[Thinkpad] [OT] SCO?? [was: PINE [was: ENOUGH.....]]

[Rosen, Robert (NIH/NIAMS) [E]]

> [SCO] filed for bankruptcy in Utah... I don't know any details, but 
> they apparently lost a big lawsuit that put them in the hole 
> and made it impossible for them to survive in Utah.

SCO was sued by Novell saying when Novell sold the rights to SCO to sell Unix (using the Unix term generically), they didn't sell them the copyrights and thus Novell still owned Unix. When Novell won, it made the SCO law suits against IBM, et al, moot since you can't sue someone for misappropriating your property if it's not your property to begin with.  

Since SCO's value was mostly based on winning the law suits and most of their assets essentially belonged to the lawyers, their net worth (assets minus liabilities) went way negative.   And they now owe Novell huge royalties too (although that law suit is on hold). 

So they filed for bankruptcy (chapter 11 I believe).  Lots of detail on groklaw.com. 

If their strategy (as some speculated) was to sue IBM so IBM would buy them and the officers would reap a huge windfall profit, they failed miserably.  From the outside, it looks like the egos of a few people (most people blame the CEO Daryll something) drove a relatively successful company pretty much out of business. 

What amazed me was that SCO's lawyer was IBM's lawyer when they beat the Government in the big US versus IBM anti-trust case.  Brilliant guy. Amazing that he would miss the fact that SCO didn't own the property they were suing about. However, he still made millions in fees but not as much as he would have won in contingency if he'd won the case. 

______________________________
Robert Rosen
CIO, NIAMS - NIH
Sent from wireless handheld