SCO Proposes Sale of Assets To Continue Litigation 290
gzipped_tar sends in this excerpt from the Salt Lake Tribune:
"The embattled SCO Group Inc. is proposing to auction off its core products and use proceeds to continue its controversial lawsuits over the alleged violations of its copyrights in Linux open-source software. The Lindon company has filed a new reorganization plan with the federal court in Delaware where it sought bankruptcy protection from creditors after an adverse ruling in the Linux litigation. If approved by a bankruptcy judge, the plan could mean SCO's server software and mobile products lines are owned by other parties while SCO itself remained largely to pursue the lawsuits under the leadership of CEO Darl McBride. 'One goal of this approach is to separate the legal defence of its intellectual property from its core product business,' McBride said in a letter to customers, partners and shareholders. Jeff Hunsaker, president and COO of The SCO Group, said the litigation had been distracting to the company's efforts to market its products. 'We believe there's value in these assets and in order for the business to move forward it's imperative we separate it from our legal claims and we allow our products business to move forward,' he said Friday."
Wow. Just wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
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In a just world, he will die a homeless drug user on the streets.
Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
In a just world, he will die a homeless drug user on the streets.
Darl does not deserve drugs. How about him dieing a homeless, disease ridden prostitute?
Then the only change necessary is creditors seizing his home.
Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:5, Funny)
In a just world, he will die a homeless drug user on the streets.
Darl does not deserve drugs. How about him dieing a homeless, disease ridden prostitute? Then the only change necessary is creditors seizing his home.
Darl does not deserve sex. How about him dieing a homeless RIAA lawyer?
Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:4, Insightful)
RIAA lawyers don't deserve death. They deserve a long and very painful and unpleasant life instead.
Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:4, Funny)
A job in IT?
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First line tech support for dummy users - for life.
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In a just world, he will die a homeless drug user on the streets.
Darl does not deserve drugs. How about him dieing a homeless, disease ridden prostitute?
Then the only change necessary is creditors seizing his home.
Hmmm
I hate what tSCOGroup tried to do, I hate the fud that was generated, I hate the lies that were told, however none of things lead me to want those involved to die horrific deaths, instead I want all those involved to suffer to the maximum extent possible under the law...
I believe that you and the AC you replied to, need to get a sense of perspective, nothing Darl, or anyone else at tSCOGroup has done warrants such deaths. I honestly believe that attitudes such as yours, do as much harm to the Open Sour
Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:4, Insightful)
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You are far too forgiving. There are some levels of anti-social activity that must be punished horrifically, and continuing to harass people long after everyone and their brother has decided your arguments are fallacious and worthless is certainly one of them.
Anyone who uses the legal system of the United States as an UNJUST weapon against others deserves significant punishment, "pour encourager les autres".
Darl sucks. He took a company that had a decent product that was rapidly becoming irrelevant and d
Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:4, Insightful)
snip...I hope the bankruptcy judge finds him PERSONALLY LIABLE and sentences him to jail for THEFT.snip...
Hmmm
As stated, I want Darl (& the Sco Group) punished to the maximum extent possible under the law. Darl & Co need to be seen to be punished in such a way that it that acts a deterrent to prevent others from pursuing similar frivolous claims in the future.
I want Darl & Co. punished for all their lies, I want the Sco Group punished for trying to game the legal system, I want the Sco Group punished for every time they ignored Court Orders, I want their assets seized to pay off creditors, I want the law firms to have to disgorge all funds received from tScoGroup after they entered chapter 11 to help pay off creditors, I want the SEC to investigate tScoGroup and the statements that were made to the court that appear to be different / contradict statements that were made to the SEC...
Executive summary, I want justice to be done and to be seen to done. Dying a horrendous death is not justice (not even poetic justice), and it is certainly not deserved for what tScoGroup actually did...
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And even after all that, those they have injured will not have been made whole.
The law is unjustly lenient in cases like this precisely because it is being abused by lawyers, and most laws are written by lawyers. I don't know anyone else who could write them, but it creates an inherent bias in favor of those acts that lawyers perform and others don't. And in favor of those acts that people who hire lawyers perform and others don't.
I'm willing to consider arguments that this is not a fair summation of this
Professional guild (Score:4, Insightful)
The law is unjustly lenient in cases like this precisely because it is being abused by lawyers, and most laws are written by lawyers. I don't know anyone else who could write them, but it creates an inherent bias in favor of those acts that lawyers perform and others don't. And in favor of those acts that people who hire lawyers perform and others don't.
Lawyers will tend to work with other lawyers because they are both... lawyers. They are part of a guild, a professional brotherhood, united by common experience and training. Whether this is a bad thing is a matter of opinion, but it's a reality shared among lawyers, and any other professional group.
Think about it; when you start talking about firewalls, routing tables, and process management, are you going to consider the input of somebody who is clueless about such things over somebody who knows the difference between a default deny firewall and a NAT firewall?
And to every non-techie person who has to try to work with you, aren't you going to seem a bit, eh, elitist when you pay close attention to an arsehole who is speaking intelligently while ignoring the non-techies, who use words like "series of tubes" to describe technical details?
This isn't an issue with lawyers, it's an issue with all of mankind. Doctors listen to other doctors and ignore "lay folk". So do IT/techies, contractors, politicians, lawyers, accountants, mechanics, engineers, architects, scientists, and pilots. A techie thinks the technically insecure doctor is an idiot for not installing an anti-virus or doing backups. The doctor thinks an unhealthy techie is an idiot for not losing weight and quitting smoking.
Welcome to life, folks. You cast the shadow you leave behind. It's OK - it's just humanity, each making judgments according to their own experience!
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How about him dieing a homeless, disease ridden prostitute?
How about somebody spelling "dying" properly, just once in this thread?
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When youre on the street,
When evening falls so hard
We will point and laugh...
(With apologies to Simon & Garfunkel.)
That depends upon his job. (Score:3, Interesting)
If he finds a buyer (or buyers) for the products that pay enough for those products then SCO gets a lot of money. Some of which could be direct towards himself and the other execs as bonuses or whatever.
Now, if you question whether he can find a buyer willing to pay that much for a dying product, just remember that he has found investors and partners before who seemingly pay millions of dollars for nothing.
Right now, his job is to drag this case out.
McUnix (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO has a market cap of just over $3 million [yahoo.com]. IIRC, McDonald's Corp is one of their major customers. That $3mil is pocket change for the $66.95 billion [yahoo.com] market cap McD's Corp.
What if McDonald's buys SCO? McD's could hire a couple devs (since that is all SCO needs, apparently..) for maintenance and some support personnel, then service their own stores as well as other existing customers. Maybe they'd wind up saving, if not making, some money in a few years. Perhaps give Darl a store to manage...
Heh. :)
Point being, with a market cap of only $3mil, SCO and anything they have/own are basically chump change for a real corporation. So, if the judges (have) let this happen, then, and I hate to even think of it, we'll see this zombie keep stumbling forward...
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you mean charcoal ?? (Score:3, Insightful)
When was the last time you saw a real grill at McDonalds?
So your phrase should be "You have to work up to microwave".
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What if McDonald's buys SCO? McD's could hire a couple devs (since that is all SCO needs, apparently..) for maintenance and some support personnel, then service their own stores as well as other existing customers. Maybe they'd wind up saving, if not making, some money in a few years. Perhaps give Darl a store to manage...
SCO has several POS installations. The biggest complaint I heard from my coworkers that has sco experience when I was a unix admin was rebuilding the kernel. Apparently, you had to use some sort of linker to add drivers to the kernel. The second biggest was modern hardware support.
For B&W POS terminals these things are not concerns. If McDonalds bought all the source code outright, they could probably port everything to another unix in 6 months. A smarter move would be to work out some kind of deal wher
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It is very likely that if they don't have source code, there is some sort of agreement that holds the source code in escrow in case the company goes out of business. (I worked for a company that did exactly this.) It is also very likely that there are programmers running around that have left SCO who could be hired as contractors. (This is exactly what I did when I left that company...I became a contractor at one of their customers.)
They would have no need to actually buy SCO and in fact might be better
Re:McUnix (Score:4, Interesting)
Another possiblity is for McDonald's to buy SCO and then lhave the POS software ported to another platform. There are many, and Solaris might be the winner there.
Then SCO can truly die.
ps- This would be very difficult for the bankruptcy judge to turn down. Might be cheaper to McD's than licenses. Would still give ignat money to pursue his stupid suit.
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your forgetting the problem. The core products are what has been sued over. Darl can't sell them and continue the lawsuit as they wouldn't be the owners of the products anymore.
Not only is this proposal nearly two weeks late(it was due Dec. 31) This destroys the company and any potential assets creditors may have access to recoup their losses. Only a naive bankruptcy judge would allow the only asset a company has to be sold for literally nothing.
What's worse is that those products are only worth maybe 5
Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you buy into the entire Microsoft paid them to spread FUD about Linux conspiracy, this actually plays directly into it. Vista wasn't the prize puppy MS was wanting it to be. With the economy going down and all of Vista's happiness, companies and people are looking at the FOSS routes a little more. What better way to battle that and ensure MS had a viable product until the economy recovers and windows 7 is making money then to re-raise the Linux is illegal battle.
Or in other words, nothing is wrong with him that wasn't already wrong with him. He is just needed one more time. I suspect MS or some affiliate of MS is more then willing to buy off the assets.
This all makes sense if you don't look at him as the CEO of SCO but the employee of a dieing company who is looking to the future.
Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:4, Funny)
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The SCOX.pk lawsuit has lost all credibility. Even though I do believe that MS once gave them money to pay for this lawsuit (at whose initiative is a good question), I don't believe that this is still of any value to MS, and so more money will be forthcoming only if they have some incriminating evidence on MS.
Not likely. I think MS knew what kind of slime they were dealing with. Which argues that they initiative came from SCOX. (But it's a ways short of proof.)
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So what's to stop the products being bought by, say, McBride enterprises llc (with some 'interesting' backers)?
Surely, the products are tangible assets which should be ringfenced to protect the interests of the other parties in the ongoing (sigh - VERY ongoing) litigation?
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Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:4, Funny)
In this economy, Darl knows he will never get another job as an executive. I mean how the hell can you spin his tenure as CEO of SCO on a resume? I guess you could say something like "leveraged corporate IP" -- just leave out the part about "just not OUR corporate IP. Heh." And maybe "worked with compliance and legal department to partner with the titans of the computer industry" -- just leave out "it was a forced partnership. Okay, we sued their asses and had ours handed to us on a platter, but still. I've got more balls than brains, it has to count for something!"
I'd suggest "innovative customer relations program", but the MPAA has them beat on that one.
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Am I the only one that is "reading between the lines" of Mr McBride as to saying that the viable business assets (IP/service) that SCO owns are "dragging down" the litigation efforts (distracting from them anyway, loss of focus) and that he wants to get rid of them, to strengthen the litigation business model?
How backwards is THAT?
"Just WOW" indeed... the ability of some people to surpass seemingly insurmountable levels of prior stupidity do continue to amaze me.
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On the contrary, McBride managed to rise the stock price of his company with all of this nonsense. Of course the company was utterly destroyed as a result, but for a few moments any stockholder could get a fantastic return on investment (assuming he bought the stock on their pre-lawsuit low point). Since enchanting stockholder value for
what core product business ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why not drop the case and focus more fully on your 'core product business'
Re:what core product business ? (Score:5, Funny)
Then why not drop the case and focus more fully on your 'core product business'
At this point he pretty much is.
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You do realize that so far Darl has has made multiple millions off this? And that nobody has shown any signs of coercing him into paying it back? Last I heard it was asserted that he had transferred some of his real estate into his wife's name so that it would be harder to reclaim, but thus far that has been an action that hasn't been necessary. (OTOH, I don't know how long such an action can be reverted.)
I'm sure it's been stressful, but no more running a protection racket. And if he can manage to fina
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Then why not drop the case and focus more fully on your 'core product business'
Because the core product is hopelessly obsolete and only used by a very small and fast shrinking customer base. SCO started this case because their core business was no longer viable.
It's a real shame. They just failed to keep up with the competition.
seriosly, would anyone here buy an SCO product? (Score:2)
Who is actually buying SCO products at this point? Is it just legacy customers who need ongoing support? Seriously, if a purchase-order to SCO crossed my desk I'd assume it was a practical joke
I mean, some companies are afraid
You've got to understand what Darl is doing (Score:5, Insightful)
No SNCP, no Arab sheik (Score:5, Insightful)
They want to pay Novell in worthless stock.
And the directors will get their pay in worthless options going forward.
It's amazing how long this zombie company can stay on its feet.
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It's amazing how long this zombie company can stay on its feet.
So that's why Darl and the other directors at the last board meeting kept saying, "Brains! brains! We need brains!"
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zombies (Score:2)
So that's why Darl and the other directors at the last board meeting kept saying, "Brains! brains! We need brains!"
Maybe they're hoping to get smart by eating brains.
Actually, unless he gets what he deserves and ends up with Bubba as a cellmate, I bet he and the other directors walk away with millions of dollars in their pockets.
Falcon
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Just die already, SCO!
Is groklaw aware of this new development? (Score:5, Insightful)
The recent story of their cessation to "compile" the history of the case seems a bit premature now.
That said, I'm beginning to wonder if Darl is playing "weekend at bernies" with the board of directors, because no sane board would authorize the liquidation of the bulk of a company's assets so an obsessed executive can go tilting at windmills.
Re:Is groklaw aware of this new development? (Score:5, Insightful)
> because no sane board would authorize the liquidation of the bulk of a company's assets so an obsessed executive can go tilting at windmills
The decision was made by Ralph J. Yarro III back in 2003 to tilt at the windmill. Darl was hired to lead the charge. Back at the beginning Darl said SCO would pursue this to their "utter destruction" if need be. Well it looks like they are.
History: SCO, then called Caldera, was Novell's proxy in the DRDOS lawsuit against Microsoft. This lead Yarro, then managing the Canopy investment company that effectively had full control of SCO/Caldera to look for new lawsuit opportunities to cash in on. The decided to attack Linux using their "UNIX IP". To bad there is no UNIX IP in Linux.
The court system that allows civil cases of this nature is really to blame for the whole thing. SCO's lawyers are now heavily "invested" in the case (at one point they were literally going to be investors in SCO, but then changed their minds to cash up front) and are not really working for justice, but for their piece of the litigation reward pie.
Re:Is groklaw aware of this new development? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, they're still referring to UNIX IP being property of SCO?
Just how is this possible? It's well-known that Novell owns UNIX IP (maybe not the trademark, but the copyrights, etc. to the code) and as the owner of Unix IP, Novell obviously has no objection to Unix's affecting Linux, since Novell is distributing Linux pretty aggressively.
On top of that, even if there were Unix code, or even SCO-authoried UNIX code in the Linux kernel, SCO themselves distributed that same code under the GPL releases as Caldera Linux, and later on, SCO Linux.
Want to know the saddest part of this?
Prior to Darl's influence, Caldera was a great company. They were founded by former Novell folk who were avid supporters of Open Source. Not free as in beer, but free as in speech, where if you buy a product, you not only get the binaries, but the source so you can fix bugs in the event that the product ceases to be available. They brought DR Dos back to life (and sued Microsoft in the process for their anti-competitive tactics).
They introduced Caldera Linux, which was a bit ahead of its time. Online repositories accessible through a decent GUI, network management through a usable GUI, and a somewhat polished (for the time) desktop environment, all as open source. The "open" nature of it was touted heavily on it, and although it wasn't my primary OS at the time (I had to work a LOT of hours from home on Windows projects so I dumped Linux for a few years, unfortunately) I liked it a lot.
Caldera was very open and very pro-open source. The founders saw the vision and potential of open standards. I don't know exactly what prompted the change which brought that shark Darl in, but Caldera was very focused on poising themselves for the open source revolution and the potential for "value-added" services, using the "free/free" aspect to gain market penetration.
Keep in mind what Caldera was doing then is what Novell and Canonical are doing now, and it's somewhat ironic that SCO (formerly Caldera) was founded by ex-Novell employees who shared the same vision that Novell has FINALLY embraced in recent years.
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- to say there is no UNIX IP shows your lack of imagination.
IP is not imaginary.
A) there really is not such thing as "UNIX IP". Unix is an open standard specification administered by the OpenGroup.
B) SCO uses the term "UNIX IP" to mean something they own. They own squat.
C) In the IBM case SCO was required during discovery to produce any claims over Linux that SCO had. SCO at that time claimed to own the core "UNIX IP" without any definition of that. What SCO produced is essentially nothing.
D) The BSD settle
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to say there is no UNIX IP shows your lack of imagination.
IP is not imaginary.
IP is the epitome of imaginary.
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Re:Is groklaw aware of this new development? (Score:5, Informative)
Facts are SETTLED in the trial court. Once the trial court enters its judgment, those facts are set in stone.
Facts can be undone on appeal only if no reasonable factfinder could have found the challenged facts AND if the party appealing has complied with all the procedural requirements. Thanks to the lawyers, Groklaw, and others, that just isn't going to happen in this case because there is too much evidence supporting the decision of the trial court.
Facts almost NEVER get rewritten on appeal. The rules are tremendously slanted against that. If a fact gets undone on appeal, the issue gets sent back to the trial court for a new fact determination.
Groklaw's purpose was help in the development of a factual record in the trial court against SCO. As discussed above, there is no need for factual development on appeal. If the trial court must in the future decide some new facts, Groklaw will doubtless spring into action, but that isn't likely.
Kinda refreshing, actually... (Score:5, Insightful)
I love the fact that they're willing to sell the very products they're supposedly protecting from unauthorized use of "their" code, just to keep the legal fight going.
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I suppose Daryl thinks that when he wins (he clearly can't imagine any other outcome, no matter of often his lawyers get their asses kicked in court) he can just buy the software assets back. Of course, when he loses SCO will be even more screwed than before (which I didn't think was even possible before today).
What products? (Score:5, Insightful)
What company would want to adopt or standardize on a product developed by a company that is, for all intents and purposes, dead? Everyone has moved on, be it server side apps or embedded, there are ample companies that have a superior product with a healthy roadmap and no indication that they will not be around in 5 years.
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Heh. Heh heh. The telecomms guy at my workplace just bought an upgrade to the latest version of OpenSewer for his server.
Deck Chairs (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Deck Chairs (Score:5, Funny)
Queue incoming litigation against Balmer for the concept of 'throwing chairs' in 3... 2... 1...
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Darl has now gone from rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, to throwing them overboard...
Sounds like Balmer's approach to fishing.
Correction and prediction (Score:5, Interesting)
Where is reads :
Jeff Hunsaker, president and COO of The SCO Group, said the litigation had been distracting to the company's efforts to market its products.
it should read :
Jeff Hunsaker, president and COO of The SCO Group, said the efforts to market its products had been distracting to the company's main litigation activity
There, that's it.
Now a prediction. I predict that they are going to find a very generous buyer, that will pay much, much more than the market value of the actives, allowing the new, rather hollowed-out SCO to keep on litigating for years. Call it a hunch.
Yup. That's right. (Score:3, Informative)
And this time it'll be more than one step removed from the real source of the money. [zdnet.com]
...to customers, partners and shareholders. (Score:4, Funny)
McBride said in a letter to customers, partners and shareholders.
ie.
McBride said in a letter to his father-in-law, his wife and his mistress, and his grand parents.
Ok what do they have exactly now... (Score:2)
Let's look at their IP most of which is centered around OpenServer and UnixWare, is anyone out there using those much anymore? Last time I checked we were all on any other Unix variant but those.
Other than IP we can look at their hard assets, I suppose they can just keep selling furniture and computers until it's just Darl working out of his garage again, but let's be real SCO doesn't have much left anywhere anyways...
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Hrm..
Perhaps IBM could buy them and write itself an unconditional irrevokable retroactive perpetual license to the products. And release them under GPLv3...
should IBM buy SCO? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps IBM could buy them and write itself an unconditional irrevokable retroactive perpetual license to the products. And release them under GPLv3...
That would be terrible, least of all for IBM. Between IBM and Novell SCO is on the ropes and it should die. Actually I think an IBM buyout may of been in Darl McBride's and other's mind when they filed their lawsuit against IBM, hoping IBM would offer to buy SCO.
Falcon
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Captain Ahab (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, does this not seem like Darl McBride is so obsessed with going after "the great white whale" that it's all he can think about, to the exclusion of everything else?
Where and when does it all end?
Somehow, this reminds me ... (Score:5, Funny)
... of the Black Knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail.
"None shall pass!"
There are times... (Score:2)
There are times to publicly execute your legal council. This is one of those times.
In other words, play hide the assets (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like they're going to sell their assets off to someone else, leaving SCO as just a shell from which to continue the lawsuits and hide away the assets from future claims against them.
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Exactly - that was my first thought, too.
I wonder if there's some way IBM/Novell can put a halt to this, arguing that given rulings against SCO, there's a likely chance they'll have to pay up and thus, they shouldn't be allowed to divest any assets of value.
Wait wait wait, hold on a sec... (Score:3, Funny)
The embattled SCO Group Inc. is proposing to auction off its core products
SCO actually sells a product?
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sadly yes:
http://www.sco.com/products/openserver6/ [sco.com]
if no sale, 10% cut in 280K salary (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah but if the sale fails to raise sufficient cash the company directors will take a 10% cut in their salaries.
Is $280k a year a good salary for a CEO of a company that is in bankruptcy and has so far burned through $0.25B of investor capital.
Oh and there are only 66 employees. I would bet your nearest grocery store is larger than that.
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Wow. Only 66 employees? I wonder how many are actually working on products they sell?
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Wow. Only 66 employees? I wonder how many are actually working on products they sell?
I expect most, if not all, of the employees that are capable of finding alternative jobs will be long gone. The remaining 66 are either in golden-handcuffs or are drooling morons.
Maybe they should produce their own, reality-tv, version of "The Office" to raise extra funds...
Government Bailout for SCO (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm actually a little shocked that they haven't requested government financial assistance. It seems to be all the rage for companies with poor products, insane leadership, and failing business models.
mod this flamebait if you want, it's still true.
Please don't give McBride any ideas . . . (Score:2)
. . . he'd probably try anything.
He'll have to stand in line behind the porn industry, of course.
Although, maybe he already got some money from the bank bailout pot. Who knows, since the banks aren't telling the government where it is being spent.
Gotta admire that singularity of 'Jackass' intent. (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure - it's a completely idiotic move, according to logic and ethics. But like watching a video of someone trying to badly imitate an episode of Jackass, there's just something odd about watching the single-minded drive towards something one knows is a stupid idea that oddly reinforces something about the human spirit.
Why? He knows he's marching towards a given horrible set of outcomes (damaging his own interests) - he knows he's mostly doing it to the entertainment of others - he even knows he's hurting
Anything to keep the FUD rolling (Score:2)
As has been very evident, SCO has been stretching this case out as long as it possibly can. It is not interested particularly in winning, just in not losing finally. Frighten away corporations who potentially would use Linux but with the lawsuit have to declare the risk on their SEC 10C filing.
The only player I can see with the motivation to continue the FUD is Microsoft, but they are probably hanging back since they are still and adjudged monopolist, and could be very severely penalized for interfering w
Silly question? (Score:2)
Why does the Open Group stand for this since they are the trademark owner of Unix and one of SCO's major claims is that they "own" the Unix business? Am I missing something fundamental here?
dismiss with predjuce? (Score:2)
The judge should find a way to dismiss the new case with prejudice so new cases can't be filed.
But then what if they win? (Score:2)
If they win, but there's no company left, what do they do then?
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Beyond Horrible. (Score:3, Interesting)
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Unfortunately, this is not just one case. Though it is near the extreme end in senseless greed. And most similar cases aren't as well financed or pick such prominent targets.
This is but one of many similar cases. Most you never hear of. Then there's the SLAPP cases. A different category, but another category of cases that prove the same point.
Civil law is not about justice. I don't know if it ever was, but it clearly isn't now. It's not clear that criminal law is about justice either, but you can fin
Remaining Assets: (Score:2)
- Darl McBride's shirt ...?
- Millions in debt
-
Hmm... how is this any different from... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bernie Madoff allegedly stashing millions of dollars in checks in his desk (and who knows where he's stashed all sorts of $$$ in international accounts), getting ready to send it somewhere where the System can't touch it when all is said and done?
I would really argue that SCO Group should not be allowed to do this, as it is in essence allowing them to transfer assets out of the company so that they cannot be used to pay the company's legal obligations when all is said and done.
If you or I do it, say, to shelter/shed/disburse assets prior to a divorce settlement, bankruptcy or other judgment action (i.e., we attempt to shed assets after filing for bankruptcy), we get pilloried.
The post misses the point (Score:2)
Darl doesn't have any illusions that SCO will win.
Darl and the SCOites are trying to prevent the few pieces of SCO's value (it's product lines) from falling into IBM and Novell's hands.
The idea is to leave SCO an empty shell so that its creditors end up with nothing.
Giving up pretense (Score:4, Interesting)
SO, SCO wishes to give up any pretense of doing anything productive at all now or ever again so they can divy up the only remaining value amongst the lawyers and executives and have nothing left to pay their creditors. It sounds like they've also given up all but the slimmest pretense of even attempting to provide ROI for their stockholders.
It's the other way around: (Score:3, Interesting)
SCO is not selling its main core business and people. The main core and people (that's: SCO) are separating themselves from the sinking ship of McBride and his obsessive lawsuit disorder.
That's the problem with leaders with a strong reality: When they're wrong, it takes a looong time for people to realize this and move away. And it takes an even longer time, for them to realize it themselves. This is, because such a strong self-induced confidence has the risk of becoming delusional.
A delusion can only exist for that long, if the person has built a very rigid and interconnected system of values, where everything depends on everything else. So he can't pull that one thing, without destroying everything else in the process, causing his whole reality to break down. A state that equivalent to death for the human mind.
Even followers can suffer from this effect.
McBride now has a strong neurosis, forcing him to go 'till the very end... unless someone offers him a way out, that lets him keep his reality. Or to be more exact: His self-acceptance of being good and right in what he does and did. It's either that, or a deathlike experience.
If anyone who knows him personally reads this: Give him that way out. Offer him a way, that lets him go up in self-respect when follows it. And you will see this whole obsession, all the lawsuits, and his whole way of acting go away in a blink of an eye. He will suddenly be Ok with saying that all what he did was not the best thing to do. But he will have a reason that this is Ok for him anyway.
By any means: Do not put more pressure upon him. He will only fight harder. Remember: His other choice is death(like). So he will oppose you up to that level. Ok... except if you're really evil and actually want that to happen. ;) But then, how would you still be better than him??
Shouldn't there be a shareholder lawsuit? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Honestly, having spent a lot on the SCO yahoo finance board (and having made a good bit of change shorting SCO stock) I can say that the willful ignorance on the part of a lot of SCO investors about the strength of the case was mind boggling. Most of those investors deserved the losses they suffered.
Re: (Score:2)
IANAL, but...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Why does a Utah Senator have any sort of say in what happens in New Jersey?
Re: (Score:2)
It's all the fancy underwear they wear in UT.
Re:They don't want to be able to pay Novell/IBM (Score:5, Informative)
That's one of the reasons so many companies incorporate in Delaware.
Re: (Score:2)
>>Have SCO stocks reached zero value yet?
Zero value was reached years ago, some idiots are still purchasing (very few) shares at about $0.15 though, so the stock isn't reflecting the true value, even though their new plan proposes paying stockholders perhaps $0.02/share if things go well.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Funny)