Darl McBride (pictured on the left) insists that his company, Santa Cruz Operation, is not dead. However, recent articles suggest otherwise. One of them speaks about being at "the verge of financial collapse". A lot of SCO coverage was documented and accompanying analysis published by Pamela @ Groklaw. More recently there was concrete evidence to suggest that her site was used by lawyers who fought against SCO's bogus claims (Novell's lawyers mentioned Groklaw in their filing). According to Matt Aslett, SCO probably knew it was a losing battle from the very start (they did not own UNIX). In other words, Groklaw was right all along and SCO turned out to be nothing but malice, as many had suspected from the very beginning.

In a new interview, McBride talks about Groklaw's role.

InformationWeek: The Web site Groklaw has given you a pretty rough time over the past few years. What effect has that had on your image?

McBride: I don't think you can discount the impact of Groklaw in trying to create a bad image around us. It's the equivalent of a negative political ad campaign. We used to counter everything Groklaw said. I thought it was my responsibility to SCO stakeholders to have a counter reaction to all these attacks. It turns out that doesn't work well in a courtroom setting. The judges told us that, my attorneys told me that, so I decided to back off.

We just want to have a day in court. Though early on I admit to being more engaged in the battle.

To clarify, Groklaw has no relation to this Web site, but we happen to have some shared goals and I remain involved in Groklaw (primarily behind the scenes). If we can expose the reality behind the many Microsoft deals (including Novell's, which got this Web site started), then future legal actions (if any) might be assisted or prevented. Information and understanding are our friends. There is a lot more to all these deals than what meets the eye. Companies that signs deals do not want customers to see it. OpenSUSE developers appear to be in a convenient state of denial.