We love it when Batman defeats the Joker because we love to see the bad guys get their just desserts. But as enjoyable as
it is seeing fictional villains lose, it's far more satisfying when the bad guys get their comeuppance in real life. This
is what just happened in a small but hopefully decisive way to the infamous Santa Cruz Operation.
For the last five years SCO has been on a quest to undermine the legal foundations of Linux. Over that period I've written about SCO's progress several
times – the last was at the end of October 2007, in a column titled (rather cleverly if I say so myself) “Look out! It's FrankenSCO!”
Quick joke: Little Jimmy told his father he wanted a cowboy outfit for Christmas so his father bought him SCO.
Anyway, just a month earlier SCO had filed for bankruptcy protection and was running on fumes. Then along came an outfit named
York Capital Management (a nom de guerre for JGD Management) that was going to throw SCO a financial life ring to the tune of $36 million.
Alas for SCO that deal was objected to by Novell and IBM (both of which, you will recall, SCO was in litigation with) as well as the Department of Justice's bankruptcy administration
agency. Thus it was that SCO had to back out of the deal, and two days after Christmas '07 the company was de-listed from
the Nasdaq.
When I wrote the FrankenSCO column I marveled at the sheer audacity of York Capital to want to invest in a business that was
based on one of the most brazen scams ever seen in the high-tech world. Little did I know that York was not the only potential
investor.
Nope, in the middle of February 2008, SCO announced a proposed deal with Stephen Norris Capital Partners (SNCP) that would give SCO up to $100 million, allowing the company to restructure, exit Chapter 11 and go private. In the process
SCO would repay all of its creditors including Novell and IBM, but annoyingly a joint SNCP and SCO press release talked of
"see[ing] SCO's legal claims through to their full conclusion." Curiously SNCP pulled out of that deal in April but then turned
around and proposed simply buying SCO's assets!
On June 19 SCO got yet another extension (until Aug. 11) to file a bankruptcy reorganization plan with the courts (boo), and
on July 16 a court found in Novell's favor and determined that SCO had to cough up $2,547,817 “for unjust enrichment and breach
of fiduciary duty.” Hooray! Score one for the good guys.
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Comments (8)
Minor errataBy lordshipmayhem on July 17, 2008, 5:31 pmIt wasn't the Royal Bank of Canada itself that was ponying up money for this scam - they were doing so "on behalf of an unnamed client". Not that...
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Follow the moneyBy shultquist on July 18, 2008, 1:46 amThere has to be some financial windfall behind it, and it's important to ask the question. What are they after? There are NO valid claims in there, and everyone...
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Unnamed clientBy MarkR on July 18, 2008, 10:06 amIsn't the unnamed client Microsoft or somebody associated with Microsoft? Microsoft is the only one that could gain anything from this lawsuit. They are and have...
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Not quite rightBy Anonymous on July 18, 2008, 1:05 pmThe company suing world+dog over Linux is The SCO Group, not the Santa Cruz Operation, which became Tarantella, which was then was bought by Sun.
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Easy, investment companies are playing with money from other peoBy Anonymous on July 18, 2008, 3:22 pmEasy, investment companies are playing with money from other people, so what do they care? Due to their horse blinders, they only see the potential gain, even though...
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Inadequate Court CloutBy Anonymous on July 18, 2008, 7:14 pmFor certain concerns, investment - back door and otherwise - in SCO's legal wrangles is a cheap way to keep the Linux and general open source communities squirming....
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