SCO auctions Unix and mobile assets to continue fight SCO Group has announced plans to auction off its Unix and mobile products to ensure their survival while continuing its long-running fight over alleged violations of its IP in Linux. The company announced the auction of its Unix OpenServer and mobile businesses as part of a re-organization plan, which has been formally …
... owe Novell money?
If they have money for lawyers, they have money to pay up on what the courts said they owe.
If not, they should be found in contempt, and hauled away to the slammer.
Either way, the end of SCO is at hand.
It was cute and amusing to watch for a while - having them jump around and argue that they had X number of IP that were in violation, but never actually willing/able to actually tell anyone what IP it was. Now, however - its sad. In this economy, the money is better spent elsewhere.
Like in Novell's coffers.
*OAD, SCO.
For those of you who dont know the whole story, AT&T made the source code of unix available to use by universities and business before the existence of open source licenses. They later sold the rights to the name unix to Novell, and then Novell sold it to SCO.
The first joke is that SCO is going after Linux which is not based on unix but rather minux which is an OS in a book of operating systems that was never intended to be used but rather teach OS concepts.
The second joke can be found in the last line of the article:
"Last year a US judge declared Novell the owner of Unix properties that SCO had claimed, and heaped further financial woe on the burdened company by ordering SCO to pay Novell $2.5m as part of his finding"
so...SCO has to pay Novell, ha ha ha naaah, dont think SCO will have an easy time being a patent troll with all the open flavors of unix, especially when there are still commercial unix flavors being marketed.
"More to the point, though, the auction should ensure that the remainder of SCO can continue its legal fight free of the distractions of product development while raising much-needed cash to fund the battle."
So they're basically saying that product development is a distraction for them... the very thing that brings in money. The transformation to a patent troll is complete, then.
Since they've already been told by a judge that they do in fact not own the UNIX IP that they claimed to own, which was the foundation of their case against IBM, you have to wonder why their action against IBM hasn't imploded yet. How can IBM have done anything against SCO if SCO in fact was neither the owner of the IP it's claimed IBM violated, nor did SCO have any standing to revoke IBM's perpetual and irrevocable license to use UNIX source code.
Normally you might wonder whether the lunatics are running the asylum, although in this case, the lunatics are running SCO.
It's SCO's lawyers. They are living off the gravy train that SCO has pulled into their station and don't want it to end before they have sucked every last penny they can out of it. Hell if I were a leeching lawyer type and on these cases I wouldn't want them to end either so long as sugar daddy SCO is paying the bills. Gotta sell off a few assets, no big deal cos we neeeeed the money.. for.. umm... legal stuff.. yeah that's it.
I'm with the poster above and will chip in another ten bucks to buy it up and be done with all this nonsense.
Please call them by the right name, they are The SCO Group, not really anything to do with The Santa Cruz Operation, just Caldera renamed and living in the sewers.
I used to work for the proper SCO back in the early 90's and its highly embarrassing to have any association with these jokers.
SCO need a thesaurus entry. I'm thinking something along the lines of an Absolute and Unexplainable Catastrophe.
So lets get this straight, in the not so distant past instead of building upon the rather promising (at the time) Caldera distro and building a business around a future growth area, they instead decided to pursue the un-enlightening, stoical pastime of patent trolling and embark upon the worlds most severe course of self flagellation by choosing to sue everyone with a pulse. Can anyone explain that initial decision?
Now all that is left is a corporate Zombie, led by lawyers trying to initiate a profitable exit for the directors, whilst waiting for the final head shot.
What a hideous mess. Someone put it out of it's misery.
Note to ElReg: Can we have a stupicon for Pfft! and Arf! please? Ta.
Novell was declared the legal owner of a bunch of stuff SCO claimed to own... They are now selling some IP they claim to currently own, while also still trying to sue over other stuff they claim to own.
Now would you buy something from a company that isn't sure what they own? If so, I think I might own a few bridges, but I'm not sure. What to buy those too?
"SCO Group has announced plans to auction off its Unix and mobile products to ensure their survival while continuing its long-running fight over alleged violations of its IP in Linux"
Or better put: SCO continues to asset strip itself to other family members (Darl's brother Kevin) who just so happen work for the lawyers they, by pure co-incidence, happen to be using.
Yes, they know they ain't got a hope, but they will get all the cash out before they go down.
This is far from over unfortunately.Will someone with a lot of money to invest just buy SCO and shut the place down ? Or we can start our own fundraising campaign with an objective : Shut Down SCO : collect funds and buy out SCO , then just shut it down.
They are a thorn in a toe , the insect in my soup , the hair in my sandwich , the onion on a little toe , the pebble in my shoe .. ( i can go on forever .. but ill spare you the agony )
BTW nice scoop .. Groklaw aint even posted anything on this :D
goooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO REG
To be a patent troll you need to have ambiguous patents, and then threaten people with them. SCO aren't doing that, because they don't have any ambiguous patents to troll with - they're going for copyright instead.
With no patents that can be used to troll with, they're going to have a hard time getting any money at all - their server products are as good as dead.
This post has been deleted by its author
The SCO lawyers are the ones that should be sued.
In the beginning you had to wonder about SCO's claims. But, as the facts were disclosed (thanks to Groklaw) it became obvious that SCO never had a case, SCO lawyers knew they never had a case and it was all about being a nuisance to IBM and others. And a bunch of money going to lawyers of course.
Now they get to sell whatever they can. But few are going to want their stuff.
SCO dies when Windows 7 is born. Many have postulated that MS needed a distraction to allow time for them to develop a proper OS. W7 is upon the near horizon, so is SCO's demise. Will there be any evidence left to be found to support the theory that MS supported SCO?
A "Fire Sale" may be in the offing.
I'm sort of surprised that this hasn't been spotted and commented on.... They are selling off all of the rights to products/development, which means that strictly speaking they no longer be in the OS business at all, merely a company with a 100% patent trolling core business. Now, just a thought, wouldn't it be up to the new owners to sue or not, as they see fit, rather than the up to the dregs of Caldera/SCO Group ? Don't you have ot be engaged in exploiting a patent in order to sue someone else ? What's a company buying into this going to get a license to flog and develop, "....and we promise not to sue you if it all goes pear shaped down the line." , whilst the trolls retain the actual goods ? Who would want to be a SCO Group employee in that climate ?
Answers to the above on the back of a postage stamp....
Secondly, is it theirs to sells, would this be covered by their agreement with Novell or do the rights lapse back to Novell ? In any event this would give them money to pay what they owe to Novell, which clearly isn't part of the SCO plan..... Novell need to get their own lawyers to head this one off at the pass, before SCO Group suddenly find money to prolong this further whilst welching on exiting judgments......
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
