Bonum Certa Men Certa

SCO, Microsoft, Novell, and Other News from Utah

Licence plate from Utah



Summary: A bundle of SCO news with some interpretation

SEVERAL days ago, SCO was temporarily rescued by a entity with connections to Microsoft [1, 2]. SCO may be rescued from immediate liquidation, but it remains to be seen if the plans are followed through. Either way, SCO might not die quite so quickly after all [1, 2]. Here is a quick summary of SCO news that we haven't covered yet.



The Register gets around to writing about SCO's rescue. The article comes from one of the publication's better reporters, who concludes with:

An appointed bankruptcy trustee recently asked permission to dissolve SCO under Chapter 7, saying the company has "no reasonable chance of rehabilitation." That is, unless it somehow miraculously came up with the cash to pay off its debts. And oh how we scoffed at the very idea.

It seems SCO's uncanny survival will now be decided at the new hearing set for July 16, or the backup date July 27.


Ken Jennings from LinuxToday calls this whole thing the "Price of FUD", correctly remarking that:

Wasn't SCO's earlier asking price around 5million? Now I see it's down to 2.4 million. Wake me when it's 25 cents, so I can put in my bid.


Remember $100 million? A lot has changed since then.

Stephen Norris has come to SCO's rescue before. Last year, IT Business Edge blogger Lora Bentley reported that a group led by Stephen Norris Capital Partners gave SCO a $100 million infusion to rescue it from Chapter 11.


Groklaw pokes fun at this attempts from SCO to keep its head above water.

Here's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols on ComputerWorld on SCO rising from the dead. We'll see. I'd describe it more like keeping the patient on life support, while hoping for a cure. The plan hasn't been approved yet, y'all.

[...]

So is Unix heading to Iraq? Google is your friend. Nothing SCO does surprises me any more, though, not even yesterday's events. In fact, privately I predicted to several Groklaw folks that this is more or less the kind of thing I thought they'd try. SCO never gives up. The judge seemed surprised, calling it a Perry Mason moment. But that's because he doesn't know SCO like we do.


Over in Germany, Heise has more than a single report about the subject, which it summarises thusly:

In yet another bizarre twist in the interminable legal dispute over source code allegedly illegally copied from UNIX System V into Linux, the SCO Group, which claims ownership of the disputed code, has secured a last-gasp reprieve from the threat of liquidation. Immediately before the crucial liquidation hearing in the bankruptcy court, SCO CEO Darl McBride signed an agreement with a company by the name of Gulf Capital Partners, backed by well-known investor Stephen Norris. Caught out by the surprise development, all parties have agreed to postpone the liquidation hearing until the 16th or the 27th of July.


Groklaw shows that SCO Germany has lost its CEO. SCO is actually a very small company at this stage, so overseas branches almost seem like a misfit, a legacy. SCO even gets fined in Germany for slander.

There is an unconfirmed claim that SCO will pass its assets to another company to operate under a different name. The sale of UNIX assets is neither a done deal yet nor is it an escape from Chapter 7, but it sure seems like a good route for procrastination, no matter the eventual outcome. SCO has nothing to lose when it's all just paperwork.

Only moments before a hearing at which SCO would have faced conversion to Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the company signed a deal to sell off its UNIX assets. This last-minute act of desperation could potentially allow SCO to delay its demise.


Groklaw is not even sure who the proposed buyer is. It's all very opaque, as it has always been [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

There are some media reports on the SCO cliff hanger bankruptcy hearing on Monday. The more information that comes in, the less clear I am on exactly who the actual proposed buyer is. I'll show you why.


According to this new report, Microsoft makes another little move into Utah.

If you're in the market for a software development job, you might want to head to Utah County. Microsoft Corp. is hiring. The software giant, based in Redmond, Wash., announced Wednesday that the company will occupy space at Thanksgiving Park in Lehi beginning in August and will eventually hire about 100 information technology professionals.


Microsoft relocated to Utah some months ago (despite layoffs in other areas) while Novell offshores Utah staff. A Novell-centric agenda was suspected at the time of this move from Microsoft, but it is probably much of a stretch and too far fetched. On the other hand, regarding the report above, Pamela Jones writes: "If SCO's deal doesn't happen, maybe the 62 employees left at SCO could find work with Microsoft."

We previously saw how Microsoft rewards people who attack ODF and/or GNU/Linux by offering them jobs [1, 2]. It is a sophisticated form of bribery where action precedes the payment.

In other SCO-related news, some articles about the Psystar case note its similarity to the SCO case. See for example:

i. Apple accuses Psystar of hiding behind bankruptcy



The Cupertino, California firm goes so far as to draw parallels between Psystar and the fate of infamous software house SCO Group. Known for using lawsuits against Linux-dependent companies over UNIX rights disputes as part of its business model in later years, it's linked to Psystar through its approach to bankruptcy: when it lost its lawsuit against Novell and was ordered to pay money on UNIX licensing, SCO purportedly used bankruptcy and the resulting stay as a defensive measure to fend off the requests for money. Novell eventually had the stay lifted -- a precedent which Apple is keen to take advantage of in its own case.


ii. Psystar owes Apple $75,000 while Apple moves to lift stay (Updated)



Apple compared the tactics to those of the SCO Group in its attempts to avoid paying Novell money owed based on UNIX licensing, painting Psystar president Rudy Pedraza as the Darl McBride of Mac cloners. Apple noted that the automatic stay was lifted in that similar situation.



iii. Apple seeks go-ahead for action against Psystar



Interestingly, Apple cites proceedings between Novell and SCO as a precedent. Novell obtained a summary judgement that it was entitled to copyright royalties from SCO, but before the case was tried SCO filed for bankruptcy.


Any more information about SCO would be welcome.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
 
Watch the FSF Party Live (via Livestream)
It's in WebM format, which is widely supported by now
When Microsoft "Integrates" Something With "AI" It Means It's Losing Money and Is Generally Hopeless
how did Bing fare after 36 months of LLM slop being hyped up as "replacement" for search?
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
Links for the day
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day