Bonum Certa Men Certa

SCO Roundup: Novell Litigation, Money from Me Inc Software

Oriskany ship sinks



SCO is not dead yet. It may seem like a dead man walking, but as we'll show in a moment, one investment funnel [1, 2, 3] is not totally out of reach just yet. In TechWorld and some accompanying mirrors, an article was published to praise Groklaw for its work. It has defended Linux from SCO for over 5 years.

It's Groklaw's loose network of volunteers that has haunted the Utah courthouse, collecting paperwork, reporting on hearings and transcribing everything in sight.

It's that same crowd of volunteers that has picked apart arguments, dredged up old news stories and computer manuals, and generally followed the SCO lawsuits with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for rotisserie baseball or, well, Linux.

All that has made it easy for reporters, analysts and deep-thinkers keeping an eye on the lawsuits. We just filtered out the partisan crowd noise -- no mistake, this is a pro-Linux crowd -- and dug into that virtual mountain of legal documents. Everything was there, posted, transcribed, organized and searchable.

That's why we all picked up the ruling from Groklaw.


Early in the week, Groklaw complained about an article which suggests that SCO might have a "comeback" in store.

More bankruptcy filings. And there are upbeat chirpings in the air in Utah, with SCO proclaiming its own future brighter than they thought it would be, and you can read all about it in Tom Harvey's article in the Salt Lake Tribune, which calls SCO "the comeback kids". No bias there.

It might be a tad early for that title, methinks. IBM still looms on SCO's horizon, after all. Novell was a sideline. The main event has yet to occur.


Groklaw was referring to this article.

The developments of the past few months also may mean that Darl McBride will continue as CEO, a post he was to exit when the company planned to give up control to new investors in order to save the company. Now, SCO may not need as much, if any, outside money to continue operations and pursue its lawsuits.

[...]

Shortly after that, SCO filed for bankruptcy and proposed a reorganization plan that included an investment of up to $100 million from a private-equity fund that would have taken control of the company. The fund, Stephen Norris Capital Partners, said McBride would not continue as CEO if the plan were approved by the bankruptcy court.


Here is the same optimistic/pro-SCO article from Tom Harvey reaching ECT. They also give room for pseudonym Paul Murphy, which Groklaw ignores as a matter of principle.

These battles are mysterious [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] and the connections worth exploring in depth. There's lots of circumstantial evidence and shared interest guides many business decisions.

Groklaw reckons, based on the article above, that interest in an investment in SCO was lost. A few days ago, Groklaw also divulged the details about further SCO fines in Germany. Later on it was only ZDNet UK that covered this story.

SCO Group has been ordered to pay a €10,000 (€£7,900) fine in Germany for making claims that Linux includes intellectual property from Unix.

SCO has repeatedly claimed that Linux is an unlawful derivative of Unix, but had agreed not to make this claim anymore in Germany, following a lawsuit in 2003.

The current case found that the claims were still present in US material available on the site of SCO Group GmbH, the group's German subsidiary. As well as paying the fine, SCO will have to monitor its German presence.


Over at Heise, another new situation for SCO (in Germany) received some attention.

SCO Group GmbH, a subsidiary of US company SCO Group Inc., is required to check its internet presence for errors following software updates from its parent company. This even applies to past errors. The opinion was passed down by a district court in Munich, leading Jens Horstkotte, the company's legal counsel, to agree to a settlement in which the GmbH is required to pay 10,000 euros to an IT service provider.


Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, money is arriving from a Hong Kong-based company land lands at Utah. Can Novell grab it? After all, SCO owes Novell a lot of money.

So, what do you think? Can Novell get its money from a Hong Kong foreign subsidiary? I'm sure we all agree that SCO would never try to stiff anyone, so the fact that they are setting this up just before the bankruptcy court is about to decide on the question of how Novell will get the money the Utah court decided SCO owes them must be entirely coincidental.


Some time was spent in the IRC channel trying to find our if there is a Microsoft connection that may justify investment in SCO by ordering of products. We looked at Me Inc Software. Nothing convincing was found.

The only clear-to-see investments are those 'cash infusion's from Microsoft that keep Novell's its SUSE going at the expense of independent and free Linuxes that won't cave or compromise.

Novell blinded by money
Image from Wikimedia

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
 
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025
Links 21/09/2025: "Hey Hi" (Hype) Under Fire, Fakes Identified; Tesla Burns Family
Links for the day
Google's Software is Malware and Malware in Mobile Devices
Originally posted by Rob Musial
Links 20/09/2025: Hegemony Coming to a Close, Luigi Mangione Ruled Not Terrorist
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/09/2025: "Charlie Kirk Was a Hateful Piece of Shit" and Slop Code Attempted by Microsofter
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 20, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 20, 2025
Gemini Links 20/09/2025: Snowy Photos and utism is a Spectrum
Links for the day
Microsoft-Sponsored Xenophobia and Nationalism
IBM is very similar in this regard
Vintage is Sometimes Better
Why can't we get back to "simple" if (or where) "simple" means better?
Climate Breakdown Means We'll be Publishing More, Not Less
Press freedom will be a common, recurring theme
Our 5-Year Geminispace Anniversary is Coming Up
I still remember when Gemini Protocol was quite new
It's Right to Point Out Violence From the Right
Violence is a recurring theme
Tentative Summary of Things to Publish in Project 2030
I'll still be in my forties by then
Web Browsers That "Do Hey Hi" (AI)
State-of-the-art plagiarism or "autocomplete on steroids" (not coined by us, nevertheless a nice description) don't have much/any prospect
Links 20/09/2025: Hardware Projects in View, Some Independent Publishers About Russia Prosper After Cheeto Cuts Funding
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/09/2025: Options and TV Time Machine
Links for the day
Links 20/09/2025: Retrocomputer, Antique Phone Experience, and More
Links for the day
Links 20/09/2025: Internet Shutdowns, Media Censorship, and Climate Worries
Links for the day
About 700 New Gemini Capsules in 13 Months (or 54 Per Month)
4.8K would represent a 20% increase
Rust People: Drain the Swap, You're Holding It Wrong
Does Rust make sense?
Techrights the Name Turns 15
About 6 weeks from now we turn 19
Microsoft is Running Out of Time and Floating Fake Figures, Fake Projects, Fake Narratives, Fake Excuses
Also, a lot of Microsoft's "revenue" claims are circular financing (i.e. Microsoft buying from itself, which means Ponzi-like fraud)
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, linuxconfig.org, and Plagiarised Phoronix
Many articles out there are nowadays fake
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 19, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 19, 2025
Gemini Links 20/09/2025: Navigating the Pressures of Modern Life and SpellBinding Accidentally Wrote Another Gemini Server
Links for the day