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:)))))))))

Ironic for SCO!

I think the word you're looking for is sardonic.

Edited 2007-09-15 00:14

They deserve this.

Completely unrelated to anything, but your avatar and name are awesome.

*Nelson Laugh*

Linux FTW my ass. Deep pocketed service providers FTW.

I obviously won't miss CEO either, but I do want to add the nuance that I do feel sorry for the people that work there - they might lose their jobs and that's a very sad thing for those people and their families and friends.

I obviously won't miss CEO either, but I do want to add the nuance that I do feel sorry for the people that work there - they might lose their jobs and that's a very sad thing for those people and their families and friends.

Its a workers market. They can get new jobs. Jobs where they are paid to do what they do best, Code, instead of searching the Linux kernel for possible infriging code.

For the CEO, it think it will be a little harder for him to get a new job. Maybe the register at Wall-mart.
Oh wait that involves money. Sweeping the floors then.

"For the CEO, it think it will be a little harder for him to get a new job. Maybe the register at Wall-mart. "

This is the computer industry. He's mucked things up for a massive company. I'm sure he'll soon have a new, cushy position. I hear they need some help over at Amiga Inc, for example.

Thom, anyone who still worked there should have jumped boat aeons ago and find some place else to work, instead of sticking with a company which put its whole future and very existence at stake in a FUD gamble.

I sympathise with the workers as a humane gesture, but I feel no pity given their choice to remain there.


Edit: *no* pity, I mean

Edited 2007-09-14 22:03

Yea, I hope all the employees that get laid off find another job soon. I'd hate to think that more people than necessary have to lose out because of one bad apple.

As for Mr. McBride, he should have taken the advice of SCO's former CEO and left well enough alone.

I don't think it will take long for the board to realize that hiring an individual with a long history of patent trolling does not a good CEO make. Let's hope they don't take too long in coming to that conclusion.

Considering the future of SCO, I really don't mind if they come back as long as they quit it already with the lawsuits.

Well, it just goes to show that those old sayings often prove to be more relevant than expected, i.e. there is no such thing as a free lunch. :-)

Thom, that's a nice sentiment. Seriously. In fact, I posted something similar about it being the employees of SCO who were suffering, some years ago. But it's not like today, in 2007, they haven't had over 3 and a half years to find work with a less morally bankrupt company... before it went financially bankrupt as well. The handwriting has been on the wall for some time; You don't have to be a Kreskin... ;-)

I, personally, find it difficult to have much sympathy for them at this late date.

I obviously won't miss CEO either, but I do want to add the nuance that I do feel sorry for the people that work there - they might lose their jobs and that's a very sad thing for those people and their families and friends.

I wouldn't be too worried. They are just a shell of a company at this point. Most people left long ago. It's just too bad that it had to end this way because SCO actually had a decent amount of software that still needed support when they decided to become litigators instead of software developers. They've lost their customers now and I don't think they have a chance of getting them back now.

Their products and service are OK. It is just the fact they company decided to go Evil, Lie to the public all for ill gotten gains. And now it backfired on them. To bad SCO CEO isn't a religious fellow, his religion would say such activities are wrong and bad.

"""

"""

No need to bring the gods into it. Basic human decency should cover this. ;-)

They should be filing unter chapter 7. That's when the court sells off your assets. Chapter 11 might allow them to stick around.

After Novell makes it claim, thats whats going to happen.

They should be filing unter chapter 7. [...] Chapter 11 might allow them to stick around.

If they ever were to stick around after that their name would be a memento.

Isn't SCO doing this as a legal ploy? By filing under Chapter 11, the lawsuit is postponed. The only issue left was to determine how much SCO owes Novell from the money they withheld from licencing fees they got from Sun. Microsoft, etc.

So doing this allows SCO to delay the day of reckoning. I bet it was recommended to their board by their legal team. Pretty smart move on their part.

I'm afraid we'll be hearing from SCO for quite a long time yet, given their expertise at delaying tactics. Don't pop those champagne corks yet.

"""
The only issue left was to determine how much SCO owes Novell from the money they withheld from licencing fees they got from Sun. Microsoft, etc.
"""

Which, if I understand correctly, must now be the primary issue that the bankruptcy court will need to see determined. How can the bankruptcy proceedings go forward until it is determined just how large SCOX's largest debt actually is?

And of course it is a delaying tactic. That's what bankruptcy *is*. No matter who files for it. And it's standard practice when one is backed up against a wall, financially.

People who are painting this as some brilliant legal tactic are giving SCO far to much credit.

FUD-time is over, you see. And this is all about SCOX making whatever desperate gambits they are able, to try to salvage what they can out of the burning wreckage that's left since Judge Kimball firebombed their building in August.

Edited 2007-09-15 15:36

Check Groklaw. The trial won't go ahead until the bankruptcy is concluded. Ergo the bankruptcy can't properly include SCO's obligations to Novell because it hasn't been adjudicated. It's a Catch-22 that allows SCO to continue as long as they can keep the bankruptcy in place. Given the state of their business, that could be a long time.

Note that their to-be-determined obligations to Novell are not on list of 20 largest unsecured creditors or list of debts. It just doesn't exist in legal reality yet.

I don't know what sort of miracle they might be expecting in order to use the time this gives them - perhaps an appeal of the August 10 ruling to a higher, more favourable court.

"""
Check Groklaw.
"""

Could you cite a reliable legal source? I'm not certain how a bitter and grudge-holding paralegal on a vendetta ever achieved the status of the community's Oracle of Delphi. A paralegal, and in particular, an openly hostile and biased one, is just as much "not a lawyer" as the rest of us. Let me know if and when she ever passes the Bar.

That SCO owes Novell money has already been decided. The actual amount owed was never within the scope of these proceedings. The fact that SCO fails to mention it in their filing does not make it go away. The bankruptcy court will not turn a blind eye to it. That court has a solemn responsibility to *all* of SCO's creditors over the course of their bankruptcy.

As to a SCO appeal to a more favorable court... it's hard to imagine a more favorable court than was Judge Kimball's. Kimball and Wells went to great lengths to give SCO every opportunity to make some sort of case. They showed a patience with SCO which went far beyond what SCO might have expected from some other judges.

It would be astounding if that was *not* the first thing that any judge reviewing the case, on appeal, would notice.

IANAL, of course. ;-)

Groklaw is more than PJ's opinions. It is also a convenient repository of the legal filings. There you will see SCO's motion in the Novell case in which they quote Chapter 11 law to support their contention that the Novell trial should be postponed until the bankruptcy situation is concluded. I don't know if that's ironclad, but it's definitely their intent.

As stated, Novell is not yet a creditor, and won't be until the trial is concluded because it's in dispute.

I agree with you on the probable merits of SCO's appeal. But that won't stop them trying. It's all they've got!

Geoff,

May I suggest lamlaw.com? The nice thing about LamLaw is that Lewis A. Mettler is a real, honest to god, attorney. He's not just a paralegal pretending to be one.*

http://www.lamlaw.com/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=363

The stays on the current court cases are automatic, yes. But the bankruptcy court can lift them. I (as a citizen, not a lawyer!) cannot imagine it *not* ascertaining what is owed to Novell as part of the bankruptcy proceedings.

* Oddly enough, there are no real legal qualifications for a paralegal. There are no educational requirements. Not even a high school diploma, so far as I can tell. No state or federal licensing. Just an optional certification. And no experience requirements. I guess I could call myself a paralegal, buy a domain name, pay my monthly hosting fees, and do my own blog. How about DellaStreet.com? Has a nice ring to it, don't you think? ;-)

Edited 2007-09-16 03:12

Ditto.

Since Ray Noorda become incapacitated to run the companies it's been only downhill to Caldera (and later SCO, when one bought the other).

Alzheimer's sucks big time.

SCO shouldn't be applicable for Ch.11 if they can manage to fund it's lawsuits but cannot manage to pay other bills.

Yeah, you would think the court would take that into consideration....unless that particular funding was made available by an outside source....micro-**cough**-soft.

I think that is the flaw in the US system - and the reason why there is such a big build up of bad debt in the US; companies making stupid decisions, filing chapter 11 and not take responsibility for the decisions they make. Most countries don't have that sort of system in place - the risk to the banking system and investment environment is far to great to allow it.

As for SCO; the decline started at around 2000, I remember the last filing I had a look at, they lost $13million on declining revenue. The last interview with the, IIRC CEO, he berated Microsoft over Windows 2000 having 35million lines of code. That was the moment to take radical action, reduce the price, bundle everything together rather than charging for each component individually. 6 years ago, they had that opportunity to rescue their business, but they failed to wake up and face reality.

Like SGI, they thought it was still the 80s, that paying $3000 per operating system component was acceptable, that paying $14,000 for an under performing workstation was a norm. They failed to wake up and realise that the days of expensive proprietary UNIX systems was a dead end.

The funny thing is that he wrote he would come with evidence. But he never did. There is no evidence - only claims. Of course some posts have been deleted, but not just because they disagreed with PJ.

Besides that, Groklaw is - in regard to legal analysis - one of the most trustworthy sites around. There is a reason why lawyers frequently visits the site, and that's because of the information available.

I'm aware a BSD-zealot like you doesn't like PJ's view on FLOSS. She's way too GPL-happy for your taste. Personally I think she's going too far on occasion, but her legal analysis in the SCO-cases are second to none. And in regard to the SCO-cases nobody can correctly claim that Groklaw isn't trustworthy.

ESR and Greg Lehey are irrelevant in regard to the SCO-cases. I hold ESR in some regard yes, but he is no God in my eyes. Nor are Greg Lehey (gifted Unix-hacker) or PJ for that matter. They are "just" human beings. Treat 'em as such.

>I'm aware a BSD-zealot

No just liberal and no hypocrite - that's a big difference.

Exactly *human beings*, we don't know whether PJ is really one (of course this is just an urban legend of SCO ;-) ). But maybe this is BSDish thinking too according to your opinion. Why I prefer the opinions of Lehey for example? Because he actually knows UNIX, BSD and Linux.

> She's way too GPL-happy for your taste.

I'm not 16 anymore and I did follow the Linux 'way of life' for about eleven years since the 90s, then I migrated to BSD. But that's offtopic in this context, but it's nice to have a watchdog at OSNews.

Fight for free speech I see in your data? Nice, it's my credo too, freedom of knowledge for *everyone*. And with a copyleft you're abusing this freedom. Of course you will not learn this in computer science, but history and philosophy. I'm not a BSD zealot, but a 'freedom zealot'. I blame the GPL and RMS in the public for their abuse of real freedom, but I would never oppress other people - that's the difference. Telling people something about dictatorship is your free speech, but actually building some dictatorship is something I would confront.

Cheers,

Oliver

Liberal? You mean Libertarian, right?

Edited 2007-09-15 01:59 UTC

Fight for free speech I see in your data? Nice, it's my credo too, freedom of knowledge for *everyone*. And with a copyleft you're abusing this freedom. Of course you will not learn this in computer science, but history and philosophy. I'm not a BSD zealot, but a 'freedom zealot'. I blame the GPL and RMS in the public for their abuse of real freedom, but I would never oppress other people - that's the difference. Telling people something about dictatorship is your free speech, but actually building some dictatorship is something I would confront.


Bull. The freedom to steal and cheat is not legitimate freedom. All the GPL does is prevent theft. It's nothing more than reciprocal altruism.

I'd agree, but I would just use the term "collaboration".

The bulk of Scientific knowledge is built up by collaboration. Scientists working off each others discoveries.

The GP simply allows the same methods of collaboration applied to software development. It uses the power of copyright law to prevent anyone subverting the ability to collaborate on the software so being developed.

Spit that kool-aid out right now. Groklaw is not an authority consulted by legal experts, let's be serious.

Groklaw gained cred because PJ was able to use her paralegal expertise to dissect the original SCO legal documentation train, and she provided a brilliant service in doing so. Most of the community rallied around her because it was a common cause. But don't confuse that with actual legal expertise; Groklaw is a ridiculously biased opinion site that selectively uses legalese to re-assert it's opinion, and she doesn't even try and hide that fact. It is hardly authoritative and there's no way in hell that actual real-world lawyers are researching cases based on groklaw.

Groklaw is a blog, not a news site.

You are spewing bullshit based on your own flawed bias.

Fact is - and this has been acknowledged openly - that lawyers actually do use Groklaw. Not to get legal advice, (which I have never claimed btw), but because of the analysis of the SCO-cases.

They are using her analyses very much. Also in education. Of course she's not authoritative. She's not the Court after all. But her methodology is being copied and her analyses are also being dissected. Not that it is particularly original (apart from being a first timer for using the internet to rally behind a case like that).

Groklaw is a news site about the SCO-cases. AND a blog about FLOSS in general. And so what? OSNews are tenfold worse. Take a look at CNN. Or whatever media you can find. I guarantee that none of the mainstream media are half as independent as Groklaw is.

http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/359

"For quite a while I have heard, read, and been personally told stories about messages that have been deleted from Groklaw's comment section. Specifically these are posts that do not agree with Pamela Jones' opinions and conclusions, or seek to debate or clarify issues that are not clear-cut or obvious."

Groklaw was never a trustworthy source.

There isn't much to discuss about the filthy behaviour of SCO, but I do trust people who have the real knowledge and capability like ESR or Greg Lehey.

Oh, get over it already. Groklaw got it right -- the analysis was spot on, and the predictions were accurate.

It's not because PJ is a genius -- of course she isn't. But she DID create a space where the Open-Source "many eyes" model could be applied to the legal system, and that model made all the bugs in SCO's case shallow.

You should thank her, instead of just spouting sour grapes because she got it right and you didn't.

And BTW, I've posted comments there that disagreed with her on several occasions, and mine were never removed. And I've seen others do the same. As long as your disagreement is well-reasoned, respectful, and not personal, it's safe.

At least we probably got a new term to use when somebody does something similar in the future. We can just call it a McBride.

No, "doing a Darl" sounds much better !

*Kicks SCO down a well*

I can't see them emerging from chapter 11 either. All they're current products are outdated and as I have stated before, I don't know where they are going to find the money to foot the bill for either revamping openserver or development of this mobility platform Darl McBride was talking about.

The only people I see actually buying any newly released updates for openserver are existing customers and frankly, If they aren't migrating away at the speed of greased lightning following this news, then those customers need a new technology manager/director.

Even if they do manage to develop this mobility platform McBride is talking about, who the hell would buy a product from a company mired in debt and losing lawsuits against two of the industries heavyweights? They are going to get they're rear end sued off big time and will probably have to go into receivership.

There are a few things that make perfect sense for SCO right now. Drop McBride and drop the IBM lawsuit. They might just survive the wrath of Novell.

About MS, could you imagine the amount of money they would have to be hemoraging before they needed to file for chapter 11? Wow, now that would be a sight to see for years and years and years...! ;-)

Even if SCO completely drops the lawsuit against IBM, it does absolutely nothing to remove IBM's counterclaims against SCO.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051008121353992&query=ib...

Nor does it do anything to stop RedHat's suit against SCO.

Edited 2007-09-15 13:18

Very true, I forgot all about them. Thanks for pointing that out and refreshing my memory. :-)

It looks like its crunch time.

Maybe shorter than you thank. Most of Microsoft's vaunted wealth is in over inflated stock issues ("as told by Bill Parish years ago when the "stock options" inflation began) an an operating system that with "Vista" has finally become bloatware to self defeating proportions ending its "upgrade treadmill"

Their business should have been updating and selling what they had purchased when they abandoned the name Caldera and Linux (the proprietary SCO open server version of *nix), NOT making lawsuits and playing financial footsie
with Microsoft.

McBride's next possible work statements:

"Welcome to WalMart. Here's a sticker for your child."

Wonder if he'll try to claim he has patents on and owns the copyrights to stickers and smiley faces.

Edited 2007-09-15 03:54

"""
What I don't comprehend is the people that are/were still buying SCO stock after the court decision last month. All those schmoes that bought into SCO at $.70US only lost half their money (so far),
"""

And those who bought SCOX two days after the ruling and sold a couple of weeks later made a 90% profit in just 16 days.

Nuremberg.. SuSE had its headquarter there before they were bought by Novell - maybe that was a reference to something SuSE did?

If you prefer an non Linux *nix go for Sun's Open Solaris
or one of the BSDs they are a lot more modern and better updated.