Posted on 01/12/2009 7:43:26 AM PST by ShadowAce
From the very start, anyone who paid attention to SCO's attempts to throw a spanner in the Linux works, knew that they had no case. Over the years, I've covered their decline from the last major x86 Unix power to an industry joke. And, now SCO's story is almost over.
It's garbage time now for SCO. Those of you who follow basketball know exactly what I mean. This is when the winning team, Linux, and its chief champions in the SCO lawsuits. Novell and IBM, can send in the reserves from the end of the bench. SCO's lawsuits are smashed to bits.
As the clock ever so slowly winds down, SCO is now dumping what was once its heart, its Unix OpenServer and UnixWare business, and its newer mobile software, to continue its forlorn lawsuits. SCO has filed a new reorganization plan with the federal bankruptcy court in Delaware on January 8th.
CEO Darl McBride explained this latest twist in a public letter. McBride explained that, "SCO has been working over the past nine months with several investment groups to formulate an investment plan. With the tightening of the world financial markets, it has been difficult to secure a plan sponsor prior to the restructuring plan filing deadlines." You think? "However, SCO continues to work with investment groups who could potentially come forward with an investment plan to acquire certain SCO assets."
Actually, SCO has been looking for someone foolish enough to pour money down its legal rat-hole for over a year. Last February, SCO thought it had found its patsy, Stephen Norris & Co. Capital Partners and its Arabian oil billionaire friends. These buddies of Bill Gates backed out of the deal and SCO has been looking for an idiotic investor ever since.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.computerworld.com ...
Seen here as a petering-out branch of REDHAT --> CALDERA --> SCO
Where’s Darl’s brother Darl going to get the next paycheck?
Isn’t that putz Darl on the streets yet?? Jeez, this lawsuit plan is working better than I expected it would. It’s kept Darl in a job for like three more years than he deserved.
In other words, keep the lawsuits going, as many as possible, for as many years as possible. This has always, from its inception, been a tactic to scare business people away from using Linux. Nothing else. The only value has been FUD -- and in 2003-04 it was actually working.
The hidden payments will stop when the lawsuits stop. So the lawsuits MUST continue, regardless of the collateral damage (such as losing SCO's actual product line).
This last move, to gut the SCO product line to continue the lawsuits, demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that the only purpose of SCO was to be Microsoft's stalking horse against Linux.
What a travesty...
The main question I have regarding this claim is: Why?
SCO (actually Caldera) was a decent player in the linux market. They were middle of the pack, with a decent product. Maybe not the best, but definitely not the worst. What would cause them to embark on this course? Being in the market should have given them a clearer view of the Linux market, thus assuring them that this path was (is) a CEM (Career Ending Move).
> The main question I have regarding this claim is: Why?... SCO (actually Caldera) was a decent player in the linux market. They were middle of the pack, with a decent product. Maybe not the best, but definitely not the worst. What would cause them to embark on this course? Being in the market should have given them a clearer view of the Linux market, thus assuring them that this path was (is) a CEM (Career Ending Move).
I remember when it was Santa Cruz Operation -- hell, I remember when Microsoft was a Unix (actually XENIX) house. So maybe my statement should have been:
"the only purpose of SCO's recent conversion to a litigation slut was to be Microsoft's stalking horse against Linux..."But yes, your question is a good one. I think it has to do with the old adages:
Q. Where does a 900-pound gorilla sit?I would not be surprised to learn that Microsoft made Darl & Co. an offer they could not refuse. Either because of the money (simple greed), or because MS dug up some dirt on their pasts (simple fear). That's speculation, of course.
A. Anywhere he wants to.Q. Where do the small gorillas sit?
A. Wherever the 900-pound gorilla tells them to.
But no sane business manager would have done what these assclowns have done. It's a damn shame.
I have tried and tried to discover a plausible reason for Darl & Co. to flush such huge piles of money down the legal toilet with less chance of seeing any success than the holder of half a 20-year-old lottery ticket, but I must admit that I'm stumped.
It's just. Plain. Nuts.
You and me, both. The only thing I can possibly guess at is that Darl was hired to bring down SCO. However, I don't understand that, either, as Caldera/SCO wasn't that large of a player to begin with.
Yes, I ended the last sentence with a preposition--I was just typing as I talk. :)
Well, the remaining viable theory, if a bit tin-foil-hattish, is that Microsoft has a strong incentive to try and slow the popularity and increasing "big player" interest in Linux. If there's one thing that slows down a corporation's momentum, it's a lawsuit.
That's as likely as anything else, I guess.
Not tin-foil-hattish at all, consider that that's EXACTLY what Microsoft said it was going to do in the Halloween Papers.
Maybe Darl has a Swiss Bank Account.
Funny, it's exactly such a lawsuit that held up BSD for a couple of years, giving Linux time to gain popularity as the free UNIX-like OS. Torvalds has said he wouldn't have bothered to write Linux if BSD hadn't been in a lawsuit.
A judge needs to pound his gavel firmly on their fingers to keep those assets right where they are, so that they can be properly liquidated to pay off the various countersuits against SCO.
I don't really know, but I think this has more potential merit than it is often credited for. These are kind of fun to peruse:
I especially love the one about Caldera owning C++.
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