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CowboyNeal Looks Back at the SCO-Linux Trials
The Beginning, or, We Sure Do Miss Ransom Love Around Here
Back in January of 2003, SCO announced that Unix SYSV code had been misappropriated into Linux. They didn't say much more than this, saying that they would only reveal the code in question to the court, and that it was a secret. Given the nature of Linux, this set off the BS-meters of nearly anyone with a clue, including the Linux kernel developers, not the least of which being Linus himself. In March of that year, SCO announced that they owned the copyrights to Unix, and that they were suing IBM for a billion dollars, for leaking SCO trade secrets into Linux. When people who had a clue thought about the case for more than a few minutes, they remembered back to the USL v. BSDi case that had been settled a decade prior, and figured SCO was full of it. Unfortunately, instead of SCO's announcement being taken as the ramblings of a crazy CEO desperate to increase the value of his flagging company, it went ahead. The worst part, is that at least for the short term, it worked. SCO's stock price shot from under $2/share to over $20/share in six months.
Around this time, a new champion would arise. A new website, Groklaw, run by paralegal Pamela Jones began blogging daily coverage of SCO v. IBM. While Groklaw was originally intended as a way for PJ to practice blogging, it soon grew into the front lines of the PR war against SCO, a war which they were losing badly.
This is where the case should have been thrown out, and everyone gone out for beers and had a good laugh, but that didn't happen. However, a new challenger would appear. In August of 2003, Red Hat sued SCO to try and put an end to this mess. While this was a valiant effort on Red Hat's part, ultimately a judge would stay the case pending the outcome of SCO v. IBM. Those hard-earned beers would have to wait.
At this point, SCO's claims were sounding dubious at best, so they showed off two samples of alleged copied code at a reseller show later that month. However, the code in question was shown to be part of BSD, and previously released under the BSD license. In spite of this, SCO decided that to save face, they should waste everyone's time with continuing their warpath of litigation.
SCO v. Everyone
Since the suit against IBM was going so well, The SCO Group came up with the brilliant strategy of "sue all the things!" and proceeded to do just that. In lieu of having their own product that people actually liked and used, they figured they could just sue their way to profitability.
One of SCO's key claims was that they owned the copyrights to Unix, due to some purchases they'd made from Novell. Novell, however, didn't take this sitting down and respectfully disagreed. For butting in on SCO's new business model, Novell was served with a lawsuit in January of 2004. 2004 was the year that SCO decided to sue everyone they looked at. AutoZone, who had recently switched from using SCO OpenServer to Linux, got sued for doing so. DaimlerChrysler was just walking down the opposite side of the street and accidentally made eye contact with SCO, and they got sued as well.
While also suing everyone in sight, SCO also announced that they would not sue their own customers, so for the price of a SCO license, a company could exclude themselves from possible litigation. A few companies actually bought into the madness, but for the most part, the world collectively rolled its eyes at SCO, meaning that SCO would have to soldier on with their lawsuit-based business strategy, or face the wrath of their shareholders.
Novell Jams SCO's Gears
A few years went past while the SCO v. IBM case was still in the discovery phase, with SCO not wanting to reveal the code they were suing over, without seeing sources from IBM first, and IBM not wanting to give SCO any source without first being told what code was in question. This provided time for the Novell case to advance, albeit also slowly. By 2007, Novell was awarded several summary judgements, and several of SCO's claims were denied. By 2008, Novell had been awarded over $3 million as a result of the case. Just under half of that amount would be appealed by SCO, and temporarily reversed for a couple of more years. The main outcome here, however, was that Novell was ruled as the owner of the Unix copyrights.
The SCO legal juggernaut, however, would not, nay, could not be stopped. Despite not owning the Unix copyrights they contended they were the owners of "control rights" to derivatives of SYSV, and for the period during the appeals to SCO v. Novell, they were still able to claim potential ownership of the Unix copyrights in court as well. When they finally lost the appeals, they were forced to fall back to their claims of control rights, which is where they still stand today.
Being faced with having to pay out to Novell, SCO finally received its first nail in its coffin. Following the Novell ruling, SCO filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and SCO v. IBM was stayed until SCO could emerge from Chapter 11 and continue the case. Shortly thereafter, SCO's stock price fell to under $0.50/share and they were de-listed from NASDAQ.
The End of SCO, but not of SCO v. IBM
So that's where we are today. Once the Chapter 7 filing is finalized by a judge, SCO will cease to be as a corporate entity, however they are proposing that SCO v. IBM be allowed to continue, not for sheer entertainment value, but rather so that they don't risk the wrath of their shareholders.
Nine years on, it's difficult to say who the real winners are. It's definitely not The SCO Group themselves, since they've gone under. It's also probably not SCO's lawyers, since their chances for being paid are greatly diminished since SCO's short-lived high times in 2003. IBM stands poised to win the case should it go forward, however their legal expenditures at this point are so large they could only be fielded by the likes of IBM. Novell, despite having already won, may not ever get paid all that it's owed. Linux users will most likely eventually emerge as not having to pay SCO a dime, which while is nice to have reaffirmed, is where they were back in 2003 to begin with. Another side effect of the courts rulings, was the reaffirmation of USL v. BSDi, which means that FreeBSD users are definitely safe from licensing fees and litigation.
While I've given an overview of the SCO-Linux litigations here, I've surely missed many of the bumps in the road. I only briefly touched on the PR war SCO fought against Groklaw, and many of the other insanities brought on by this case. With SCO v. IBM still possibly lunging ahead in a stupor, it may be too early to finally enjoy those aforementioned hard-earned beers, but it's still safe to chill them with the ice off SCO's corpse.
Seriously. 9 years of facepalming is enough. Let's forget the SCO morons and focus on the future, which is celebrating and embracing open source in all ways imaginable.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
Apparently, it takes 9 years to kill a troll.
2015-2025 is going to be a fun decade of troll genocide.
Secondly, I flat out object to the following reoccurring theme prevalent in this piece that alleviates any leaders (none of whom are named) of any responsibility, onus or wrongdoing:
A few companies actually bought into the madness, but for the most part, the world collectively rolled its eyes at SCO, meaning that SCO would have to soldier on with their lawsuit-based business strategy, or face the wrath of their shareholders.
Once the Chapter 7 filing is finalized by a judge, SCO will cease to be as a corporate entity, however they are proposing that SCO v. IBM be allowed to continue, not for sheer entertainment value, but rather so that they don't risk the wrath of their shareholders.
(emphasis mine) I don't understand how someone can be such a jerk and we can say "oh, yeah, well, they had to do it because of the shareholders." Yes, I know that shareholders can sue you when you commit a colossal screw up but you can't hand out free passes like this for every thing they do. What would the shareholders have done? Sued him out of his position? Well, at least he'd still have his ethics and dignity intact. The problem is that the people running SCO lacked any fragments of those things from the start! Let me remind you of McBride's open letter in 2003 that remains to this day at SCO's site. It contained such gems as:
Based on the views of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court, we believe that adoption and use of the GPL by significant parts of the software industry was a mistake. The positions of the Free Software Foundation and Red Hat against proprietary software are ill-founded and are contrary to our system of copyright and patent laws. We believe that responsible corporations throughout the IT industry have advocated use of the GPL without full analysis of its long-term detriment to our economy. We are confident that these corporations will ultimately reverse support for the GPL, and will pursue a more responsible direction.
And what? Was there a shareholder holding a loaded gun to his head when he penned this letter? No, there wasn't. I mean, looking back this comment is laughable.
And a side rant is that this is a perfect example of why corporations have more rights than citizens. SCO goes Chapter 11 then Chapter 7 and all the assholes that ran the show walk. And they're hired elsewhere and they have very minimal repercussions. What happens when an individual makes bad decisions with their personal finances? They get Chapter 13? They get liens slapped on all their income? Regardless of the chapter, their credit is screwed so they can't buy anything big for 10 years? You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see the names of the people running this show published so we know who ran the show at this company. And I'd like to see bankruptcy laws barring them from assuming any position within a company where they have direct purview or control of any assets worth over $5,000. You know what? I'd bet then they'd be a little more rational, ethical and logical in their decisions just like the general populace is forced to do for fear of bankruptcy.
Seriously, where is the blame going to be placed? Who will learn their lesson here? I'll be damned if I allow you to just pass the buck to "the wrath of the shareholders." That black hole of capitalistic logic has lead to major problems in the governance and upper rankings of American companies.
My work here is dung.
In the middle of Scocades didn't it surface that they got a lot of money from Microsoft, which was in the midst of the Vista disaster and didn't want anyone thinking about migrating to Linux until Windows 7 was safely on the market.
They bought some Linux licenses from SCO to help fund the litigation, isn't that right? There was more than a little evidence the whole thing was really litigation by proxy.
Those were the days the Big B was making personal appearances in the corporate jet to talk a couple cities out of switching to Linux. One went ahead and one in the U.K. threw in the towel if memory serves.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Is he staying at the Y and buying his clothing from the salvation army now? Or did he collect a tidy sum when he got fired?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I'd rather be reminded of SCO and what they've done every now and then. If not then we might slip up and another SCO will come and we'll have to repeat this all over again, or worse someone like SCO might win because we're off guard.
Allie, put that on a T-shirt and I'll buy it!
Also worth noting is that Microsoft loaned dollars to SCO to continue fighting against linux.
Both have:
int i;
in their codes. Coincidence? I think not.
Where is Darl these days? Hopefully CEO of nothing.....
Seruiosly, when and where this blame be placed??
twice you mention that, without ever saying what exactly the shareholders could do about it besides sell? Which from the looks of it going for 2 cents/share I'd say happened anyway. or am I missing something? I'd say all the "wrath of the shareholders" could be summed up in one of three ways: piss, moan, and SELL.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
At this point, SCO's claims were sounding dubious at best, so they showed off two samples of alleged copied code at a reseller show later that month. However, the code in question was shown to be part of BSD, and previously released under the BSD license. In spite of this, SCO decided that to save face, they should waste everyone's time with continuing their warpath of litigation.
Aided by Microsoft Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc. direct investment of $23,000,000 dollars to fund the lawsuit and an additional $50,000,000 dollars organized by Microsoft to funnel funds to SCO through Baystar Captial and RBC facilitated by one Mike Anderer IIRC.
Also the saga with Maureen O'Gara, Dan Lyons, Rob Enderle and others that were caught spreading misinformation in the IT media on behalf of Microsoft and SCO in this case.
From wikipedia:
On April 9, 2010 McBride purchased the SCO Mobility intellectual property from The SCO Group for $100,000. The company is now known as Me Inc. and as of June 10, 2011, McBride is President and CEO.
Blaming the shareholders for the decisions made by the board is like blaming a populace for the decisions made by the government that rules over them. Common sense is all you need to realize that it's just a stinking pile of B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T.
Just wanted to remind people that this farce was initiated by the company called Caldera when they bought SCO (The Santa Cruz Operation). They renamed themselves The SCO Group ("...SCO no longer means Santa Cruz Operation..."), but it was still the Caldera management calling the shots.
The Santa Cruz Operation was a good company to work for. I can't say the same for Caldera. When the take-over occurred, the lucky ones (IMHO) go to go to Tarantella (eventually subsumed into what was Sun). The red-headed step-children got to stay behind with the sinking ship. And boy, was I ^H ^H ^H ^H ^H were they glad top be let go before the Darl McBride hit the fan.
If at first you don't succeed, so much for skydiving.
DaimlerChrysler was just walking down the opposite side of the street and accidentally made eye contact with SCO, and they got sued as well.
I can (probably) do it without getting sued now too...
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
SCO goes Chapter 11 then Chapter 7
Sounds to me like if corporations are people too (R) this one go the death penalty.
"Clinging" presupposes they have a choice. If nobody wants your shares, how do you sell them?
Actually, some fools do want worthless "penny stocks.". Lots of people speculate in them for much the same reason people play the lottery. That's what all the spam about "hot tip: United Fecal Matter is set to take off!" is about.
I think I started reading /. about the time this all started and have found it quite amusing. In a "our legal systems is retarded" way.
Dan Lyons wrote article after article for Forbes magazine hyping the "strength" of SCO's case.
I am writing about software patents and came across Daryl's current picture online.
The guy is probably living in a show box. His house was foreclosed, and afterward I see most of his assets have been destroyed.
In my opinion, given the criminal activity he engaged in on the stand, and also flirting with the RICO Act sending fortune 500 companies write downs to the tune of "You better buy a SCO license, otherwise we will sue you for millions.", he should be in jail.
If he ever finds work, make sure you don't buy _anything_ from the company that employs him because given his illegal and deceptive professional activities of the past, any company that feels those are good resume entries shouldn't get your business.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
are condemned to repeat it.
Now, this whole SCO saga is one thing we do not wish to see repeated, right ? We definitely need to look back. a lot.
I don't understand how someone can be such a jerk and we can say "oh, yeah, well, they had to do it because of the shareholders."
Then you don't understand capitalism. Publicly held companies are driven by just one priority: increase shareholder value. If a CEO's conscience interferes with that goal, the shareholders soon appoint somebody else.
You're upset about McBride's pursuit of frivolous litigation? Corporations have been known to kill people in pursuit of profit. That's why socialism was such a popular doctrine through much of the 20th century. Of course socialism has its own evils (aside from its own share of mass murder, socialist economies are just not viable), so we're not going to dispense with capitalism any time soon. But we have to curb its evils and its stupidities, no matter how much Mitt tries to tell us otherwise.
On Groklaw, PJ would often compare and contrast the shoddy documents prepared by SCO's legal team with those prepared for the other side.
The documents prepared for IBM, for instance, were often paragons of great communication and very good law. If you want to learn how to do that, they are excellent examples.
On the other hand, SCO's lawyers managed to keep the cases in front of the courts without being pitched out as completely baseless.
My favorite example: The judge agreed that SCO had probably caused considerable damage to Novell. It was also obvious to everyone, except the judge, that SCO was going to fritter away all its money and there would be nothing left to pay damages to Novell. In spite of that, the judge was convinced to let SCO continue without even setting aside enough to eventually pay Novell.
SCO's lawyers got their way about ten times more than most people would think was reasonable. The work often looked like crap but it sure was effective. They knew they stood no chance of winning. They gave us the best example of 'scorched earth' since 1942. Why would they do that? It sure lends credence to the theory that the whole thing was done at the behest of Microsoft to damage linux.
I don't understand how someone can be such a jerk and we can say "oh, yeah, well, they had to do it because of the shareholders."
I still don't understand why the shareholders haven't called for an explanation of the mysterious investments that bankrolled this whole thing:
BayStar Capital and Royal Bank of Canada invested US$50 million in The SCO Group to support the legal cost of SCO's Linux campaign. Later it was shown that BayStar was referred to SCO by Microsoft
On March 4, 2004, a leaked SCO internal e-mail detailed how Microsoft had raised up to $106 million via the BayStar referral and other means.[60] Blake Stowell of SCO confirmed the memo was real.[61] BayStar claimed the deal was suggested by Microsoft
It's been pretty clear that Microsoft was involved in providing indirect financing for SCO - surely there are some investors who lost money and would want to expose these shady deals, and sue Microsoft for subverting SCO and turning it into a litigation vehicle, rather than the independent enterprise that the board claimed it to be?
It doesn't make any sense on the face of it, until you recall who the "shareholders" actually are. The shareholders aren't the Wall St riff-raff. Rather the shareholders were the guys on the board of directors, and also Darl McBride. They all stood to make huge $$$ off trashing the company, and they did. Microsoft effectively covered the legal fees paid to Boies Schiller thru a front company if you recall. So ultimately it didn't cost anyone anything - They all got what they wanted and probably made big $$$ too, even MS.
C|N>K
someone had a nutter... those are the words, or themes attributed to their actions. is describes the internal motivations for doing such. not the outside world's view on what they are doing. SCO has stated that they want to continue the litigation for their creditors/ shareholders. so The writing expresses their ideas..... not those of the author
This is just tempting fate. SCO has managed to shuffle around like a Zombie more then a few times when we thought it was dead. This time we should maybe launch the CEO into the Sun, just to be safe.
One thing that didn't get mentioned was prior to groklaw a lot of the counterfactual information was being collected here. People who later had testimony related to this issue found out about it from /. I think some pats on the back to Taco ... are in order.
As for IBM they are certainly a winner. For a few tens of millions they got 4-5 years of fantastic PR which moved them from being a vendor exploiting Linux to the defender of Linux and warmly embraced by the Linux community. This has helped their consulting business to the tune of billions in revenue as techi-nerds/geeks didn't push against executive management's favorite vendor.
Sun was a huge loser. They had originally sided with SCO and they never lived down the alienation from the open source community. They remained mistrusted.
Microsoft was a loser. Microsoft tied themselves to this lawsuit early and many of their more legitimate arguments against open source were discredited along with the fantasies of Darl McBride.
The GPL was a huge winner. 2 major claims: was the GPL legal at all under the copyright clause was tested and the counter claims collapsed. More importantly the idea of a company issuing a GPL release and then revoking licenses was tested in court with the GPL holding up.
Web 2.0 was a winner. Sco v. IBM represents the first Web 2.0 trial were important witnesses found out about the trial and presented evidence (i.e. self deposed) based on online publicity.
Democracy was a winner. SCO made several claims that were detrimental to the rights of public participation in trials which were thrown out.
Tarantella was a loser. No one technical wanted anything to do with SCO. They ended up being bought by Sun and withering even there.
There are few wars with such clean cut good guys, bad guys.
Oh I forgot.
The reporters who originally sided with SCO were huge losers. SCO v. IBM was one of the few times (Judith Miller and Iraq being another) where reporters who engaged in unethical conduct were outed and their conduct has become part of their public profile.
And for the same reason as above, integrity in journalism was a winner.
Blaming the shareholders for the decisions made by the board is like blaming a populace for the decisions made by the government that rules over them. Common sense is all you need to realize that it's just a stinking pile of B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T.
And still, people commonly blame the populace for the decisions made by their goverments. "People have the goverment they deserve" and all that shit.
Look at the Greeks and the Spaniards, and how they are being blamed for Europe's economic woes.
No sig for the moment.
Apple, are you reading this?
Have gnu, will travel.
So, Novell was awarded $3 million in 2008 but they have not to this day seen a dime of it. SCO declared bankruptcy and from that point on, various attorneys and advisers got paid, and the bankruptcy trustee, but not the creditors. This went on until no money was left, and now they're going into Chapter 7.
And the IBM case was stayed by the bankruptcy. IBM had a very good counter-suit against SCO for defamation and interfering with IBM's business by wrongfully claiming IBM had no right to sell their Unix product, AIX. This case can now technically be resumed now that SCO is out of Chapter 11, but IBM will never see any monetary compensation, even if they win, because of course SCO has no money.
The whole thing illustrates very well why companies incorporate in Delaware, because the bankruptcy process there practically guarantees that nobody with a claim against the company will get anything. At least if this case is any indication.
We can only home that someone like IBM gets (or buys) all the so called assets of SCO and publicly drives a silver steak through the heart of the paperwork. What worries me is that some nefarious creep gets a hold of the so called IP and this thing never goes away.
Let us not forget the other victim in all of this - Caldera OpenLinux.
I know, it's a long dead distribution, but it was well ahead of it's time when SCO killed it to focus on it's Litigation-for-Profit business model. I often wonder what would have happened if Caldera Linux had survived.
[p]As recall The SCO Group didn't file for Chapter 11 after Novell won the trial but the Friday before the actual trial began. Thus delaying the case(s) for some time.[/p]
SCO Group did not buy The Santa Cruz Operation, but instead had bought certain assets from them, and had some rights to use Unix in specific ways under contract. The court ruled that this contract did not transfer the copyrights (in fact, it ruled Santa Cruz Operation didn't own them either, Novell retained ownership). There was quite a bit of willful obfuscation by SCO where they preferred to let on that they had just inherited Unix ownership from The Santa Cruz Operation, and the name similarity helped this little slight of hand. But it didn't hold up in court.
Blaming the shareholders for the decisions made by the board is like blaming a populace for the decisions made by the government that rules over them. Common sense is all you need to realize that it's just a stinking pile of B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T.
If you have to strip naked to fly from one part of the USA to another part of the USA, it's because you - and 314 million of your closest friends - elected people who passed the laws that made it not merely possible, but mandatory. We may be a "republic", but we're a democratic republic.
On the other hand, corporations are "Citizens United" democratic republics. Not one person, one vote, but one share, one vote, and the bulk of the shares are almost always in the hands of a few executives and/or insitutional investors. Thus the board doesn't reflect the majority of the share holders, just the majority shareholders. Which, in the case of SCO...
My Nick will be obsolete soon....
0xB315AA8D852DCD3F3DCA578FD2E0BF88
A modern-day Dickens could do something with it.
"Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless."--Charles Dickens, Bleak House
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
My biggest concern is that on the back of this there is Novell's takeover by Attachmate (funded in part by the sell off of patents). Who has them now...?
Came for that comment, wasn't disappointed.
Sorry valiant AC, I don't have any mod points for you today.
Look at what's happened in the tech world during the last ten years... Hell, just look at the Linux world - who would have thought IBM would be selling Linux as the "never-get-fired-for choosing-IBM" mid-tier server option? It's not just that our legal system can't keep up with the ever-increasing pace of change, It's having trouble staying in the same freaking decade. I fear the coming patent wars and their effect on innovation. Hell, when this story broke I had a high /. UID.....
This is one of the key problems with corporations. Corporations are amoral creatures because in many ways there is never one single person that gets involved in moral decisions. At every level, including with the CEO, employees just say "I'm just following orders". Except the ultimate bosses are just the shareholders which can be an amorphous concept. They aren't actually running the company, they leave that to the execs and as long as there are profits they aren't going to second guess or micromanage the company. However the executives at the same time are always acutely aware that they must make a big profit, always bigger than the previous quarter, or they'll may end up being fired. ( actually being fired is not a big deal, fired CEOs are hot commodities and many companies would rather hire a failed CEO who has learned a lesson than to promote an unknown vice president) Of course they have a lot of latitude about how they make a profit and it really is under the control of the CEO. Only there's this implicit boss in the background that the CEO can't ignore.
An excellent piece. But reason and logic doesn't come into it. Pax Americana is over, the "IP" mantra is all that is left. All of our consumer [US + EU] products are made in the east, better and cheaper than we can do it. That's life.
Turn off the TV, get rid of it if you can convince your wife/kids. Consumerism will evaporate in your home. Visit you local parks, get books from your library, use then for evening events, be happy.
Tech is a wankfest. Let it die. You have no control over it, other than what's in your wallet.
Be happy.
And to think I go to school in the building that SCO used to use. There are still SCO mugs around the place.
Don't even think the term laid to rest. People have to stay on SCO till it is "ground into dust". Otherwise it can and will if at all possible rezombify and attack again. It is in need of a double tap to the head to ensure it stays down. Laid to rest makes it sound so peaceful and that will soon be calmly over. Don't stop driving till it is gone. That will also put the fear of whatever into other scumbags like SCO. Killer instinct needed on this one.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Even if it may be too early to dance on SCO's grave ...
Look on the bright side: It's not too late to dance on their carcass.
Daryl and his cronies, who made a shitload of money while The SCO Group burned.
My understanding of "wrath of the shareholders" is that the lawsuit is the only thing legally protecting them from the wrath. Anyone who is a shareholder is probably furious over the current stock price and would like nothing better than to sue the pants off the board, but they can't until the lawsuit is resolved. They aren't doing it because the shareholders want it.
The shareholders who profited from the lawsuit have long since left. Even the board have milked as much money as they can. Now they're doing everything they can come up with to survive the fallout. One of their dangers are the shareholders who bought in at $20 believing in the value of the lawsuit and are now stuck with penny stocks.
What exactly was/is the difference b/w Unixware and any other Unix? Just the fact that Unixware includes Netware support as well as IPX/SPX, right? Or is there anything more to that? On a different note, has the Open Group ever defined or released an SVR5/6/7 definition, or for that matter, a Unixware definition (since they own the Unixware brand name as well?) They certify whether an OS is Unix or not, so do they do the same for whether an OS is Unixware or not?
...but there's a much better summary on Groklaw.
You guys have your heads on wrong. This case was not about SCO. This case was about a broken legal system.
The Greeks and Spaniards are to a large extent the cause of Europe's woes. They overspent for years, and collectively, the people thought nothing wrong with that....until the rest of Europe decided against further funding their largess. Now they are acting like spoiled brats demanding that Europe give them more candy.
If it is after Ransom Love that was the McBride era. On the osmosis issue I wrote an article years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldera_OpenLinux . Caldera around '95 had written an compatibility layer to allow UnixWare apps to run on their Linux. They had really believed that United Linux was the obvious migration path. The resellers didn't see it that way. Caldera was in some ways ahead of its time by a few years. If they hadn't bought SCO and used the money from the DR DOS settlement to run the business they might very well have lasted to the point when people were migrating.
Buying SCO was not a bad idea, particularly given that Caldera was trying to woo SCO customers, for whom switching platforms and support staff was not a trivial issue. I do think a better idea would have been for the 2 companies to merge, rather than Caldera using its DR-DOS lawsuit proceeds to buy up SCO. However, the problem Caldera had once it had acquired SCO was unique in that
But it's tough for a company that spent a decade selling "Unixware is old school switch to us" to change over to "Unixware is great want a support contract?"
The sensible thing for Caldera to have done would have been to develop a sensible market segmentation strategy, where support for existing business would continue, but for new business, extension of installations and so on, Caldera Linux would be what was sold. Since Caldera had ported much of the apps that mattered, wouldn't have been a bad strategy. I don't know whether the GPL was what reduced the options Caldera had in terms of licensing - whereas OSE or Unixware could be sold on a per seat basis, I'm not sure that that could be done w/ Caldera Linux. Another thing they could have done, since they now owned USL, could have been to have taken Linux, combined it w/ as much SVR4.2 or SVRV code as they liked, and sold it under the Unixware brand name, but under the GPL, thereby pretending that it wasn't Linux, and continuing the same business model as SCO. Over time, OSE and Unixware would have disappeared, but the company would still have been satisfying its customers, obviously w/ altered T&C to account for the changed landscape in terms of support contracts.
Also, w/ this strategy, there would have been no need for them to put any efforts into Monterrey, since Linux supported Itanium pretty early (even though major distros dropped support for it later. Incidentally, in the Wiki article you linked, it was mentioned that Linux ran on x86, PowerPC and Alpha. In case of Caldera, this is incorrect - the only 2 CPU platforms that Caldera ever supported was x86 and Sparc) Caldera would then have been differentiating b/w their own Linux and other distros, but given the assets that they had, such as SCO, USL and 2 versions of Unix, that wouldn't have been much of a problem, w/ a good branding strategy combined w/ good development strategies. Over time, Caldera could have borrowed parts of various projects, such as Debian (their distro was dependent on Red Hat for rpm), KDE, and built up a good platform on which to compete w/ Red Hat (which went w/ GNOME) and others.
I understand that they shot the product that wasn't raking in the cash, which is what any sensible business strategy dictates. How
How about a footnote detailing the skullduggery that was Bankruptcy Court? The shady dealings of Edward Cahn and the strange decisions that allowed SCO to enter and stay in Chapter 13 when it should have been Chapter 7. Sure, in the scheme of things, the corpse was already dead, but these legal beetles scoured the body of flesh for several years before it was finally discarded into Chapter 7.
It's sad because the assholes at the top made a killing pumping and dumping the stock, no doubt.