Judge prevents SCO from selling off assets
A bankruptcy court judge has denied a request by the SCO Group to sell off part of its business, a move that could have helped it pursue court cases against Novell and IBM.
SCO, which has been in bankruptcy court since 2007, had proposed to sell off most of its Unix business assets to a company called Unxis, the latest in a series of proposals aimed at allowing the company to exit bankruptcy and continue its high-profile Unix litigation.
IBM and Novell, on the other hand, had requested that SCO's assets be liquidated, effectively putting an end to the cases against them.
On Wednesday, U.S. bankruptcy court judge Kevin Gross denied both motions. Instead, he appointed a trustee to take control of SCO and evaluate how the company should proceed in its efforts to exit bankruptcy protection. Part of the trustee's remit will be to evaluate SCO's chances of winning its Unix case, Gross said.
"The 'potential' of the litigation must...be weighed against the reality of the cost," Gross wrote. "A trustee will be in a better position to make that assessment without the personal and emotional investment of SCO's management."
In 2003, SCO launched a lawsuit against IBM, saying the company infringed on SCO's intellectual property by including code from Unix in Linux. However, in 2007 a judge found that Novell, rather than SCO, owns the copyrights covering Unix. As a consequence of that decision, Novell is pursuing SCO in court for a share of the fees SCO received from licensing Unix to Sun and Microsoft.
Gross noted that since 2007, SCO has offered several plans for reorganization and then withdrawn them, and argued that the latest sale proposal "calls into question whether the sale has a sound business purpose and raises doubts of the parties' good faith."
It is now necessary for a third party to take charge, according to Gross. "No one can fairly argue that the court has not been patient with the debtors. The court is now unwilling to continue to wait while debtors' losses mount," he wrote.
SCO had proposed to sell its Unix business for $5.25 million (3 million British pounds), keeping only its mobile applications business, which the judge deemed "virtually worthless." He said SCO's officers had "bet the company" on the litigation, which would be SCO's "sole business" if the Unix assets were allowed to be sold.
In a statement, SCO said it was reviewing the decision and evaluating its options.
Matthew Broersma of ZDNet UK reported from London.
Note to judge: Cut off its damned head already - it's the only way to kill it.
He was notified by an auditor that they didn't own the copyright before they filed the laughable suit against IBM. It is a fact found in the Novell case. How is that not a criminal act?
It would be one thing if they had a legitimate case and simply lost, but filing false court documents used to be a crime and the SCO shareholders should have revolted and filed fraud charges against him.
Why didn't this happen?
That was when SCO tried to argue that giving away software under the GPL is "unamerican." At about the same time, Steve Ballmer of Microsoft called the GPL "communism." It is known (through court documents) that one of the investors that put money into SCO, Baystar, did so after MS asked them to.
Maybe the trustee will find some smoking guns when he goes through the SCO books...
bury this stinky fish already.
According to the founder's (Mr. Norris) testimony at the SCO bankruptcy court hearing (see groklaw.net for details), Unxis has a current capitalization of $10K...
Unxis is very fishy I wouldn't be surprised to see MS fingerprints in this. The plan is to find a "buyer" and use the funds to continue the thoroughly discredited FUD festival that is SCO Law Offices, which of course MS was at least indirectly responsible for securing funding initially. Smells almost like a money laundering scheme, to hide where the money is really coming from.
It is long past time to bury this company. The judge should either throw out the bankruptcy and let all those they owe money to eat them alive, or liquidate all their assets(whatever little that may be) and order SCO closed. They have nothing they can use to emerge from this bankruptcy intact and profitable.
The bankruptcy judge knows SCO has no real assets and are nothing but a pack of liars and thieves, it is past time to flip the switch.
The only good thing about this mess is that Linux came out of this unharmed and stronger, SCO couldn't produce one line of infringing code despite claims of "millions of infringing lines". It is funny that not long after Judge Kimball broke SCO's claims that Ballmer showed up with more unsubstantiated claims...
In the end, this has always been a case of the SCO ownership trying to be enough of a nuisance that IBM would either settle or buy them outright. That IBM fought it rather than buying or buying off SCO probably confused the hell out of the SCO ownership. But, by that point, they were committed to the courtroom. At this point, the shell game is likely just a continuation of the "please settle/buy us" plan. If IBM settles with or buys SCO, then it will have all been financially worthwhile to the SCO ownership.
Novell sold the distribution rights to SCO, so you cannot buy Unix from Novell directly. SCO (allegedly) thought they were buying copyrights too (i.e. rights to the product) but never did-their own chioce.
Oh, the coincidence: they would also have been the biggest winners if Linux had been found infringing!
Poor losers!
SCO filed for bankruptcy in 2007, and at that point, Mr. Bush was still in office.
The whole SCO saga has been gone on since 2003.
And if you want to get politics in here, you should check how lax the anti-trust rules were handled under Bush. MS got away easily after being declared a monopoly, because they had friends with the Bush administration.
Except that it has absolutely nothing to do with SCO.
Now take your political crap elsewhere, will you? Faux News would do nicely.
As noted it has nothing to do with SCO, and you need to learn the difference between investment and deficit spending.
A stupid position if that is the case.
One flavor of bankruptcy allows a business to stay in business while it reorganizes. Nothing immoral about that.
Of course, in the throes of your paranoia, you forget to consider that SCO filed for bankruptcy in 2007. How is Obama to blame? As corrupt as Bush was, he can't be blamed for SCO either.
I am not sure to recommend more or less meds and tin foil.
Yet they tried to sue IBM for billions.
So it costs billions when you supposedly infringe on something that is worth 5.25 million.
Another anomaly from SCO and if they continue to sue, then surely the true value of their Unix business should be considered.
Admittedly, I am aware that they could argue that their Unix business was devalued by IBM, but you actually need to 1) own Unix and 2) prove illegal harm from IBM.
SCO is toast because if either were true, then they would have proved it by now. They have had plenty of opportunities and patience given to them.
SCO = Sue Companies Organisation.
IBM and Novell, on the other hand, had requested that SCO's
assets be liquidated...
>>>
Before that the Office of the US Trustee had requested
conversion to chapter 7 (i.e. liquidation). Novell and IBM
followed suit.
>>>
In 2003, SCO launched a lawsuit against IBM, saying the
company infringed on SCO's intellectual property by
including code from Unix in Linux.
<<<
SCO's suit of March 2003 included a potpourri of charges,
prominent among them breach of contract by releasing
code for the benefit of Linux. Copyrights were and are
secondary. You will never grasp the case just babbling on
intellectual property instead of specifying what kind of
intellectual property.
>>>
Novell is pursuing SCO in court for a share of the fees SCO
received from licensing Unix to Sun and Microsoft.
<<<
That's long done, man. SCO is currently appealing the verdict.
And actually even the appeal is done, they are just waiting for
the decision.
- by i-arman August 7, 2009 6:58 AM PDT
- You know what would be awesome? If someone bought all the Unix divisions (for pennies on the K-note, obviously), and re-licensed it under the GPL or other such open-source licensing.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(25 Comments)Granted, it would have little impact, but it would be awesome nonetheless.