04.01.10
What Happens Next in the SCO Case (Post Novell)
Summary: Explanations from authoritative sources of what SCO may do next (except what it publicly says it will do)
IN A PREVIOUS POST covering the outcome of the SCO trial against Novell we gave significant credit to Groklaw and also cited this post (referenced before but worth repeating). Carla from Linux Today does something similar by thanking Pamela.
The endless SCO saga is finally at an end, and justice has prevailed. But without Groklaw, would it have ended differently?
Let me rephrase that: it will probably continue to sputter and emit random gases, because the nice SCO leadership and their backers are masters of weaving grand propositions out of fantasy, and perpetuating their fantasies in the seemingly non-functional US civil courts system. But for all non-Bizarro world purposes it is over. The SCO vs. Novell verdict settles the key question of who owns the Unix copyrights. Answer: not SCO. I know, it’s a little more complex than that because there are several Unix variants. But as far as SCO’s silly claims against Linux, it is definitively over.
Pogson too writes about the crucial role that Pamela has played.
I remember, seven years later, the sick feeling I had in my stomach that any of the lies SCOG spread about GNU/Linux might be true or that SCOG could tax GNU/Linux which by then I was introducing into schools and classrooms on a regular basis. GNU/Linux was part of me and SCOG was putting forth that I had cancer. Well, I soon discovered GROKLAW and the free flow of good information there calmed my fears.
The case is not over yet. It’s lost for SCO, but here is what might happen next.
There are still some dangling legal strings that need to be trimmed, and those won’t happen for at least a few weeks — barring any more appeals, of course, by SCO Group. One of them involves counterclaims by IBM and Red Hat.
SCO has already commented about its next steps and Pogson does too. SCO is being irrational.
If trustee Cahn will not do his job the US trustee and the bankruptcy judge should move this thing along.
Over at Groklaw, the sanity of SCO is doubted too. Some money was loaned very recently by former SCO people [1, 2] and Groklaw questions the latest amendments.
SCO has filed an 8-K/A with the SEC, and the Explanatory Note says, “This Form 8K is being amended to correct information in the Exhibit 10.4.”
SCO’s battles with Novell may be over (unless the ruling is appealed), but this saga is not quite over yet. We are a lot more curious about ownership of UNIX because Novell might be sold in pieces (or entirely) this year. █
