Novell to SCO - Pay Up

gosherm writes with word that, now that the dust is beginning to settle on the long-running SCO case, Novell wants to get paid. Now. They're requesting that the customary stay on SCO's finances (as a result of their bankruptcy) be lifted so that Novell can begin recouping some of its losses from the protracted legal battle. "'We need to adjudicate if this is money owed to Novell or if it is Novell's property,' said Bruce Lowry, spokesman for Novell. That could determine how quickly Novell can recover those funds. And time is of the essence since there's a possibility SCO 'may run low or even completely out of cash during the process of trying to reorganize,' Novell said in court documents filed Thursday. Novell is also trying to protect royalties SCO collects from Unix and Unixware software licensees and remits annually to the software developer. SCO is required to continue to remit between $500,000 and $800,000 annually to Novell -- the next payment is due Nov. 14. SCO remitted $696,413 to Novell between the third quarter of 2006 and the second quarter of this year."

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, actually the guy wrote a funny interview a few days ago, on Computerworld. Here it is: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=operating_systems&articleId=9040239&taxonomyId=89&intsrc=kc_top [computerworld.com] On October 1, McBride claimed that the rumors of SCO demise are greatly exaggerated.

Negative value reorganization?

[shanen]

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding this scenario. SCO's total market cap is now under $4 million. If that roughly represents the total value of the company, then where are they supposed to get the money to pay Novell? My understanding is that they owe Novell quite a bit more than that.

Anyway, the good part of this fiasco seems to be that it shows that IP blackmail is a lot riskier SCO thought it would be. I'm expecting IBM to pile on soon, just to make sure that SCO goes away and stops bothering them. Either that, or the guy with the wooden stake.

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[heinousjay]

(This is not a defense of Darl, although I'm sure many of you will take it as such in a blind nerdrage.)

So basically, he's saying he did what he believes is right in the face of opposition, and you call him a self-righteous asshole.

Tell me, when RMS does what he believes is right in the face of opposition, what is he?

Re:Negative value reorganization?

[couchslug]

SCO was expendable. Corporations are not people, and may be thrown away where expedient.
The people who expended SCO will remain wealthy.

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically, he's saying he did what he believes is right in the face of opposition, and you call him a self-righteous asshole.

The question is did he believe it? What was his so called belief based on? The evidence is that he knew that his belief was not backed up by facts and proceeded anyhow.

He had reports from his own company specialists saying there was nothing yet he gave interviews stating he had a team of MIT deep divers that has found millions of lines of evidence but he couldn't produce either the evidence or the deep divers in court. Why was that?

I and many others don't think he had a belief in the justice of his cause. I think as do others that he was trying to get IBM and others to pay them off without having to prove anything. It obviously didn't work.

Ain't no SysV code in Linux

[DrJimbo]

You must have missed the very public SCO v. IBM lawsuit. This is where SCO demanded (and got) all the source code for all the versions of IBM's AIX and Dynix operating systems in their search for a link connecting the ancient SysV code with code in Linux. They came up with zilch, nada, zero.

SCO repeatedly claimed that there were millions of infringing lines in Linux. But unfortunately for SCO in addition to the delusion that they owned the SysV copyrights, they also suffered from the delusion that they somehow had control over IBM's own home-grown code.

Linux is clean regardless of who owns the SysV copyrights.

Re:Novell to become the new SCO?

[Meltir]

i don't think your looking at this from the right angle.
just for a second, lets assume that novell isn't a linux distro company, and that they don't want to make it up to the linux community out there for the microsoft deal, and lets forget that sco is the personification of evil.
they have a company that they've sued and won.
whatever the reasons:

1) sco owes novell money.
2) sco is going broke.
3) novel wants their money before sco goes down.

id imagine the phb's in novell are looking at the situation exactly this way.
its cool that they come out to be the linux advocates, and taking down the bad guy - free good publicity and so on.
but that's just a side-effect, they would go after sco regardless of the circumstances.

aside from that - i wouldnt consider novell to be the new 'stewards' of linux.
i don't have all the data - so this is just my impression, but....

we have all seen IBM fight the good fight with sco for more than just a few months... i mean - its been years, and lets face it - it would have been cheaper for them to just buy sco, instead of fighting them.
novell noticed whats going on with this linux thing, and they manage to make a profit while creating contributing back to the linux community.
but IBM is investing a lot more then their getting back (i may be wrong here, as we(i) don't know whats in their agenda for the years to come - this could be one of those investments where you loose money for 10 years, and start making money in 20 - IBM is a company that can afford a business plan like this), and novell is just doing business like everyone else (it may sound cold, but there is no shame here - we all benefit from what they do, so cudos to them).

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[Ostsol]

I believe his point is that there's is nothing wrong with McBride's statement. This is, of course, assuming that SCO did in fact truely believe that they owned what they claim to have owned and that said intellectual property was indeed being infringed upon. Ultimately, the conclusion was that both were false and that they knew it. If anything, it is the latter that they should be villified for. One should not be attacked for simply protecting what one owns as long as one does so in an honest manner. Once again, though, it appears that SCO wasn't exactly being honest. . .

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[nuzak]

Certainly, bringing out that quote would seem only to support Darl. The big problem is that Darl kept talking, about "wholesale theft" and "millions of lines of code", and that as a successor-in-interest to apparently ALL things AT&T, how they'd be going after C++ next -- no kidding, he actually said so. That's the kind of hubris that has us all rubbing his comeuppance in his face.

Basically, he kept lying and his lies got more and more grandiose. Timed in fact quite well to his very sizeable scheduled sales of SCO stock. And it's not just the "nerd rage" afflicted making the implicit claim here -- Redhat's complaint (which hasn't even been heard yet; they're literally lining up to take a chunk out of SCO) actually used the words "pump and dump scheme".

Re:out of money

[ozmanjusri]

SCO 'may run low or even completely out of cash during the process of trying to reorganize

Microsoft should give them another 66 million [zdnet.com].

Re:out of money

[dbIII]

Except the big problem is they are focused or reorganising all the cash that is left into Darl's pocket. It'd say get security to escoprt him out and call in the liquidators.

Re:out of money

[ZachPruckowski]

there's a possibility SCO 'may run low or even completely out of cash during the process of trying to reorganize,

We can only hope.

Actually, that's the last thing we want. If SCO goes Chaper 7 (gets dismantled) before Novell gets a ruling against it, then they've won a partial victory.

Right now, SCO hasn't yet been defeated completely in the courts. They're mortally wounded but still standing. SCO needs to be an instance where they're made brutal example of. The result can't be "SCO ran out of cash arguing its claims", but rather "SCO's claims were baseless and found so by the courts". Given the power of the spinmeisters, the issue isn't resolved until the Novell case and ideally the IBM case are decided against SCO.

Then there's the SCO execs themselves. Personally, I think that they need to be brought to justice for their perversion and mockery of the US judicial system, and also for their stock antics. People like Darl McBride have gotten rich off of this whole thing. I want their butts behind bars, or at least under suit for malpractice or whatever. If they can walk out profiting from riding SCO into the ground and attacking Linux, it'll just encourage other trolls.

SCO is using this bankruptcy time to spend their money in a way that either enriches them or enriches their partners. They're trying to steer their allies onto the bankruptcy committee, and giving huge bonuses to their execs, and hiring temps at exorbitant fees.

Finally, if they run out of money, they can't pay Novell and IBM anything. They owe Novell millions of dollars, with only the amount now in dispute. Essentially, this is Novell's money they're burning through, according to the Novell v. SCO judge. They probably owe IBM some money too on the counterclaims (if they ever get to them).

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[Just Some Guy]

On October 1, McBride claimed that the rumors of SCO demise are greatly exaggerated.

And on September 18, McBride claimed [yahoo.com] that "[a]s a result of both the Court's August 10, 2007 ruling and our entry into Chapter 11, there is substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. " He has a lithe relationship with reality.

Corporate veil about to get shredded

[m0nkyman]

Anyone else think that Novell and IBM are going to get through the corporate veil and start going after the corporate officers personally?

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[speaker of the truth]

Microsoft shilled out $66 million to someone to produce a FUD campaign. I'd hardly call that working, although I'm sure everyone involved thought and still think it was money well spent.

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[Znork]

"Tell me, when RMS does what he believes is right in the face of opposition, what is he?"

Usually he's right.

See the difference?

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to believe that Darl believed the APA transferred copyrights to SCOX, seeing as they kept paying license money to Novell.

It's even harder to believe that Darl believed that precious copyrighted (not by SCOX) code was in Linux, seeing as they never came up with a shred of evidence.

RMS may be self-righteous, but at least what he's fighting (proprietary software that can't be modified) is something that exists in reality, whereas Darl is 'defending' something everyone knows is an illusion.

Occam's razor says he got money from Microsoft to spread FUD about Linux. Doing that is assholish.

Hey may even believe his FUD, and believe that there's a big crusade against him. That doesn't mean he isn't a prick.

Re:Where is Darl's big mouth now?

[gtall]

I do not give him credit for keeping his stock going up, I give him blame. Blame is what you bestow on a criminal for being a good criminal.

Gerry