SCO's "Least Supported Idea Yet"

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Unsurprisingly, all of SCO's creditors have objected to the plan to reimburse York for the failed 'emergency' deal. Novell's tiny seven page objection (PDF) is hilarious and very readable. They don't hold back at all, saying that 'all that happened is that the Debtors spent money needlessly on a proceeding that was, to all intents and purposes, stillborn had it not been for the stubbornness of the Debtors' management and the avarice of York,' and that it was 'another really bad deal they have chased in ceaseless pursuit of their dreams of a litigation bonanza.' They top it off by concluding with the line, 'for the reasons explained above, the Court should deny the Motion as the Debtors' worst and least supported idea yet in these cases.' One can only wonder how SCO will respond to this."

SCO to hire more lawyers

Commentators note this is the first example of vermin joining a sinking ship.

SCO's response?

That's easy. They'll sue Novell for defamation!

I'd be more apathetic if I weren't so lethargic

Really? I feel like Peter Griffin standing outside the newsstand for 48 hours trying to understand the New Yorker comic.

(closes PDF)

kill -9

I am convinced that SCO and their lawyers are a zombie process at this point. The bankruptcy was an attempt to kill the pid with some hope of clean up, but i fear we are to the stage of kill -9. I don't know what the legal equivalent of this is, except to get the sheriff in his off-hours to go in and lock the doors and just physically seize everything.

MAKE IT STOP!!!!

Re:kill -9

And what if that fails to work? Will we have to reboot the world?

Re:kill -9

Surprised there's no silver-bullet gun utility to go alongside with kill. Or that kill doesn't have a --wooden-stake option.

That would be for vampire processes. --fire or --headshot would be a better option.
Thank heaven that there are no Basilisk processes.
 

Re:kill -9

I don't know, maybe it's nit-picking, but any kill signal (including -9) will have no effect on a zombie process, pretty much by definition. A "zombie" process is just an entry in the process table that can't be removed for some reason (usually because the parent process hasn't read its exit code). There isn't any actual process associated with it, so no signals have any effect.

Re:kill -9

Killing the parent process will get rid of a zombie. The problem here is that the system has been pwned and the hidden parent process is "msdirtytricks".

Re:kill -9

Just use kill -NERFGUN [zombie process] ... if your OS doesn't ban it, of course.

Re:kill -9

kill -9 1 ;)

If I weren't already a registered Slashdotter...

...I'd want "The Avarice of York" as my alias. Who'll bet that it's taken by the end of the day?

Re:If I weren't already a registered Slashdotter..

orly?

Re:If I weren't already a registered Slashdotter..

You must be new here.

It's Shakespeare (almost)

SCO: Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York.

Novell: Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty case from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time.

IBM: SCO's but a walking shadow.

Groklaw, chorus of Slashdot readers and industry analysts: Out, out brief candle!

150,000K

From TFM:

the Debtors nevertheless now seek an expense reimbursement for York of $150,000 (or $50,000, as an alternative) as a "business and moral matter."

So SCO is trying to pay off York because they want to entice them again at a later date? It also states that this is in violation of bankruptcy laws since it wasn't an approved as what they call a "breakup fee" meant to preserve the value of the estate to the other party or other potential buyers. No one actually signed any contract, and in this case they argue that the "contract" didn't even list any specifics as to what York would be purchasing.

What exactly the Debtors proposed to sell to York was not entirely clear - which was one of the fatal defects of the Sale Motion in the end - because the Sale Motion attached only a nonbinding term sheet rather than a definitive sale agreement.

I'm not sure what SCO is trying to do here, but it sure smells fishy.
As a side not the motion really is pretty readable and worth it.

Re:150,000K

What they're trying to do is grab as much as possible on the way out. If I were Novell, I would have the court appoint an independent auditor to go in, and inventory everything; The computers, keyboards, mice, chairs, desks, carpeting, the fucking complimentary snacks in the employee lounge fridge. Everything! I would want to know how many staples were left in each stapler, every single pen, post-it notes sitting on the desks, used file folders, paper in the photocopier, and anything else I can think of.

That's how you play hard-ball while still coming across as the nice guy who just wants to protect your own interests. If they object to how unreasonable it is, you just tell the judge that you wanted it to be thorough, but left it up to the auditors discretion, and have a clause where you pay a bonus for work done in a timely manner. That's the auditor's hush money, and you just debate what timely means afterward.

Quick Summary

After Novell won partial summary judgement against SCO that SCO owed them money for the MS and Sun deals, SCO declared Chapter 13 Bankruptcy. Chapter 13 bankruptcy means that the debtor (SCO) needs time to reorganize and some temporary protection from creditors (Novell, etc) while they figure a way to get back to solvency. This was Sept. 2007 and, the bankruptcy stopped the Novell trial.

SCO then tried to broker an emergency sale of assets to York Management. Well, under bankruptcy, all deals must be approved by a bankruptcy court. Novell and other parties objected because SCO failed to disclose (like usual) exactly what assets were being sold and how it would help SCO recover and get out of Chapter 13. The court agreed and SCO withdrew the proposed sale motion in Nov. 2007 without really disclosing what were the terms of the sale. So now SCO wants to pay York $150,000 for their less than 2 months worth of work for a failed deal.

IANAL but Novell had a reason to object to the sale. Among the things that SCO alluded to selling (but never fully disclosed) were obligations and assets that it owed to Novell in their case. If the deal would have gone through, Novell might have to battle it out for years between York and SCO to determine which one owed them the money. SCO could point to York and vice versa. It appears the SCO tried to scam their way out of paying by using a shifty sale.

Re:Quick Summary

I was a bit mistaken. SCO filed for Chapter 11. Chapter 13 is for individuals. Chapter 11 is for business. Both have the same purpose: Time for reorganization and temporary protection from creditors.

SCO sane?

I think it's been widely established that SCO's case is a bunch of hogwash, but this has gone too far for too long. I now question the sanity of SCO's people and of those who keep investing in SCO. And I feel sorry for the judge who has to put up with this nonsense.

Best line in a legal document ever

Page 4, half way down...

"Heads I win, Tails you lose" does not pass muster in courts of equity such as this Court

If only I could pull that line off with my coworkers...

The proposed buyer, SNCP, has no money

That's a very funny collection of filings. It doesn't stop with the comments about SCO, either. Remember, the proposed deal now is that Steven Norris Capital Partners (SNCP) proposes to buy SCO's assets for $5 million plus a "loan guarantee" of $95 million at somewhere around 20% interest to cover future claims by IBM, Novell, Red Hat, SuSE, etc. So who is SNCP? The filings tell us.

In filing 412, Novell says "The Disclosure Statement says that SNCP was founded by Steven Norris and & Co. Capital Partners for the purposes of this transaction". So SNCP is a shell corporation. "It has a brief statement about SNCC's partners, Steven Norris and Mark Robbins, and sweeps breezily through a short statement of some of their past activities, making some very general grand claims about their past successes."

In filing 408, IBM points out, "the Partnership (SNCP) does not seem to have any operational or investment history."

Filing 414 points out, "Also, SNACCPLP failed to pay its annual tax assessments, and it thereby allowed its status to lapse to "CEASED GOOD STANDING" back in June 2006 (see Ex. 7). Thus, it is unlikely that the Florida LLC, formed in July 2007 (see Ex. 7), was truly "formed by Stephen Norris & Co. Capital Partners, L.P. for the purposes of this transaction." (Incomplete Disclosure Statement at (V)(B), p. 18)."

This is not looking good.

Steven Norris himself had a great reputation in finance until this month. His big claim to fame was the Carlyle Group. They created Carlyle Capital, which just went spectacularly broke, [carlylecapitalcorp.com] losing about $21 billion. If the main asset of SNCC is the reputation of Steven Norris, it's worth far less than it was a month ago.

And the Novell trial is approaching

For those of you not following the SCO debacle, the SNCP deal was being pushed as a last desperate attempt to head off what's coming next month:

U.S. District Court - District of Utah Court Calendar
Honorable Dale A. Kimball
Room 220. Tuesday, 04/29/2008 08:30 am. SCO Grp v. Novell Inc 2:04-cv-00139-DAK-BCW Bench Trial

This is SCO's upcoming Really Bad Day. The issue of whether SCO owns the UNIX copyright has already been decided - they lost on that issue. The only issue for trial is how much money SCO owes Novell. Which may be more than SCO has left.

SCO went into bankruptcy late last year to stall that trial, the Friday before the trial was to start on Monday. That didn't work; the bankruptcy court un-stayed the Novell trial. SCO tried the York deal to transfer their assets to York. That didn't work. Now they're trying the SNCP deal, which looks very unlikely at this point.

Re:The proposed buyer, SNCP, has no money

Parent was lifted verbatim from this post [groklaw.net].

Maybe Animats is the Anonymous, but give credit where credit is due.

Still not as good as this ruling ...

http://www.nationalreview.com/document/document073001.shtml [nationalreview.com]

Anytime a Judge uses the words "most amateurish pleadings", "bumbling", or "a pig is still a pig" to describe the efforts of the attorneys, it's going to be a bad day for someone. Or in this case, both someones.

"Now, alas, the Court must return to grownup land." - priceless! We need more people as judges with a biting sense of humor (and the nerve to use it liberally!) like this!

-- Ravensfire

Perhaps not a good idea

I got a kick out of reading that, then looked the judge up [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia to see if he had any more gems.

He's not exactly who we want on the bench

1. Complaints about bullying lawyers
2. Many complaints about favoritism towards certain lawyers, especially his best friend. Has been removed from cases involving this lawyer
3. Suspension from the bench following sexual harrassment claims that apparently have been ongoing for years.
4. Ongoing DOJ investigation that may lead to his impeachment over the harrassment claims.

Acid toungue, funny as hell, complete jackass in RL.