Summary: Updates on the SCO case, including McBride's latest cash infusion for the company and Findings and Conclusions (on the 19th)

The SCO case is almost over and several publications [1, 2] like CIOL are still digesting the news (there are even new cartoons about it). Here is what Mark Webbink had to say on the subject and here is part of a new quiz:

8. A jury has made a ruling in the interminable SCO/Novell legal battle over who owns Unix. What did it decide?

a. SCO owns Unix

b. Novell owns Unix

c. IBM owns Unix

d. Nobody owns Unix

Groklaw continues to track SCO's bankruptcy, realising that SCO will indeed receive money from Darl McBride and other former executives of SCO [1, 2, 3].

The agenda for the hearing in bankruptcy court regarding Darl McBride's offer to buy the SCO mobility assets set for April 7th is now posted on Pacer...

More on Darl:

This was the hearing primarily about SUSE's motion to lift the stay so it could finish the arbitration in Switzerland. And we have some recent bankruptcy filings, mainly the order letting SCO sell the mobility assets to former CEO of SCO Darl McBride.

"Darl Buys (Not Licenses) SCO's Mobility Assets for $100,000," heralds a later post from Groklaw.

First word from the bankruptcy hearing today on Darl McBride's offer to buy SCO's mobility assets. Groklaw's UD has this quick report, with more to come later:

[...]

Note that this was a *sale*, including the IP, not Darl licensing it, as originally proposed. Is there a word for the opposite of bait and switch?

Groklaw happens to have received high accolades for its work tracking SCO. Right after SCO had lost the case (again), David Wheeler called Groklaw "the new face of journalism":

Groklaw was vastly different. Groklaw is more than a website or blog, it is a community of people who gathered evidence, analyzed it, and helped other people get the true picture. Traditional journalists may bemoan the loss of local newspapers, but why should people pay for rehashed press releases when the blogs are a more accurate and broader source of information? In short, if you wanted full and accurate public information related to SCO, Groklaw had it; traditional sources didn't.

The Library of Congress has also decided to keep an archive of Groklaw.

The Mad Hatter wrote about Groklaw and Techrights as follows:

Groklaw – a lot of us have been following the case of suicide by lawsuit that is The SCO Group. Many of us have been hanging out at Groklaw since PJ started it over at Radio Userland, and this is another thank you to her for all of her hard work. For those not familiar with the case, I’d suggest reading Carla Schroder’s article at Linux Planet. To get a better idea of Groklaw’s impact on the community I strongly suggest reading Frank Hayes’ paean of praise Frankly Speaking: Grokking SCO’s Demise published way back in August of 2007. If you read The end, finally, at last, hopefully? Jury finds Novell retained UNIX copyrights you’ll see them quoting Groklaw, just as Frank quoted Groklaw in 2007. The point being that the traditional media messed up time after time in the reporting. The only accurate reporting was the work that PJ did at Groklaw. Again, thanks to PJ. In fact she’s partially to blame for me starting up ‘Through the Looking Glass’ – without her inspiration I probably never would have gone forward with my own writing.

Boycott-Novell – Boycott Novell has undergone a name change, and an expansion of mission. The site is now known as TechRights. While I called this an expansion of mission, really it’s a recognition of a change that occurred a while back. While still covering the implications of the Novell-Microsoft pact, Boycott Novell had long been covering other issues of concern to the Free Software community. A lot of people don’t like Roy. There’s long been claims that his reporting is inaccurate and biased. The funny thing is that no one has managed to successfully challenge Roy’s reporting, no matter how hard they try. Good work Roy!

There is more from SCO and Novell coming this Monday:

SCO and Novell have filed a joint motion, asking the court to order a new deadline for them to file their Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law:

The parties have agreed to an extension of time until and including Monday, April 19, 2010, for filing their respective Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. This Motion respectfully request that the Court so order.

Nick Farrell, writing for The Inquirer, calls Viacom vs Google the new SCO vs Novell:

It is starting to look like this will be the case that will replace SCO versus Novell in the IT court case menu of entertainment. Better get some popcorn in.

Actually, the new SCO versus Novell ought to be one of Microsoft's many similar actions against GNU/Linux. How about the TurboHercules vs IBM case? ⬆

"...Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux."

--Larry Goldfarb, BayStar, key investor in SCO approached by Microsoft