SCO Group sent Delisting Notice by NASDAQ

[tw]

Originally Posted by sycamore

IBM offered to pull the proprietary pieces out, but SCO wouldn't have it. What could have been solved fairly easily has become a costly battle and may spell the end of SCO.

If IBM only removed 'offending' code, then SCO was still done - bankrupt. SCO was doing the only thing they could to survive. You cannot fault them for it. They paid big bucks for Unix. They were responsible to so many stockholders. SCO was only doing what was necessary to survive.

Now if you can provide them with another answer, what would that be? Remember one of the most fundamental requirements of the executives - their responsibility to stockholders: survive. The only way one can legitimately attack SCO: if they had another option and did not take it. SCO had no choice. SCO had to survive. It is management’s obligation to stockholders.

One should have much sympathy for SCO. They got caught in a no-win situation. Shame. Because when they bought Unix, they were only trying to save a product stifled and almost destroyed by AT&T MBAs.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by tw

If IBM only removed 'offending' code, then SCO was still done - bankrupt. SCO was doing the only thing they could to survive. You cannot fault them for it. They paid big bucks for Unix. They were responsible to so many stockholders. SCO was only doing what was necessary to survive.

This isn't a person breaking speed limits to get to a hospital. If a company has to file frivolous and malicious lawsuits "to survive", then it shouldn't.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

This isn't a person breaking speed limits to get to a hospital. If a company has to file frivolous and malicious lawsuits "to survive", then it shouldn't.

So how do you tell that to the stockholders? If management did not do something, then stockholders would be filing those 'frivolous' lawsuits against management. In fact stockholders would be wrong to not file frivolous suite. Somebody was going to be sued.

SCO paid big bucks for Unix long before Linux existed. SCO could not make a profit on that investment by selling free Unix. For that matter, various Linux distributors are only doing average - even without a large debt that SCO incurred.

If SCO sold Linux, then SCO was dead. You would blame SCO for doing something -buying the rights to Unix - BEFORE Linux even existed?

SCO did not get into the business to destroy Linux. SCO purchased the license and rights to Unix BEFORE Linux existed. Suddenly Linux shows up and starts selling SCO's product under the Linux name. What is management suppose to do? If did not file suit to protect their licenses, then what were their options? It is hearsay in business to surrender - give up and declare bankruptcy without a fight. A #1 objective of any business - to survive. No manager could ever do that - surrender. If he did, frivolous lawsuits would be filed against him.

Agreed: what SCO did was not productive. But they did everything right - and got slammed by something nobody saw coming: Linux. I have sympathy for SCO. Not just for the company; for its stockholders. They got caught and destroyed by something that nobody saw coming. They did not try to buy in and destroy a Linux industry. They owned the UNIX business when suddenly something came along and did what SCO thought only they owned.

If you think they should not have sued, then what should they have done? Because there were no options, then frivolous lawsuits were inevitable. At least the one’s SCO filed set legal precedence for this whole new business concept. SCO was simply a victim of something that nobody saw coming.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by tw

So how do you tell that to the stockholders?

"You made a bad investment."

[tw]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

"You made a bad investment."

No court would accept that if management made no effort to protect the company's only asset. Every reasonable jury would have ruled 100% against SCO management if it had just given up.

Besides, the resulting lawsuits were necessary to establish the legality of a whole new business model. Sooner or later, someone was going to have to sue - as SCO did - to establish the legal credibility of that freeware Linux business model.

So who gets sued? Management and BoDs (individuals) - or business sues business. The later lawsuites were far more productive for America because it confirmed the integrity of the Linux business model.

Again, one can only have sympathy for SCO stockholders who did nothing wrong - were even using a well established and proven business model. What other industry was completely overturned by something so simple as Linux? None that I can think of.

Nobody can fault a company for doing what all companies and managements are required to do - survive. That requirement is a benchmark of all businesses. Even employees lives must be destroyed if necessary (ie firings) because even employees are secondary to that #1 principle - survive. SCO simply had little if any other options.

[richlevy]

TW, did you miss the part where Caldera, before they bought Unix from SCO, was a Linux distributor?

Eric S. Raymond and Rob Landley release the Open Source Initiative Position Paper on the SCO-vs.-IBM Complaint written as an amicus curae (friend of the court) brief in favor of IBM. The paper outlines some fundamental errors in fact and interpretation regarding SCO's ownership of Unix code, copyrights and other claims.

Also, it appears that SCO is reluctant to sow the code they allege is being infringed upon. How crazy is that for a lawsuit?

From here

SCO refuses to allow access to the samples of code containing the alleged copyright violations except under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). SCO's NDA would not only require that the signer keep confidential which lines of code SCO contested, but would also require that they hold confidential any information SCO told them, even if they already knew that information before being informed of it by SCO; all Linux kernel developers have considered this to be far too restrictive, so none of them have signed it. However, at SCO's annual reseller's convention in August of 2003 they revealed two short sections of code they alleged were copyright violations, and images of Darl McBride's presentation of this code were soon after published on German computer magazine publisher Heinz Heise's website. [4]
On May 30, 2003, SCO Group's CEO Darl McBride was quoted as saying that the Linux kernel contained "hundreds of lines" of code from SCO's version of UNIX, and that SCO would reveal the code to other companies under NDA in July. [5] To put this into context, David Wheeler's SLOCCount estimates the size of the Linux 2.4.2 kernel as 2,440,919 source lines of code out of over 30 million physical source lines of code for a typical GNU/Linux distribution. Therefore, as per SCO's own estimate, the allegedly infringing code would make up about 0.001% of the total code of a typical GNU/Linux installation. [6] SCO has since upwardly revised this figure to over a million lines of code, however. [7]

So when they are challenged on what they say, they change the story.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by richlevy

So when they are challenged on what they say, they change the story.

Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust like tw.

[tw]

Originally Posted by richlevy

TW, did you miss the part where Caldera, before they bought Unix from SCO, was a Linux distributor?

Yes, but how is that relevant? I don't know how much Caldera spent, but SCO certainly never received anywhere near what was spent to buy Unix from AT&T. (BTW, that hyperlink only goes to a search page). Did Caldera suddenly become profitable because they owned Unix? Of course not. It was bought in a fire sale - probably so that Unix licensees could still obtain support.

Also, it appears that SCO is reluctant to sow the code they allege is being infringed upon. How crazy is that for a lawsuit?

I never followed it that far. Early on, SCO was desperately making personal appeals to major Japanese UNIX users using code copies to prove 'piracy'. Whether their case had merit was being lost upon me in the apathetic response. At that point, SCO's future (to me) looked dim.

Again, it matters little whether SCO's case was winnable. I am most certainly not making that claim - as implied by the above citations. SCO was in an unenviable position where SCO management had no options. Notice: no where do I defend the merits of SCO's case. Never once did I even try. If their case had zero merit, then it would have been thrown out of court. If SCO's case had enough merit to file, then SCO management had no choice but to file. Any case with only enough to maybe save the company - then they were obligated to file suit - even if SCO management regarded that lawsuit as frivolous.

No one can fault management for doing what was required to meet a primary obligation - survive. I am not disputing that SCO could have won the case. That is completely irrelevant to everything I have posted. Notice what I keep saying: I have sympathy for SCO and their stockholders who were blindsided by a freight train that nobody could have seen coming. Management did what was necessary - and required - for interests of those that management works for - stockholders. If management had not done so, then management must be sued by the stockholders. And stockholders would have won.

Did Caldera suddenly become wealthy from owning Unix? No. Again, without a legal victory, SCO's Unix ownership had near zero value. The stockholder's money spent to buy Unix only had value if SCO could win a lawsuit. SCO couldn't. No one can blame them for trying to save the company. They were only doing what all management in that position is required to do. As bad as you might think their actions, one must also have sympathy for them. They had to file suit to survive - SCO management had no other option other than to lie down and be personally bankrupted by SCO stockholders.

As a guy named Tony once said, "Its only business".