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Correcting the Media Reports on the Alleged Approval of the Sale to York
Monday, October 29 2007 @ 12:02 PM EDT

I'm getting a lot of email on stories in the media claiming that SCO got approval last week from Bankruptcy Court to sell its Unix assets to York. That is not correct information, even if you did read it in Sys-Con. (It's at http://www.sys-con.com/read/451156.htm, but I decided not to make a link because unless you love Javascript, popups and unasked for music, you might not enjoy your visit, and I didn't want you to click before you read a warning.)

Here's the accurate information: SCO has asked the court to let it do so, and in connection with its motion, it filed a proposed order [PDF], but it hasn't yet received permission to do it.

Here's the docket entry, and notice what the proposed order is called:

149 - Filed & Entered: 10/23/2007
Motion to Approve (B)
Docket Text: Motion to Approve Emergency Motion of the Debtors for An Order (A) Approving Asset Purchase Agreement, (B) Establishing Sale and Bidding Procedures, and (C) Approving the Form and Manner of Notice of Sale Filed by The SCO Group, Inc.. (Attachments: # (1) Exhibit A # (2) Exhibit B # (3) Proposed Form of Order) (O'Neill, James)

If you open that PDF, look on the last page. The judge has not signed it. The date is blank, but indicates he won't sign it until some day in November. It's just a proposed order. You typically do offer a proposed order with all motions.

Before the judge signs any order, first, there had to be notice to all interested parties [PDF] which has happened, and then they get to object if they wish to, which hasn't happened yet because the deadline to file them is November 1, and then there will be a hearing, now scheduled for November 6. Then, only after all of that, the judge will render his decision. And then there would be an auction, and York would only become the owner if it offered the successful bid.

SCO had also filed a motion to speed up the hearing date to the 6th, and the judge did OK that request. Here's the Order [PDF].

Groklaw has a Bankruptcy Timeline page, where you can easily follow the bouncing ball on all this. Did you really think that SCO would have gotten permission to sell all its Unix assets without Groklaw mentioning it? Court stuff is complicated, I know. But that's what Groklaw is for. Trust me that if it happens, you'll hear it here.


  


Correcting the Media Reports on the Alleged Approval of the Sale to York | 182 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Off-Topic Here (n/t)
Authored by: Steve Martin on Monday, October 29 2007 @ 12:05 PM EDT
.

---
"When I say something, I put my name next to it." -- Isaac Jaffee, "Sports
Night"

[ Reply to This | # ]

Corrections Here (If any)
Authored by: mdarmistead on Monday, October 29 2007 @ 12:06 PM EDT
Include correction in topic if possible...

[ Reply to This | # ]

News Picks Discussion Goes Here (n/t)
Authored by: mdarmistead on Monday, October 29 2007 @ 12:11 PM EDT

[ Reply to This | # ]

Who started this mis-information and why?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2007 @ 12:15 PM EDT
It seems as if MOG did it. Is she trying to "protect" SCO because she
is a creditor of that company and wants to get her money? Isn't such intentional
mis-information illegal? Just wondering.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Correcting the Media Reports on the Alleged Approval of the Sale to York
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2007 @ 12:16 PM EDT
Sounds like the friends of SCO stockholders trying to push up the price for them
*wink* *wink*

But in the end it's still a pig, no matter how much lipstick they put on it.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Correcting the Media Reports - TheInquirer.net
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2007 @ 12:49 PM EDT
TheInquirer.net got it wrong too... But they have (to their credit) corrected their article.

"This commentary initially indicated that SCO had received court approval to sell its Unix business. As a number of readers have pointed out, SCO only got approval from the court for an expedited hearing on the matter. The author regrets the previous inaccuracy and has been docked half a crust and a cup of gruel for his error. -- Ed."

[ Reply to This | # ]

What about a $ 526,000,000 bid?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2007 @ 01:00 PM EDT
There have been several comments on the structure of York's $36,000,000 bid, but
just to show how ridicolous it is consider this hypothetical bid:

____
a) $ 10,000,000 in cash
b) another $ 10,000,000 in cash which can be used by seller for litigation or
other purposes at seller's discretion
c) up to $ 500,000,000 in the form a 100% interest, when and as indefeasibly
collected by purchaser as a result of any favourable result in any Linux
litigation *)
d) up to $ 6,000,000 in the form of a revenue share agreement

*) purchaser will not be obliged to initiate any Linux litigation if they don't
have a case
___


Now, a) and d) would be the same as in the York bid.
c) is more favourable since it's in cash and seller is not bound to use it for
specific purposes
d) is much more favourable, since it has a higher cap and gives seller 100% of
the profits instead of 20%.

The footnote *) doesnt matter, since it is just common sense that you don't sue
anyone if you don't have a case (one would think).

So the hypothetical bid is much better than York's. Do you think SCO would
accept it if it was offered by, say, IBM?
No? But how would they justify it to the US Trustee and BK judge that they
prefer the York bid? Oh, they think that 20% of what York will get out of Linux
litigation will be more than 100% of what IBM would get? Why should they think
that?
Ah, and now there was an even better bid by M$ over 1,026,000,000 which included
the litigation credit facility again? Ha!

Let's just hope that the BK judge will not allow such a charade.

/Andreas

[ Reply to This | # ]

Is it theirs to sell?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2007 @ 01:51 PM EDT
I'm not sure if they are actually able to sell the Unix royalties business in
the first place AND if anyone was to buy it, then Judge Kimball has already
ruled that SCO didn't get the real copyrights in the actual code itself...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Silly Auction Daydream
Authored by: seeks2know on Monday, October 29 2007 @ 03:06 PM EDT
When I read PJ's comment about the requirement for an auction for SCO to sell
its Unix assets, my mind began to explore a what-if.

What if Novell purchased SCO's Unix Assets at auction?

Then they could close out all of the SCO IP litigation. I'm sure that all of
the other defendants in the various lawsuits would agree to settle or dismiss.

Providing that Novell obtain court approval to secure the funds that SCO
received as Novell's agent for SVRx licenses, then all of the money the Novell
invests will come back.

End of SCO. End of litigation. End of any questions relating to Unix IP
ownership.

Anyway, it's a nice fantasy. Now back to the real world.

---
There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it
steadily."
-- George Washington

[ Reply to This | # ]

Correcting the Media Reports on the Alleged Approval of the Sale to York
Authored by: eric76 on Monday, October 29 2007 @ 04:13 PM EDT

From SCO wants bankruptcy court approval to sell its Unix business:

The $10 million line of credit for litigation is a loan. One small detail about that loan in the buyout agreement is that, after SCO exits Chapter 11, York will then have "a first-priority security interest in all of [SCO's] assets without restriction." So much for SCO paying off any judgements against it arising from its lawsuits soon after getting out of bankruptcy.

Could it be that York expects to have the income stream from Unix without having to remit 95% to Novell? Or does Novell's "equitable interest" preclude that?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Novell's seat on the creditor committee
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2007 @ 08:03 PM EDT
We all know that Novell is entitled to a huge amount of money. However, since
the ruling was stopped by chapter 11 protection, the amount is not determined.
Therefore, is Novell cnsidered a creditor at all? Would the biggest creditor be
SCO's lawyers?



[ Reply to This | # ]

Auction? Auction? I smell another Yarro scam
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 30 2007 @ 08:44 AM EDT
Remember what happened when Yarro pulled the plug on Lindeo screwing employees,
vendors, and investors (Hitachi alone alleged to have lost over $21 million and
Yarro got everything including assets later sold to Brian Sparks - the guy who
hired the "murky" guy who stalked PJ in the company making the same
kind of bogus "filesystem patent" claims as the new batch of clowns
over at Netapp).

There was a "courthouse steps" sale, where companies were invited to
bid on the rusty shell of Lineo. At the sale, Yarro vocally pronounced that
while the value was only $5 million or so, he would not accept any bid less than
$15 million (the amounts may be off a bit but not by much). As a result nobody
would bid and Yarro took it all AND a tax writeoff according to some who
stayed (and later went to Caldera, now SCOG). It may be worth looking back
through the records for statements from Al Smart or perhaps the CFO at the
time.

It looks like the bankruptcy game and tricks that Yarro is trying again are just
in time to qualify as a bad Halloween trick on the DE court.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sys-Con is a con......
Authored by: tiger99 on Tuesday, October 30 2007 @ 09:16 AM EDT
This made me laugh:
About Linux News Desk
SYS-CON's Linux News Desk gathers stories, analysis, and information from around the Linux world and synthesizes them into an easy to digest format for IT/IS managers and other business decision-makers.

I guess most of the other inaccurate sources of similar information for managers, e.g. Forbes, make similar claims. It seems that journalists with integrity and competence are in very short supply nowadays, and fiction authors are freely available. But don't analysts actually analyse? I see little sign of that.....

[ Reply to This | # ]

IP Address - source / destination
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 30 2007 @ 09:20 AM EDT
The log file exhibit6 is not fully honest.

It reveals the source IP:PORT

It hides the destination IP. In place of the IP address it displays [MediaSentry
IP Address]

Just exactly HOW does this happen?

One way is to open the log file with an editor and replace all instances of the
true IP address with [MediaSentry IP Address].

Another way is to program the software to log [MediaSentry IP Address] in place
of the true IP.

So how does this omission occur?

IMO one of the foundations of this case is IP addresses and what they mean in a
variety of fashions. Such as who was behind the computer, who owned the lease on
the IP address.

How is it the plaintiff gets to obscure his address completely, yet makes a huge
deal of the defendant's IP address?

A computer does NOT care what's the address of the source or destination, it
merely writes the log file. Obviously it's people who care about hiding and
revealing. On what grounds?

-----------------

Additionally, the Media Sentry log file is set for -0400 GMT.

Any subpoena would have to specify the -0400 time if using GMT. If using
ordinary clock in subpoenas, all adjustments for time zones would have to occure
accurately at both ends. The ISP's end as well as Media Sentry's end. Who
checks?

-------------------

If time is going to take a part in court cases and it's presented as specific -
it must be so. If time is just a guesstimate, then it must be presented as such.
IMO.

Mr X borrowed object A at 9:15 AM

or

Mr X borrowed object A, but we don't know the time.

--------------

If I assert Mr. X borrowed object A, but I don't know when, you may not have as
much confidence in my assertion.

But if I assert Mr. X borrowed object A at 9:15 you may have more confidence in
my assertion, by way of more specificity, but my entire assertion fails if Mr. X
has a good alibi for that time. IMO.




[ Reply to This | # ]
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