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The man's name (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The man's name (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, here you go : Maturation and Reproduction of Northern Flying Squirrels in Pacific Northwest Forests [209.85.165.104]
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Pending approval... (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, that quasi-journalistic slut, MOG, projects that McBride's leaving was a goal of the Groklaw audience, when in fact, it never was.
Re:Pending approval... (Score:5, Interesting)
And are there any possibility to let the court know what the public opinion on this is? The Chapter 7 [wikipedia.org] should be more appropriate.
At least SCO weren't eligible to file for Chapter 12 [wikipedia.org]. Wonder what would have happened if they also were owning a huge farm in the midwest too...
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Re:Pending approval... (Score:5, Interesting)
Good point. The quick headlines that were generated for stories are highly inaccurate, i.e. its not a $100 million buy out and it looks to be only $5 million at first glance.
It could turn out after a full review of the facts that this is just another attempt to perpetrate additional theft of Novell's cash through the bankruptcy court as was the last attempt to sell Novell's assets [groklaw.net].
We'll have to wait and see how Novell and IBM respond in the bankruptcy court.
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Re:Pending approval... (Score:4, Interesting)
The objection to the first sale was because there was no clause covering losses of the cases. Also, they were trying to sell property in dispute. That isn't the case with this offer. This is a hostile takeover plain and simple.
I predict the judge will allow it *IF* there is some up front money involved such as a trust or some such to cover a fall through. I don't think the agreement on its face will carry the day. In short, money talks.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pending approval... (Score:5, Interesting)
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His early leave is not so much wanted. This way he will probably get out of view with his ill-gotten money.
Of course, i might be wrong, i'm just one of the above mentioned audience.
so long... (Score:2)
wanna bet one dollar that he'll sue SCO and/or SNCP as soon as he's kicked out ?
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Its happened before, and will happen again... in fact, it happens everytime a company fails. Sometimes it makes me think that working for a living is such a stupid thing to do.
Re:so long... (Score:5, Interesting)
It is not something that companies would normally do, but in this case there are exceptional circumstances.
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Not the real bad guy (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Bruce, now that Vista has bombed at the Corporate offices, you think Microsoft will still have an incentive to pursue Linux in court?
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They haven't given up yet. Look at all of the OOXML dirty fighting they've done recently.
Re:Not the real bad guy (Score:5, Insightful)
Bruce
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It's "up to" $100M (Score:5, Informative)
A fairly important distinction, as anyone with Cable or ADSL will know.
I can assure you, when Novell is awarded the money SCOXQ.PK owe them, there will be none there.
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Don't go (Score:2)
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Its all BIG money though...which begs the question - why? I mean does any really believe this up to $100M investment in the walking corpse of SCO is based on the possibility of them doing well business-wise? As many have pointed out its more likely a small fee to ensure that a) the anti-Linux FUD machine keeps operating b) a few scoundrels gets paid off and disappear c) certain skeletons s
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This is nothing but speculation, spy vs. spy, but...
doesn't IBM have a strong interest in SCOg's existence right until the day of the judgement? They invested a lot of time, reputation and money into this defence and may want to harvest a judgement that settles a number of questions once and for all.
They could have saved themselves a lot if they had bought SCO earlier but this would have e
settle in for a long ride (Score:5, Insightful)
Lawsuits around the GPL and Linux codebase will become a permanent fixture. Our dreams of a single case to finalize up everything nice and tidy are never going to come true. I have every confidence that Open Source will survive, and the GPL will remain intact, but the lawsuit will always be there-- there's just too much potential money sloshing around, and law schools keep pumping out the evil.
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Except for that quotation that often gets mentioned here: "first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win", or something like that.
They can't remain locked in step 3 forever.
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Bruce
Re:settle in for a long ride (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this is probably the most important point you make with regard to future lawsuits.
The courts in the SCO cases have given SCO every opportunity to produce evidence to back their case. SCO has spent millions trying to find that evidence and by the time they realized it did not exist they had already dug themselves in way too deep and could not back out.
Also, as a result of the SCO cases, the BSD lawsuit agreement [groklaw.net] was brought out in to the public. What is interesting here is the amount of Unix code that is now licensed under a BSD license. It is my understanding that BSD licensed code can be included in the Linux kernel and released under the GPLv2 along with the rest of the Linux kernel.
Being that there is no Unix code illegally included in Linux, it would seem this avenue of attack is no longer open (or at minimum, not feasible). What worries me more is the next logical vector of attack, patents. I agree with a statement you made earlier, "I think Darl was just a front, as Ransom Love was for Caldera. Ralph Yarro was the real boss of both. I guess he's out too (not sure), but IMO the new investor is pursuing the same program, and Microsoft is still behind it.".
Microsoft themselves could never sue a Linux company directly for a couple of reasons. First of all MS does not need the bad publicity it would bring. They currently have the perfect scapegoat, why not continue using it? Secondly, Microsoft has anti-trust issues to concern themselves with that their scapegoat does not have.
The only solace that I find in the fact that the next war will be based around patents is that the courts have become better educated in technology and that Linux has been virtually exonerated of any copyright issues. Quite frankly, patents scare me.
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Re:settle in for a long ride (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:settle in for a long ride (Score:5, Insightful)
In a way it was quashed in about 6 months. Based on their stock price [yahoo.com] the fairy tale was over quickly as it became apparent to any rational being that it was all BS. And requesting the code was the most obvious blow to their case as any argument against pointing to the publicly viewable code was simple nonsense.
Other than a few "journalists" with questionable credibility no sane person believed a word coming out of tSCOg's mouth pieces once they refused to show the code. And the ultimate blow was when the judge explained how close they came to losing the entire case on a summary judgment because they failed to produce even the most minute amount of evidence [silicon.com] to support their reasoning for being in court in the first place. That statement from the judge was based in part on all the outrageous claims the tSCOg mouth pieces had been spewing in the media and their failure to simply show the code.
Yes it has dragged on for years, and yes it cold drag on for more years, but the game was up long ago and most people know that. Now all we can hope for is that IBM and Novell will be willing to continue spending cash on the lawsuits long enough to ensure the perps and backers of this scam lose significant face.
And you are right, no matter how this ends it will never be the end, there are several people making massive profits who feel threatened by open source and they will continue to fund idiotic attacks like this as long as its a financially viable option for them. There are also the rabid anti-FOSS individuals who will rant until the end of time because they are so enamored by the likes of Microsoft that they'll believe and rabidly support every piece of FUD they are spoon fed.
Yeah, its not over, and we'll never hear the end of it. But life goes on.
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Luck for SCO. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Nope, not close.
Good will appears on the balance sheet as an asset when a company buys another and pays more than the value of the fixed assets. So if company A buys company B for $100 million and company B has $10 mill worth of equipment (machines, desks, etc) the $10 mil is added to capital and the $90 is
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and in the higher end, even on open patforms like sparc, it's tough to beat HP/IBM/Sun.
since the days of old SCO (now tarantella), they always operated on a niche. now this niche disapeared, or was taken by the newcomers. old SCO realized that, got rid of the unix business and wen't o
NOT $100 Million, THAT WAS HYPE. (Score:5, Informative)
This is not a $100 Million dollar offer. That was hyperbole. There will be a line of credit, but going in there is only a couple of million to take the stock profit and then what they need to pursue the case and pay off interest on existing debt as it is billed. Say $10 Million max. Remember that the Benchmark investment was unwound? This one will probably go through the same thing.
Bruce
Re:NOT $100 Million, THAT WAS HYPE. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:NOT $100 Million, THAT WAS HYPE. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hello conspiracy theorists! This "deal" is nothing more than a cover to take the company private in an attempt to protect it from investigation into the PIPE fairies who funded its litigation from the word go. And you can bet (based upon the failed York deal they tried to shove down the BK court's throat in November) it was cooked up by people more powerful and "financially creative" than the existing SCO management.
Don't be surprised if an attempt to limit his liability is Darl's Golden Parachute.
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It's all in the name! (Score:2)
You know why Caldera/SCO has gone down hill so far? The name of the CEO.
I hear the name "Ransom Love" (Caldera's founder) and into my head comes a dude with a cravat, an ornate basket hilt rapier, a big black hat with a feather in it, possibly a lacy handkerchief in his pocket which was a favour of some Maiden in a past adventure.
I hear "Darl McBride" and I just think frilly pink dress and cowboy boots.
The Ransom Love look may look foppish today, but is still cool in a mid renaissance kind of way, but D
It's not the way I see it (Score:2)
To me, "Ransom Love" sounds like a pimp's name, and "Darl McBride" sounds like a drag queen.
Well, those are just the images that come to my mind, YMMV, of course.
He will not leave a poor man (Score:3, Insightful)
thank goodness (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)
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I once remember making over USD 6,000 in a single day...that was when our trade deficit numbers were read and the market went wild. But I was also burnt several times to the poi
Resigns as CEO (Score:2)
Only $5 million, + option for debt (Score:2)
The other $95 million is a line of credit from which they can borrow at a whopping 17% interest rate.
I could be wrong but this looks more like a pay off for the perps and a privatization veil to cover their tracks once they pay off the coming judgments using the line of credit and then allow the entire scam to vanish into vapors.
IBM and Novell Will Object (Score:4, Interesting)
This plan has a better chance than the York debacle, but IBM and Novell will certainly want to see the money. If Norris Capital Partners has to front the 100 million in escrow this could get interesting.
For Microsoft this has to be like being caught in an endless corporate version of Fatal Attraction. Backing the SCO litigation probably looked good when the Vista release was delayed but now SCO has them by the short curlies. MS has to keep coming up with cash for their demanding paramour. And it's getting harder to design deniable sources for that cash. Hard to say what SCO has on them, maybe they keep threating to go state's evidence on the anti-trust behavior. Maybe MS thinks it's worth a couple hundred million to keep the litigation cloud intact. I'm leaning toward the former. This can't be worth it from a business strategy perspective. It's expensive and it's not working. If anything it's backfiring. It's the kind of advertising that Linux can't normally afford.
It's really hard to tell if this is calculated malfeasance or serial incompetence. With Microsoft it's sometimes hard to tell the difference.
Most definitely this doesn't have anything to do with McBride, other than I'm sure they'll want to keep him quiet. Which means making sure he's happy, which will likely involve a large sum of cash when he leaves.
This whole thing is such a loser. If MS would put that time and money into developing an operating system and other software that provides value to the user, they could forget all this stupidity with SCO. It's tacky, pathetic and...should be...beneath the dignity of a world class company.
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And here's the silver lining (Score:2)
You know what? I kind of hope this gets approved. McBride's name is already mud, so he doesn't deserve to be with this company or running it. Some of the board have already left. (Is Sontag still there?) Basically, this would be a wise business and bankruptcy decision - resuscitate the company, but resuscitate it without those responsible for running it into t
Is it just me ... (Score:5, Funny)
How much do you want to bet? (Score:2)
And where is the money ultimately coming from? (Score:2)
Don't know but isn't it interesting that it seems SCO lawsuits may continue beyond bankruptcy of failed attempts?
MSsco exit strategy (Score:3, Interesting)
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