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Caldera Patents The Courts Linux

SCO Zombie McBride's New Plan For World Litigation 193

Posted by kdawson from the problem-is-the-missing-braaaiiins dept.
eldavojohn writes "Years after you thought it was all over, Groklaw is reporting that Darl McBride (ex-CEO of SCO) has formed a new company that is buying SCO's mobile business for peanuts — but he's also going to get 'certain Intellectual Property' with the deal. You may recall that McBride was the brains behind the Linux lawsuits that SCO launched and it appears he may be orchestrating an exit route where he escapes with some IP intact, in order to wreak havoc once again. Hopefully this is the part at the end of the movie where the zombie comes back to life one last time only to have the hero deliver the final final blow. When this news broke upon the investment world, SCO's stock skyrocketed a blistering 11%, bringing it up seven cents to a full seventy cents — a level which it has not achieved since 2007."
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SCO Zombie McBride's New Plan For World Litigation More

SCO Zombie McBride's New Plan For World Litigation

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  • Indicates that the McBride is interested in brains... He's not. He's interested in trying to exploit patents that he had nothing to do with and not contributing anything back.

    • Re:Comparing that to a Zombie flick... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Garridan ( 597129 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @03:45PM (#31335268)

      If brains are equated to IP, then the comparison is apt. Zombies eat the brains of the living, to the detriment of the living, just to prolong the zombies' pathetic existence. McBride wants to harvest the IP of others, to the detriment of the originators of said IP, only to prolong his pathetic existence.

      • Someone get Woody Harrelson on the line. I've seen what he does to zombies.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by thePowerOfGrayskull ( 905905 )

        If brains are equated to IP, then the comparison is apt. Zombies eat the brains of the living, to the detriment of the living, just to prolong the zombies' pathetic existence. McBride wants to harvest the IP of others, to the detriment of the originators of said IP, only to prolong his pathetic existence.

        Perhaps not coincidentally, this also reads a lot like the theme of Atlas Shrugged... except, you know, no zombies and all that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by b4upoo ( 166390 )

        He will lose more money. The guy is a slow learner.

      • Too bad IP can't be equated to brains. Too many shitty patents for that to be even close to a comparison.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by denobug ( 753200 )

          Too bad IP can't be equated to brains. Too many shitty patents for that to be even close to a comparison.

          Not all brains are created equal: Some are better than others. So are the qualities of all IPs out there.

      • I propose a new word for this: "pathentic".

      • "only to prolong his pathetic existence."

        He's rich, and the only people who consider him pathetic are exactly the folks he doesn't care about.

  • At the end the Zombie comes back, because you can't kill something that is already dead!

    Oh and the zombie you thought was the last one, usually is not the last one. History repeats itself, folks.

  • Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @03:37PM (#31335102) Journal

    Which is why the SEC should have gone after McBride and SCO. That this guy, after basically bilking investors (not that some of those investors didn't deserve it) in an obvious pump-and-dump isn't spending time in a Federal prison, but instead is free to start a new company that actually buys up some of SCO's alleged IP to start another round of "litigation as a business model" pump and dumps is beyond me.

    • Eh, let him try to find investors. Anyone who is dumb enough to invest in his company needs to be separated from their money anyway.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chrisq ( 894406 )

        Eh, let him try to find investors. Anyone who is dumb enough to invest in his company needs to be separated from their money anyway.

        You are assuming that they are investing to make money. Microsoft might well invest to prolong the FUD against Linux.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by sabt-pestnu ( 967671 )

        Actually, SCO *does* have people looking to invest in it. Yarro [groklaw.net], as proxy for other unnamed investors.

        But what THAT's about, is "who gets the first cut of the SCO corpse"? (They want it, of course!) The terms they want for the loan are outrageous.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        Oh, he'll find investors. And they won't necessarily be stupid in terms of something you can measure on an IQ test.

        All he has to do is to take advantage of the kind of bug in human cognition that make otherwise sensible people fall for any other scam.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dbIII ( 701233 )
        To some he's the nasty bastard that deliberately drove SCO into the brick wall that is IBM and funneled a lot of the company money to his brother in the form of enormous legal fees for an unwinnable trumped up case based purely on fantasy.
        To others with short attention spans or that have only read the PR he's the guy that took on IBM and would have won too if it wasn't for those pesky kids and their penguin. There was a lot of PR pretending to be news pushing that line, especially from the fake Steve Jobs

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sjames ( 1099 )

        The sad part is wondering how many great ideas never leave the ground because investors already have their money invested in scum like McBride.

    • isn't spending time in a Federal prison, but instead is free to start a new company that actually buys up some of SCO's alleged IP to start another round of "litigation as a business model" pump and dumps is beyond me.

      This will remain the status-quo as long as Corporate personhood is the law.

      You can create a "person" for a few bucks, commit all the crimes you want, and then let that "person" take all the blame for it. You were merely a slave to the corporation. And as an added bonus, there is no criminal

      • Try this out sometime and let us know how it works for you. Big corporations can get away with big problems, but little corps will get their officers thrown in the pen as quick or quicker than sole proprietors.

    • I often wonder how many people made small fortunes on short-selling SCO stock. We're talking about a company that was, at one point, trading around $20/share. It's now worth like 50 *cents* per share or something. That's a long fall, there was plenty of potential for someone to make a lot of money shorting the stock.

      I even thought about trying that game, but I was too poor to play a rich-man's sport. That is, even though I was convinced that SCO was a good long-term short sell, the problem with shorting is

  • Choke! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Vinegar Joe ( 998110 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @03:37PM (#31335110)

    "You may recall that McBride was the brains behind the Linux lawsuits....."

    The brains?!?!? Bwahahahahahaha!!!!!

    • Yes. Brains. McBride is surely doing pretty well, financially-speaking. Investors who bought into SCO probably lost their shirts (and the shirts of their clients) but I think he's doing just fine and appears to be in position to start it all over again.

      Sure, he's a scumbag who drove a company into the toilet and pissed away investor's money but I'm sure his bank account will happily report that he's made some smart, if immoral decisions along the way.

      Remember, executives rarely follow the same failure t

      • Remember, executives rarely follow the same failure track of their companies...

        I hate to admit it, but it's true. Rarely do you see an exec walk away from crap like this without his/her shirt on their back. Hell, most of them get rewarded with a new position in another company.

        Look at what Sol Trujillo did here in Australia. Ran Telstra into the ground and walked away with a huge pay out. While all the mum & dad investors ended up losing their retirement nest egg, he sits there counting the millions he walked away with.

    • Re:Choke! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @04:26PM (#31335928) Homepage

      Bwahahahahahaha!!!!!

      That's what he did all the way to the bank, yes. You're assuming he bought into what he was saying, while I suspect that he and his lawyer brother riled each other up trying to find the most absurd but plausible-sounding legal fillings and PR statements to inflate the stock price over killing a bottle of scotch and released everything they managed to say with a straight face. No player ever announces himself as such, the whole "poor victimized CEO that's been screwed over by IBM and had his precious IP stolen" is playing the act. His apparent ignorance that the whole lawsuit was basically a sham based on IP rights they didn't own is more of the same. He misled people, got lots of money and got away with it. In my book that's a very successful and intelligent con man, despite the faulty moral compass. I suspect if he read your post he'd go "lok, I got you soooooooo fooled".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      Form the zombie guide to management (Z.E.O): Use yours, eat theirs.

  • Unfortunately McBride isn't a Zombie (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lead Butthead ( 321013 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @03:37PM (#31335120) Journal

    So it isn't legal to kill him, or have him killed. (So don't try this kids.)

    • Re:Unfortunately McBride isn't a Zombie (Score:4, Funny)

      by decipher_saint ( 72686 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @03:48PM (#31335328)

      "McBride isn't a Zombie so it isn't legal to kill him, or have him killed. (So don't try this kids.)"

      Is killing a zombie legal outside of self-defense?

      Won't someone think of the zombies???

      • Is killing a zombie legal outside of self-defense?always self-defense.

        Even if you make a game out of it like "zombie head t-ball" or "see how many times you can shoot the zombie's limbs before it has to start dragging itself after you with its lips". After your thousandth self-defense zombie killing, you start to want to take the edge off the monotony!

    • Re:Unfortunately McBride isn't a Zombie (Score:5, Funny)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @03:56PM (#31335438) Homepage Journal

      So it isn't legal to kill him, or have him killed. (So don't try this kids.)

      I'm suddenly feeling like this thread has turned into a Mafia conversation. "Yes. Please don't hire a hit man. Please don't call Freddy at 555-0129. That's Freddy at 555-0129. His services cost $5,000 per hit plus expenses, so he is quite affordable, but again, I repeat, do *not* call Freddy at 555-0129. After all, that would be illegal. That's Freddy at 555-0129. Don't call him today."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TRRosen ( 720617 )

      Its not Illegal if you truly believe he is a Zombie.

      OK kids lets all believe real hard!!!!!!!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 1s44c ( 552956 )

        Its not Illegal if you truly believe he is a Zombie.

        OK kids lets all believe real hard!!!!!!!

        Way ahead of you. In fact I have trouble believing McBride isn't a Zombie.

    • "Video games warped my mind and I truly believed Mr McBride was a zombie when I decapitated him with the chainsaw. As such I am not responsable for my actions as my lawyer Mr Jack Thomson will clearly show."

    • This is one of the moments when I wonder why it isn't. Personally, my moral code tells me "must not" should be "must".

  • Don't forget.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    the double tap.

  • If the business model works.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Angst Badger ( 8636 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @03:58PM (#31335488)

    No, not the SCO business model. I mean the Darl McBride business model, which is to swindle investors into believing that he can accomplish something in the long run, pocketing as much money as he can, and moving on to the next busload of Wall Street suckers. As long as it keeps incrementing the value in his bank account fast enough, he'll keep doing it. Short of marooning him on a desert planet somewhere -- which entails its own risks [wikipedia.org] -- there's not a lot anyone can do to keep him from grabbing the occasional headline with his latest antics.

    Just be thankful that he isn't working that business model at the same scale as AIG, Bank of America, or Citibank.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by shadowofwind ( 1209890 )

      I think you just described the business model for the entire American economy.

      • You think the business model for the most successful economy on the planet is based entirely upon fraud and deceit? That tinfoil is for saving leftovers and cooking JiffyPop, you look silly with it on your head.

        • Re:If the business model works.... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by timmarhy ( 659436 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @06:52PM (#31338116)
          actually right now the most successful economny on the planet is china, if in the traditional sense you measure success in the form of economic growth.

        • Most successful economy on the planet? How's the crack you're smoking on that cloud up there?

        • At the executive level, a very sizable portion of current profit seeking involves dismantling what was built in previous decades. Its true that its profitable to tear the economy down largely because it was built up so well to start with. But there's still an awful lot of tearing down going on.

          Look at HP, or Sun: shells of their former selves. Semiconductor manufacturing by companies like TI or Motorola? Gone to asia. Machine and other engine parts? Mostly gone. Paper mills? Closed in the 80's. Yes

  • He's just pumping SCO again so he can make up for his losses. There's always a pool of sucker gamb... investors who will lap this shit up.

  • ...who is the zombie: SCO, Mc Bride, or both ?!?

  • There ought to be a law (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TRRosen ( 720617 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @04:18PM (#31335824)

    Really it should be illegal for principals in a bankrupt company to purchase any of that companies assets. In this case he is profiting from running the company into the ground by purchasing assets at cut rate prices with the money he syphoned off from the company.

  • PDP-11 Out the 5th Floor Window: (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Zombie Kill of the Week.

  • How much would it take to put this guy in deep freeze or drug induced coma while all the so-called patents run out... oh.. yeah copyright, oh shit. I hope the cryopumps hold out for awhile..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JSBiff ( 87824 )

      Wait, you think Darl would let a silly little thing like *facts* (for example, that a given copyright or patent had expired) stop him from wasting millions of other peoples' money on a lawsuit? If Darl let the facts get in the way of his agenda, he'd have stopped these stupid lawsuits 6 *years* ago. No, total cremation is the only way to deal with this problem. . .

  • You have to use the shotgun and shoot them in the head! Shooting them with a handgun just pisses them off.

  • Outbid him and send him packing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by joelgrimes ( 130046 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @04:34PM (#31336054)

    It's only $35k!

    I'll personally commit $100 to create a fund to outbid him.

    Who's with me?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Sponge Bath ( 413667 )

      Who's with me?

      [sound of crickets]

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by joelgrimes ( 130046 )

        [sigh]

        Should have known better.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by haruchai ( 17472 )

          I'm totally with you but you're going about this the wrong way - do what Blender did, to buy out the source code ( and I contributed $25 to that so many years ago ) - start the Foundation to Pwn Sc0, get a site set up get the EFF, the Linux Foundation and whoever else on board and I'm sure you'll have enough for a buyout in a week's time.

          I'm very disappointed that IBM didn't solve this problem years ago.

  • Rule No. 4 (Score:3, Funny)

    by DWIM ( 547700 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @04:36PM (#31336096)
    Gahhh!!! Never forget Rule No. 4: Doubletap!

  • Timing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @04:49PM (#31336294)

    Hmm, Windows 7 Mobile edition is coming out soon. And the McBrideinator in moving into position for another attack - with mobile patents, perhaps partly based around the use of UNIX in a mobile platform.

    Coincidence?

  • ..when there are further developments. I'll be at the Winchester.

  • Goddamn it!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by tnk1 ( 899206 ) on Tuesday March 02, 2010 @06:47PM (#31338032)

    What do they always tell you?! Hmm?!

    You have to shoot these motherfuckers in the HEAD or they always come back.

    Now we have to go with the nukes from orbit plan.

  • Investors are stupid! God damn it they're just begging to be defrauded! I bet if you started a company whose STATED GOAL was "Defraud investors of millions of dollars," people would invest in it! In fact, I should go do that RIGHT NOW! I should go start a company with the motto "We're not going to make anything, we're just going to take your money and run," announce that we're suing EVERYONE, and see how high the stock prices go. I wonder if Darl's free to run the thing. Hmm, and we're going to need a lawye

  • What hasn't someone shot this asshole yet? I'm only partially kidding. In all seriousness, people like this man are dangerous.

    LK

  • I've, on occasion, had fantasies about righting some of the wrongs in this world. I once had a dream about a Matrix-meets-Boondock Saints, where there were vigilantes taking out abusive, greedy corporate types.

    McBride personifies the ideal target for this kind of thing. The man is a worm.

  • Isn't it obvious? Msft financed the entire scox-scam. The entire thing is just a msft PR stunt. It is supposed to scare people away from using Linux, and it's supposed to scare companies away from contributing to Linux.

    Think about it: how did scox intend to finance the mega-expensive lawsuit? Scox did not have that kind of money - not even close. Then in jumps msft with tens of millions of dollars, how convenient.

    And why sue IBM? IBM was never even a Linux distributor. Hint: IBM had just contributed a file

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