If you don’t know the story: Many years ago, the company SCO Group (which means Santa Cruz Operations), accused and sued IBM and Novell of having taken source code of SCO’s UNIX, and used it for their own profit. This has sparked one of the greatest open source discussions and debates ever seen. The company has earned bitter and hostile reactions from the Open Source community, as it was believed the claims were without any merit. Meanwhile the SCO group wanted to cash in fees for a new regulation which said that anyone who uses a system that evidently uses SCO code has to pay a certain amount of money. This “SCO code” was according to them in practically all open source systems. Today we know, this is not true. This would have caused an interesting paradox, as SCO was formerly known as Caldera! Yes, that’s right. They would have had to pay to themselves.
Santa Cruz Operations finally checkmate with Chapter 11 Bankruptcy declaration
So: SCO claims something untrue, needs some money and hopes it works. Hmm. So. Eventually Novell enters the scene, as they currently really own real UNIX code from Bell Labs times, and as they have been accused of stealing code anyway. The whole thing goes up to the courts. The courts should decide whether Darl McBride, the CEO of SCO, is right with the claims. So IBM, Novell, and SCO are involved and should decide the fate of Open Source.
Darl McBride, CEO of SCO. Or as I call him: Comical Darly
After long years of struggling for money, of constantly saying that SCO’s code has been stolen the battle against SCO and the entire Open Source world comes to an end. The District Court For The District Of Utah finally decides in favour of Novell:
[T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights.
So there you have it. After I think five years of making the initial claims of stolen source code, Novell and thus the Open Source world is defended, Novell even has the right to waive. And what about the alleged stolen code, which has been used from SCO in other systems? Quite frankly, not a single line has been stolen. SCO does not even decide what is UNIX and what is not. This, in fact, is decided by the Open Group to which Novell belongs to.
One month after the court has spoken, the SCO Group declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy after the failed patent lawsuits.
Service provider SCO Group ended a major phase in the history of both UNIX and Linux today by declaring chapter 11 bankruptcy, forcing the company to reorganize before it can resume normal business. The sometimes scorned company said it had decided to take the action before it was absolutely necessary to make sure its existing UnixWare and mobile-oriented Me Inc. services would continue running while it returned to a profitable state, which had been damaged by the legal costs incurred as part of its lawsuits against several high profile firms for allegedly violating patents SCO held for UNIX source code.
THAT’S ALL FOLKS!! SCO is done and dust, I am pretty sure we won’t hear anything from them ever again.
And Mr. McBride, I think our all beloved Nelson says it best when he says:
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All the important information if you want to know more details about the biggest debate the Open Source world has ever seen.
SCO v. IBM
SCO v. Novell
RedHat v. SCO
SCO v. DaimlerChrysler
SCO-Linux controversies
Darl McBride, CEO of SCO
The SCO Group – information
The SCO Group
Groklaw: Court rules Novell owns UNIX and UnixWare copyrights
Groklaw: Decision order in SCO v. Novell – the entire court ruling
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And this is it. SCO will fade away. Was about time.
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