Summary: SCO's sale of the software business is approved, bringing back memories of Linspire

SOME TIME earlier this month we wrote about SCO looking to raise more money after a seemingly-fake bankruptcy. An author who is typically a SCO sympathiser has just caught up with the news about the court approving SCO's sale of its software business.

The SCO Group’s software business is up for sale, but that might not mean an end to its controversial lawsuits against IBM Corp. and Novell Inc.

Judge Kevin Gross in Delaware has approved procedures for selling off the Lindon company’s Unix business before the end of this year.

Such sales of assets are not so rare. In last week's news, for example, we also learned about Novell's familiarity with the practice. From Jon Oltsik about HP:

They company backed this up when it sold its identity management portfolio to Novell.

Two years ago Xandros bought Linspire's assets (and threw away the trademarks, which it never truly used). Linspire failed for reasons which are explained in this month's article from a former Xandros user and the sale of Linspire to Xandros is also mentioned in this new press release about Michael Robertson and others.

Here is where Xandros is said to be today:

Xandros - If you prefer a Linux distribution with a Microsoft connection, Xandros is the one for you. Rumors aside, Xandros and Microsoft collaborate in what's known in technical circles as "cooperatition." This means that they compete cooperatively. To find out more about this unique perspective, check out the Xandros About page.

It does not seem like anyone really uses or buys it anymore. It's out of date. The same goes for Presto, which very rarely gets a mention anywhere. Xandros -- like KNOPPIX -- has not much of a story to tell anymore. The main Debian derivative which gets all the attention is Ubuntu, as pointed out now that Debian turns 17.

Many popular Linux distros are based on Debian and still heavily rely on ‘upstream’ development including the very popular Ubuntu, but also KNOPPIX, MEPIS, Xandros and many others. In turn, these distros have each been used as the basis for many other Linux flavors.

It would be interesting to know what Ian Murdock, Debian's founder, is up to now that OpenSolaris/"Project Indiana" received a blow from Oracle. Murdock has been exceptionally quiet for years (especially since he joined Sun Microsystems). ⬆