Zombie SCO

SCO is still trying to sue their way to solvency. I suppose it was silly to think that this was done and over. SCO is still insisting that Novell sold them rights to Unix.

As much as I hate to say anything in support of SCO, it was a bit surprising that the court had ruled that they didn't. At the time this stuff all happened, it certainly looked like SCO had bought Unix. Certainly they acted like they bought it, and I don't recall anyone, Novell or otherwise, ever contesting that. But apparently U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball looked at the contracts and decided that they had only bought some marketing rights. It seemed that we had to add "inability to read contracts" to the long list of SCO's failings.

But here we are a year later and they are still insisting that they were wronged. All I can say is that I sincerely hope not. I hope that another judge confirms that they never bought Unix.

Meanwhile, over at , PJ thinks that she's found new evidence that SCO released Unix code to the world. As wonderful as that would be, she didn't find that at all. All she found is some old Ransom Love junk that announced his intention to release code - and even at that, his intention was clouded with all sorts of waffling about what kind of licenses might apply if and when it ever was released. Shortly after that, Ransom was gone and Daryl McBride took the reins. There was scant talk of releasing code after that.

With luck, this could be nearing the final end for SCO. I say that not just out of anger over their IBM/Linux lawsuit, but also because even without that, they richly deserved their Ignominious fate. This was a poorly managed company that went from strength to weakness by their own bad decisions. One of the most ironic examples was their failure to provide a low cost hobbyist version of Unix. They eventually did so, but that was long after Linux Torvalds, unable to afford the Unix OS he wanted, decided to write his own. We are fortunate that SCO was greedy or indifferent: our world is a better place thanks to Linux.

SCO was also indifferent and often antagonistic toward its reseller channel and, just like Microsoft, ignored the burgeoning Internet for far too long. SCO always wanted to hunt mastodons: they wanted the big Ford Motor Company sales and basically ignored the small retail POS and accounting/inventory business that actually was their bread and butter. Indifference and neglect cost them that business.

So here we are. One more stab at it, right? And then, with luck, we can close the books forever.

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Tue Mar 10 03:54:59 2009: Subject: Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing   Arthur


One of the 5 points SCO is appealing is Judge Kimball's affirmation of Novell right to waive any IP-based lawsuit by SCO.
SCO now claims (their legal argument changed over time) that such broad a waiver clause is incompatible with the supplemental Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing that Novel and Santa Cruz also signed.
As Novell's Waiver would have seriously inconvenienced SCO, they chose to ignore it.
They are now asking the Appeal Court to ratify this most excellent contract principle: if a clause of your contract costs you money, you can just ignore it, using your Fair Dealing covenant as justification.
Let's see if the Appeal Judges are eager to create a multi-trillion $$$ loophole in a great many corporate contracts.

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