SCO rises from the dead (again) SCO has risen from the grave. Again. On June 10, US judge Ted Stewart ruled that Novell does indeed own the UNIX copyrights the The SCO Group so vehemently laid claim to, ending a six-year legal battle between the two. But, yes, SCO has now appealed Stewart's judgment, according to those dogged SCO-watchers at Groklaw. Though …
Cept it turned out that the huge knife the 'Bad Thing" thought it was wielding was in fact nothing more than an egg sandwich and a fevered imagination. Even after having this fact pointed out to it, "Bad Thing" has refused to accept this and is now frenziedly squashing its lunch into their chests. Everyone else looks on vaguely bemused.
Except with a change of wind the egg sandwich blew back into the throat of BAD Thing causing it to choke on its own "murder weapon" an even more bemusing scenario to the onlookers who then die from heart attacks caused by their own laughter.
Damn, BAD Thing won, they died but they won too! Ah well, at least it was bemusing...
the TENTH or so installment of a hollywood slasher movie franchise that's lasted for > 20 years and JUST WONT DIE,
much like the Bad Thing (tm) that the often retarded plot centers on?
i'm thinking JasonX, Freddy vs Jason, more recently Saw 1-7 (or whetever it's up to), and of course, the necromancer cult horror-drama series SCO vs Novell - This Time It's Personal II - The Sequel - The Undead Strikes Back
The problem is that with the whole SCO / Novell / Unix case, the dead horse is SCO.
They may as well rewrite their company charter to "Our reason for being is to launch legal cases to gain control of some copyrights so we can launch more legal cases to gain revenues."
Isn't there something in the USA Law that enables the government to "put down" a company that is acting in this manner ?
{Paris - because she's crying for the poor judge}
No, you don't!
Boies, Shiller and whatshisface agreed a fixed, capped fee for their services. I believe they are now seriously in the red for their over-confidence in achieving a win.
A quick google for Boies, Shiller (+ muppet) gives the impression they're following SCO around the U-bend. Faster than a dose of salts.
For example: (WSJ) "They have been described by The Wall Street Journal as a “national litigation powerhouse” and by the National Law Journal as “unafraid to venture into controversial” and “high risk” matters."
Yep. Got burned severely this time.
"A good start". ('Patch Adams')
"They have been described by The Wall Street Journal as a “national litigation powerhouse” and by the National Law Journal as “unafraid to venture into controversial” and “high risk” matters."
And by a future copy of the Enyclopeadia Galactica that fell through a timewarp as "A bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came".
Auto-eroticists!
that only getting *all* the lawyers and senior execs involved in a big room and with several Claymore mines in the centre would end this.*
Not of course that I advocate this because that could be seen as inciting a terrorist incident (use of a military weapon) just saying that only *something* on that scale would seem to be able to end this once and for all.
In the words of Jeff Cooper; "Two to the chest and one to the head, and repeat step two as many times as you think necessary 'cos you can't make someone too dead!"
Seriously, I actually want the SCO management to be selected for England! They love hopeless causes and just don't know when to give up (unlike half the World Cup squad)!
... said the orc with an arrow sticking through its head.
Does this outfit file public papers about its gross income? It must be in the pennies per month, if that. At some point the lawyers will have to wise up to the concept that they aren't going to get a cent from this.
kill won't work on zombie processes; they've already died but still live on in the process list (hence the name) but their death hasn't been acknowledged by the parent process doing a wait(pid).
However, the init process should clean them up eventually...
Oh god.... can't believe I was just so geeky.... Mine's the one with the pens in the top pocket....
kill -9 only delivers a non blockable signal. It doesn't really kill anything.
If the target process is a zombie (as in the case of SCO, it's dead just no one has swept up the pieces) or is currently blocked in a high priority, non signalable sleep state, then the SIGKILL will be delivered but will not be acted upon.
To get rid of zombies you need to get the parent process to issue a wait(2) (or equivalent) call or to set SIGCHLD to SIGIGNORE. Since it is typically not possible to get the parent to do this, it is usually necessary to kill the parent process. At which point the orphaned zombie will be inherited by init which will issue the required wait call.
As to the parenthood of SCO, some might argue that given it's recent behaviour, it doesn't actually have any parents, or at the very least it's parenthood is somewhat unknown (even to each other).
On another front, since in it's earliest form it was known as a purveyor of Xenix, so perhaps M$ might be seen as its parent. So hope for it to die is probably too much to ask.
I think you'll find that kill -9 works perfectly well on zombies. Maybe you're doing it wrong. Or, wait do you have a pre-9.3alpha version of kill? in that case you would need to login as root and type "kill -9 -1". Now try that and tell me you still got zombies.
Well Roger me senseless with a sockful of 16 Mo DIMMs if you're not right.
However I was referring to the kill -9 method as a pre-emptive solution, not as a fix. Fixes are for lusers. Appart from the obvious "kill -9 -1" as root followed by some explanation related to *shuffle* *shuffle* Transciently-Induced Heat Sink Low-Limit Uninteruptible Breaker issues (T.I.H.S.L.L.U.B issues. for short and for the slow-minded), everyone knows that the real problem is front-end programs such as word processors or slideshow-building programs which fire up subprocesses and fail to close them properly.
As you mentionned, the kill tool will do nothing if the targetted program is already dead but still locked by its parent, the parent here being (most likely) openoffice, which is written in java with all the java-related problem with garbage collection and memory freeing. So in order to kill the zombie processes you need to prevent the parent process from locking up it's dead children, which is achieved by opening all the documents you're currently working on and disabling the autosave and the version-tracking options. You'll probably also want to remove any previous versions of these files, as they might have the autosave option enabled which would block the whole process. Obviously.
The next steps are a bit tricky and must be performed in the right order or you might lose some valuable data. In order to free up the memory pointers that might have been created by the zombie processes (thus locking them up), you need to select the whole content of the documents you're working on and delete that. Then click the "save" button, and click yes in the popup box. For every document. It's a bit tedious but safety is everyone's responsibility, isn't it? BE VERY CAREFUL as if you did not disable all the autosave and version tracking options the changes will be autosaved and committed to disk instead of just freeing the unused java pointers that lock the zombie processes, and you might lose some data. We wouldn't want that to happen, would we?
It's then time to kill the zombie processes, which should not be tied to anything anymore at that point. That can be done by typing "kill -9 -1" then "enter" in a virtual console. However, during the summer this approach sometimes fails due to the cutoff triggered by the aforementioned
Transciently-Induced Heat Sink Low-Limit Uninteruptible Breaker issues. So overall it's much safer to just pull the plug (after removing the battery in the case of a laptop), to clear any memory of previous thermal events. All modern machines have power-loss recovery mechanisms anyway so it is a harmless way to ensure that these nasty heat sink issues won't propagate.
Indeed, the troublesome thing is an orphan zombie that gets adopted by init but still doesn't go away. (I imagine that is usually a bug.) Reminds me of the dumbest thing I ever saw happen in Solaris: The print listener service failed in such a way that one of its constituent processes became an immortal orphan zombie, and SMF would not allow me to restart the service because that process was still there. It must have been caused by a kernel bug, because it shouldn't be possible. It was like that for months until, eventually, the problem was solved by a power failure.
Alas, SCO would still be there if the power went out.
This isn't the first time someone has tried to sell a significant engineering artefact it turned out they didn't own:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Lustig#Eiffel_Tower_scam .
The difference between the claimed "intellectual property" SCO was offering and the alledged scrappage rights to the Eiffel Tower which Victor Lustig offered in 1925, is that the US courts have demonstrated willingness to spend years considering SCO's equally bogus case despite the evidence of ownership being almost as contrived.
From the mythbusters: I reject your reality and substitute my own.
Sounds about right. Can anyone tell us why the gouv appointed trustee asn't stoped all the legal crap and fired the lawers? Surelly, he should realise this is all just a large waste of what cash they may have left
They could sell the game rights to the Resident Evil franchise, with Darl, Yarro et. al. as opponents, and Boise et. al. as the cannon fodder. They'd make a fortune from all of us who really really want to shoot those bastards in the face. Repeatedly. With different weapons.
Something stinks in that whole business. Why is the trustee allowing this farce to continue? Why haven't they just been put into Chapter 7? Why aren't they lifting the corporate veil and going after the assets of Darl and others who have swindled the company for millions? So many questions. Only so much ammo.
Can someone establish the coordinates for the lawyers? Seems like this about the only thing that will dispatch this problem "with extreme prejudice". Apparently this is what is required to terminate this.
Well, maybe a vat of liquid metal?
We keep getting "I'll be back". This is a terminator movie, or am I dreaming?
To start adding "DIE DIE DIE" posts. FFS Do these people have an education?
SCO is a little bit of internet history, Groklaw was a resource (until the true nature of the moderation system became clear) /. was/is a better resource. The Register added it's little bit.
& We really, really don't care anymore.....
Rock-on El Reg :-)
Yeah, right. You sad deluded geek muppet.
Microsoft are still quietly making BILLIONS of dollars in profits every year. Much as I'd like to see Linux become a serious headache for MS, it's just not happening on the desktop. Don't write them off just yet.
That's what MS already IS. Except that they have much more momentum and are, as some muppet would say, "too big to let fail" (even though that formulation was not used as such when MS was declared above common law by the US legal system, repeteadly, for the last 10 years or so).
Hopefully the UE wil have the balls to put a stop on this (but most likely not).
"The Return of the Undead Troll VII: The Revenge" is out, at last. It's a bit like a text-mode Z-serie franchise; the Adventure version of Freddy Kruegger, if you like. Invariably the bad guy loses in the end, but he always comes back!
I can understand though. I mean, dead for dead, might as well keep up the fight as long as the US legal system will allow them to. They're technically out of business anyway -if not legally just yet-, and what could they possibly do to come back? Sell a dull version of UNIX with bad support, when you can get nice versions with good support from the likes of IBM, or Linux for free with very good and quite cheap support from Red Hat and the likes? That will fly as well as an iron kyte duct-taped to a lead balloon, especially as they kind of alienated everyone in the industry and repeatedly made a fool of themselves in front of all potential customers. No, really, the only way they might possibly make a bit of money is through courts, so you can't really blame them for trying (well, you could, but then you'd have to blame every other US tech company too. On second thought I think I can live with that.).
This post has been deleted by its author
This SCO saga is all too familiar...
The opening scene of Peter Seller's The Party, where the Indian bugler refuses to die. Eventually even having his fellow troops firing on him to silence him.
Wonder how long it will before SCO insiders turn on the idiot who is refusing to let SCO die and burns the little money that is left in pursuit of this....?
I know SCO will die eventually, but I would have thought that by now, SCO would be so worthless (SCOXQ capitalization of 1.08M USD at 5C a share) that Novell, or even IBM could buy the remaining stock for less than their legal costs in a retrial/trial (depending on which lawsuit you are looking at).
Of course, this would depend on the expected outcome of any trial by the appointed Chapter 11 administrator, but I would have though that 50C or even less in the dollar would be attractive to them. Buying 51% at 50C would cost about 275K USD, which must be lower than the expected costs. Would have to make sure that any debts are ditched, though.
Once they have done that, it's a simple matter of closing them for good.
Or is there something in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that I don't understand?
Alternatively, we could do it! I've a tenner, anybody else interested?
There's some weird shenanigans where Yarro lent them $2M that would have to be paid back and as soon as you started buying shares the price would rise.....
If the guy running chapter 11 realises the emperor has no clothes and calls chap7 then Yarro gets everything and may just continue tilting at windmills despite there being a reality chasm in the way.
This things wired to the life support system, several resurrection machines and a whole bevy of deities who seem to be having as much fun as they did with the ancient greeks.
Kafka having a bad acid trip couldnt make this one up.
IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:
"We invaded you last night - we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."
.
And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!
.
It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."
.
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
.
It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:
.
"We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"
who is paying the bills?
It's difficult enough to get money from the banks for a profitable business. Surely nobody is stupid enough to offer them credit. I mean I assume the CEO etc are still drawing salary. Why don't the cheques bounce? When the landlord comes round do they offer to pay him in kind (wink wink)? Why is the electricity still flowing at SCO HQ? And, most important of all, how do I get in touch with these people to pitch my new 'can't fail' business idea?
The only reason SCO hasn't been buried dead and gone is the lawyers. It doesn't matter if SCO wins or not. The lawyers bill their hours and are paid for it anyway. No lawyer would take SCOs case for free. So it has to be the lawyers. There is no reason to appeal this decision. The first appeal resulted in the same thing- THEY LOST. A new appeal isn't in the best interest of the tax payers or the court system. Some judge needs to just say last rights over the damn thing and end it now. Someone pull the pin now please?
Based on a morbid fascination with this train wreck, I have come to following conclusions. The Bankruptcy court does not want to be bothered; whatever arcane excuse SCO comes up with is fine. The guy in charge is either smoking something or has never actually read any of the financials so thinks SCO has a whizz-bang case. The only reason that I think that they keep flogging the poor beast is that the end of this case would/could mean the start of SCO vs IBM. Since SCO NEVER EVER provided any proof of the alleged code violations and IBM lawyers are all Nazgul or worse, this even frightens SCO (maybe). IANAL.
The terms of the original contract were pretty clear. Novell intended to sell, and SCO intended to buy, the copyrights. The contract simply makes no sense without transferring the copyrights. It's just that they were inexplicably omitted from the actual bill of sale portion of the contract detailing what was being transferred.
Novell's lawyers were either extremely fiendish when drawing up the contract, or, much more likely, incompetent.
What SCO is trying to do is to get the courts to read a term into the contract, that transfers the copyrights. They clearly always believed that they did own the copyrights, and it took Novell a suspiciously long time to start the 'you don't actually own it' defence. Courts can infer terms in contracts if it's clear there was a drafting error, and certainly in person-to-person contracts if the contract is grossly unfair to one party. However, companies are meant to know what they're doing.
> The terms of the original contract were pretty clear. Novell intended to
> sell, and SCO intended to buy, the copyrights.
Yes, that's true. Sadly, Santa Cruz (the SCO that existed at the time) couldn't afford to buy what they wanted, so the deal was changed. SCO got the business at a much reduced price, but they didn't get everything they'd initially wanted - Novel retained the copyrights and the right to the royalty stream. They paid 5% of that stream to SCO as a fee for running the sales side of the business.
Santa Cruz told Caldera all about this when they sold the business on.
> The contract simply makes no sense without transferring the copyrights.
No, that's completely wrong. The contract makes lots of sense, it just doesn't do what SCO want it to do.
> It's just that they were inexplicably omitted from the actual bill of sale portion
> of the contract detailing what was being transferred.
It's completely explicable: Santa Cruz couldn't afford what they wanted, so they couldn't buy it. They bought a small portion of it, because that's all they could afford.
> What SCO is trying to do is to get the courts to read a term into the contract,
> that transfers the copyrights.
Yes. But what several courts have told them is that that clause simply isn't in the contract, and never has been. Santa Cruz didn't buy the copyrights, so they couldn't sell them to Caldera. Caldera has no right to sue over copyrights they do not own.
> They clearly always believed that they did own the copyrights
This isn't true either - they only started asserting ownership once Novell had said they wren't interested in joining the SCOSource scam.
> Courts can infer terms in contracts if it's clear there was a drafting error
they can. And several courts have now determined that there was no drafting error. The contract really does mean what it says - copyrights were excluded from the sale.
Vic.
"The terms of the original contract were pretty clear. Novell intended to sell, and SCO intended to buy, the copyrights. The contract simply makes no sense without transferring the copyrights. It's just that they were inexplicably omitted from the actual bill of sale portion of the contract detailing what was being transferred."
Thank you for that admirably succinct description of The SCO Group's position.
They remain scumbag patent trolls.
This post has been deleted by its author
It's a perpetual motion machine of litigation--lawsuits about lawsuits about lawsuits and so forth. With fascinated horror and disgust, we behold an abomination that does not appear to make physical sense; we keep trying to find the hidden battery cable (or source of money, as the case may be.)
Ah, The SCO Group, such wonderful plumage...
But seriously, the endless retries keeps The SCO group's execs out of criminal charges for the conversion of Novell's $16 million.
/Remember, this is not the old "SCO", but "The SCO Group"; formerly known as Caldera.
//The name change was intended to confuse a judge/jury/world into thinking they had rights to reinterpret a contract signed by "Old SCO".
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
