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SCO's "Least Supported Idea Yet" 134

Posted by Zonk from the another-shipment-from-crazy-town dept.
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."
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SCO's "Least Supported Idea Yet" More

SCO's "Least Supported Idea Yet"

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  • SCO to hire more lawyers (Score:5, Funny)

    by Malevolent Tester ( 1201209 ) * on Thursday March 27, 2008 @09:44AM (#22881734) Journal
    Commentators note this is the first example of vermin joining a sinking ship.

  • SCO's response? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bieeanda ( 961632 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @09:48AM (#22881808)
    That's easy. They'll sue Novell for defamation!

  • I'd be more apathetic if I weren't so lethargic (Score:5, Funny)

    by peipas ( 809350 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @09:52AM (#22881850)
    Really? I feel like Peter Griffin standing outside the newsstand for 48 hours trying to understand the New Yorker comic.

    (closes PDF)

  • kill -9 (Score:5, Funny)

    by davejenkins ( 99111 ) <slashdot&davejenkins,com> on Thursday March 27, 2008 @09:53AM (#22881870) Homepage
    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 (Score:5, Funny)

      by morgan_greywolf ( 835522 ) * on Thursday March 27, 2008 @10:00AM (#22881928) Homepage Journal
      And what if that fails to work? Will we have to reboot the world?

      • Re:kill -9 (Score:4, Funny)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Thursday March 27, 2008 @10:26AM (#22882242)

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


        Well, technically, init could do the job just as well, too. After all, it spawned off (eventually) the process that spawned the zombie (and forgot to reap them). Now, we just need to telinit to reap some zombie processes.

        Things are easier if one of those processes was a shell spawned by init... kill the shell, and init will respawn it, reaping any zombies that the shell was an eventual parent of.

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

        • Re:kill -9 (Score:5, Funny)

          by Trigun ( 685027 ) <evil&evilempire,ath,cx> on Thursday March 27, 2008 @10:45AM (#22882504)
          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: (Score:2)

          by Rakarra ( 112805 )
          Well, technically, init could do the job just as well, too. After all, it spawned off (eventually) the process that spawned the zombie (and forgot to reap them). Now, we just need to telinit to reap some zombie processes.

          Init would happily let that zombie process fall into oblivion if it wasn't for the process that spawned the current zombie, still propping it up.

      • Re:kill -9 (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dkleinsc ( 563838 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @10:58AM (#22882676) Homepage
        I'm thinking the right approach is to sic the Crimson Permanent Assurance on them.

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

        I sure as hell hope not, that's a crapload of work. First you have to build a tunneling machine out of a newly invented ultra-strong super-insulating metal that can somehow convert heat into electricity (which can be extracted by soldering a couple of bigass leads to any point on the hull), then set off a chain reaction of nukes in the earth's core to get it spinning again, 'cuz you know if the earth's core isn't spinning the whole planet will explode or something.

        Well actually, since it would be spinning

        • Nah, just fire a couple of slugs made out of McBridenium (one of the densest materials known to mankind) at their head.

          (I'd say aim for their heart or brains, but the existence of either is questionable.)

          Then salt their remains with something even more toxic than calcium - O'Garanic Acid.

          Then invoke the same spell that successfully cast out the demon Pretenderle - say "linux linux linux".

        • Nah, just get Chuck Norris to roundhouse-kick Mr. T at the same time as Mr. T pities Chuck Norris. Everything resets to 1982.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jd ( 1658 )
        Well, the only rogue kernel thread I can think of is Ollie North. If he's been attached, kill -9 will not work. You might still be able to fix the problem, if kgdb is in a usable state. Rebooting the planet will piss off Deep Thought, who is currently close to his high score on Astro Pinball.

    • Re:kill -9 (Score:5, Informative)

      by timster ( 32400 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @10:01AM (#22881942)
      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.

  • If I weren't already a registered Slashdotter... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tsar ( 536185 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @10:02AM (#22881966) Homepage Journal
    ...I'd want "The Avarice of York" as my alias. Who'll bet that it's taken by the end of the day?

  • It's Shakespeare (almost) (Score:5, Funny)

    by Kupfernigk ( 1190345 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @10:06AM (#22881996)
    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!

  • I read the headline and feared this was a new revenue-generating plan from the mind of Darl McBride. "There's this completely untapped market! All we need is a basket of kittens and a commercial-grade deli slicer...no no, listen! When it doesn't make money, we sue Quizno's!"

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by sm62704 ( 957197 )
      I read the headline and feared this was a new revenue-generating plan from the mind of Darl McBride. "There's this completely untapped market! All we need is a basket of kittens

      Did someone say kittens? [uncyclopedia.org]

      "On the streets these days, a dime bag of kittens costs a pretty penny." ~ Oscar Wilde

  • 150,000K (Score:5, Informative)

    by esocid ( 946821 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @10:13AM (#22882084) Journal
    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 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Trigun ( 685027 ) <evil&evilempire,ath,cx> on Thursday March 27, 2008 @11:00AM (#22882718)
      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.

  • Wow (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    And I thought the Nazgul played rough..

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by nuzak ( 959558 )
      The law firm representing Novell doesn't have the domain mofo.com for nothing.

  • Quick Summary (Score:5, Informative)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @10:19AM (#22882146)

    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 (Score:5, Informative)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @10:27AM (#22882256)
      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.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lysse ( 516445 )
        Well, if SCO now have everyone thinking that Novell is just another creditor (rather than the legal owner of - well, probably more of SCO's cash than SCO has at this point) they've already achieved precisely what they set out to do.
    • Thanks for the summary and saving me hours digging through the details!

      At the corporate level Evil is often complicated.
    • > 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.

      Someone else already mentioned that it was Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but I thought I'd point out that in those Summary J
  • Other reply other than a rejection would be saying something akin to: "We approve of SCO continuing to attempt to sue us."

    SCO should be torn up for parts, Chapter 11 is not the right state from them to be in, they are unsalvagable, Chapter 7 time.

  • SCO sane? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by suck_burners_rice ( 1258684 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @10:28AM (#22882276)
    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 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Seakip18 ( 1106315 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @10:47AM (#22882520) Journal
    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 (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @10:47AM (#22882530) Homepage

    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 (Score:5, Informative)

      by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @11:03AM (#22882760) Homepage

      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.

      • The question isn't how much money SCO owes; it's how much of the money in SCO's bank account actually belongs to Novell. This is an important difference, as it lets Novell skip to the head of the line, before all the other creditors (and there are quite a few of those...)

    • Re:The proposed buyer, SNCP, has no money (Score:5, Informative)

      by sconeu ( 64226 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @11:05AM (#22882780) Homepage Journal
      Parent was lifted verbatim from this post [groklaw.net].

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

    • Re:The proposed buyer, SNCP, has no money (Score:4, Funny)

      by MrNiceguy_KS ( 800771 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @02:57PM (#22885584)
      They also attempted to broker a deal with Chuck Norris Capital Partners. Chuck Norris responded by laughing, then roundhouse kicking the SCO lawyer through a plate glass window, then laughing even harder, because there's nothing funnier than a lawyer being kicked through a plate glass window.
  • Seriously, what I want to know is exactly what is left of SCO that is worth anything to anyone at this point. Dragging this whole thing out in court is just delaying the inevitable death that we all know is coming.

    If there is anything wrong our system right now, its that we allow a company in its death throws to file Bankruptcy to delay the inevitable. Just do a freaking organ transplant already and kill the brain dead child of Darl.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      No, letting people have an appeal is critical to a good legal system, the fact that an occasional SOB misuses it is far better then not having it.

      Most rational people would have stopped by now; which indicates to me that either Darl is:
      A) Crazy
      B) In a panic
      C) Has an undisclosed motivator for going forward
      D) Two of the above.
      E) All of the above.

      A company filing bankruptcy helps get it's creditors paid. Usually in hope of continuing. It does work.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Archangel Michael ( 180766 )
        Bankruptcy by itself isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about bankruptcy as a means of stalling the inevitable conclusion of another court process.

        The fact that SCO is in a court battle, which it is about to lose, should be enough to send the bankruptcy filing back to SCO. The Bankruptcy judge should have said that filing for re-org or whatever is impossible until the other major litigation is completed, which it is. While there is such a huge uncertainty in the long term viability of SCO, Bankruptcy

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by ArtDent ( 83554 )
          Exactly. All the Bankruptcy filing has achieved is delaying the trial by seven months. Absolutely nothing has been resolved while SCO has been in Chapter 11. They've just been able to burn through more of Novell's money.

          I don't know how, but I hope this can be used against SCO when judgement day comes. Any attempts to use accounting trickery to argue that Novell's money is gone should be rejected immediately. After all these brazen maneuvers to delay the Novell case, not a single penny left at SCO should be

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by MightyMartian ( 840721 )
        The problem is that SCO, as it stands, doesn't have much of a product. It's got some customers (mainly Point-of-sales) who would continue to feed it relatively small amounts of cash in support, but other than that, its product line is past prime. Instead of trying to improve and innovate, to actually compete, they pretty much gave up and formulated a new plan to litigate themselves into some sort of pot of eternal gold.

        What's there to come back to now? Have they even get any developers and engineers left
    • Plus a pile of unpaid bills and judgements, assorted countersuits, and a management team either being sued out of their shorts, or on the lam to the Seychelles, or both. SCO's assets aren't worth anything to speak of at this point.

    • Re:What's Left? (Score:4, Informative)

      by rkhalloran ( 136467 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @11:40AM (#22883150) Homepage
      With the ruling that Novell owns what copyrights are left in UNIX, all SCOX has left are some x86-based drivers and utilities for Unixware, that still need the SysV base to be useful. The only other useful item might be the customer lists for The Next Guy to use to promote their migrate-to-Linux consultancy...

      They also "own" the liabilities of IBM & Novell's countersuits, and the Red Hat Lanham Act suit for interfering in its doing business by casting doubt on Linux' legitimacy. Potential amount of these, especially in the IBM case, dwarfs the budget of many developing countries.

      SCOX DELENDA EST!!

  • Still not as good as this ruling ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ravensfire ( 209905 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @11:07AM (#22882794) Homepage
    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 (Score:5, Informative)

      by edremy ( 36408 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @11:37AM (#22883104) Journal
      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.

    • Damn, and I thought "breathtaking inanity" was a zinger.

      rj

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by aj50 ( 789101 )
      I recommend to you the Phoenix Wright [wikipedia.org] series of games.
  • Novell's legal team needs to hire better proofreaders.
  • As comical as the SCO proceedings have been to read over the last couple of years, it is time to put this beached whale out of its (and ours) misery.
  • I highly recommend reading the motion.

    On a related note, it fills me with great satisfaction that SCO management is continuesly shown to be the scum they are.

  • I hope (Score:4, Funny)

    by BCW2 ( 168187 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @12:32PM (#22883764) Journal
    Someone writes a script. This could be funnier than Office Space and be 100% true! Great movie idea!
  • After reading through the uncharacteristically informal language of the motion, I was not at all surprised to see that it was authored by Morrison and Foerster LLP. They're known for being rather...unconventional. After all, their web address is http://www.mofo.com/ [mofo.com].
  • Is he still employed at SCO, or is this latest brilliance the result of someone ELSE at SCO?

    Another question might be... does SCO have no shame? Apparently not...

    At this point the corpse of SCO has to be worth less than the continuing legal wrangling... so who is paying for all this?

  • What it means to an IBM employee (Score:3, Funny)

    by MrKaos ( 858439 ) on Thursday March 27, 2008 @07:22PM (#22888552) Journal
    My Girlfriend works for IBM, and this morning I read this and I commented to her,

    "How humiliating for SCO"

    "SCO?"

    "Yeah, you know, SCO, they tried to sue IBM"

    "Did they?.. . . ",long pause , "Who?"

  • Wow.

    I work in a court house, and I must say that is the best legal document I've ever read.

    I sure I wish they all read like that....

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