reasons to choose Windows over linux.

      Reason the first: Exchange.

      Incidentally, I think Ive found a good way of figuring out which posters have a clue: those who say that their product / OS / device is the best option for all scenarios, dont.

    3. Re:... and on this day... by cupantae · · Score: 3, Funny

      Y_o

      I'd say stick to the German, Adolf.

      --
      --
    4. Re:... and on this day... by subreality · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If someone is reading at a company with a filter so invasive that it's counting the number of fucks on a random web site, then perhaps they shouldn't be reading slashdot at work. I'm generally not very profane, but I will not bowdlerize myself for the convenience of people fucking around on paid time.

  3. Ding Dong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    the Witch is dead!

  4. Let's not forget by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
    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. Re:Let's not forget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
      This.

      I had the pleasure of working for the Santa Cruz Operation. Say what you will about its flavor ("The McDonald's of UNIX" and the inexplicable "SCO OK" attempt to ape "Designed for Windows" branding, which was immediately renamed by techies to "WTF? Scook?!"), it was a fantastic place to cut my teeth.

      The SCO Group can die in a fire, and should have done so years ago. The Santa Cruz Operation was a place where techies could tinker on stuff largely unimpeded by management, and I remember my days there findly.

    3. Re:Let's not forget by NJRoadfan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm still trying to figure out what happened to Caldera. They used to have a their own Linux distribution and tried to make it user friendly with the Looking Glass Desktop. They even ported Sun's WABI to x86 Linux. Back in 1997, they were pretty much viewed as a Linux company. Groklaw did a nice piece about it: http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20080807125817699

    4. Re:Let's not forget by Chas · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sorry, but IBM is the birthplace of "Here's the first tractor-trailer of paperwork. Where do you want the OTHER hundred and thirty seven?"

      It's a commonly known fact that IBM's lawyers eat their own children... =)

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
  5. No longer SCO by ClaraBow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I went to www.sco.com and lo and behold a new company has emerged from the ashes!

    1. Re:No longer SCO by landoltjp · · Score: 4, Interesting

      From the "Company Profile" page:

      "UnXis, Inc., a new company formed by Stephen Norris Capital Partners and MerchantBridge Group created to acquire all the operating assets and intellectual property rights of The SCO Group, Inc."

      However, I like this line:

      "Led by a team of visionary and accomplished technology and businesses executives"

      *chuckle*

  6. Let's all lock arms and dance by PRMan · · Score: 4, Funny

    Ding, dong, the witch is dead...

    --
    Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
  7. Interesting by DaMattster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  8. Oh no! by Billly+Gates · · Score: 5, Funny

    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/
  9. Re:sigh. by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, but the chapter 11 bankruptcy administrators earned a lot of money and ensured that none of it went to actual creditors.

  10. Re:7-11 by Kjella · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
  11. 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.

  12. No reboot possible by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 3, Interesting
    This is VCs attempting to look good or to drag it out to the last gasp for the folks behind this deal (I would guess Microsoft, given the testimony from Benchmark Capital).

    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.
  13. Re:Suicide by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4, Informative
    I have no reason to believe that Ms. Kriedel was anything but a victim. I believe the Noorda family were all victims, and that little of this would have been allowed to happen had Ray Noorda had his full mental capabilities. As it was, the family was vulnerable to a Svengali. I appreciate that Ms. Kriedel's brother pointed out the role of Rob Enderle and Laura Didio.

    What can you do? Do not do harm to anyone. We can wish for justice from courts or society, but I'm afraid all we can do this time is wish.

    I'd like to see something like this for Mr. Enderle and Ms. Didio, but I don't think it'll happen as part of the SCO case.

    As for Mr. Yarro, I hope that folks understand what he did and shun him, but I have no idea if that happens or not.

    --
    Bruce Perens.