IIRC there wer no patents involved. Copyrights, yes, and other, stranger theories of "intellectual property" infringement, but no patents.

In the fact that (outside of the merits of their copyright trolling) SCO's downfall was finally effected by their inability to pay the lawyers that they let loose on the Open Source community and other free Unix supporters. This after MicroSoft carefully and quietly retracted its (financial) support, nauseated by the odour of 'dead horse'.

Like the plot from a bad mafia film.

Cormac.

I am saddened by the entire sorry tale of SCOs last five years. They could have found a better business model, they could have contributed, and worked it into their business, but instead decided to follow the daft idea of taking on big blue over what were always exceptionally tenuous claims, to put it mildly.

Lets hope this consortium can buy the UNIX business and make it work, if for no other reason than the poor SOBs who work for that business having a chance of keeping their jobs.

I checked the York minibio page they have pictures of the execs no outward signs of tertiary syphilis or psychosis but you can do a lot with photoshop what possible use could anyone have for this old down at the heels hopelessly bit rotted code pile.Oh well several born every minute.Maybe Ballmer could buy it this sounds like his sort of deal.

When you refer to SCO as a "once great company", you seem to forget that the Santa Cruz Operation (old SCO) of old actually sold of its Unix server biz to Caldera and renamed itself to Tarentella Inc and eventually became part of Sun.

Caldera (an ex-Linux shop!) rebranded itself as the SCO Group (new SCO). New SCO never was a great company and, by the looks of things, never will be!

Paris Hilton angle? She once appeared on the cover of Elle magazine wearing a Santa Cruz Surfing Club t-shirt. I'll get me coat.....

poetic justice that SCO filed for bankrupcy protection.

i hope they burn personally.

along with their army of laywers.

And so, what once was a great company becomes just a puddle on the floor.

The worst is that it's all completely self-inflicted. Greedy bastards!

I offered a pound, which is several shillings more than Sco's really worth; I thought it was a fair offer, but someone's sniped me (sniff.. it's worse than eBuy)

What kind of law let's one sell assets, before the rightful owner has been paid off ? They already owe a lot more than they have. I just can't see Novell just stand there and watch York ( Microsoft ) gain control over Unix. I say, this is going to be FUN !

Okay guys, I know your heart is in the right place, but please try to get your facts straight. First they sued IBM for trade secret breach, copyright infringement and then contracts. Eventually, they gave up on the trade secrets and patents when it was discovered that most of the unix code is "out there".

Then they gave up on the patents when it was disclosed that there were no patents transfered in the Asset Purchase Agreement of 1995.

There was also a tiny whimper about Project Monterey, but the contract for that project severely limits the options for litigation.

See www.groklaw.net for details.

Scott

Wasn't MicroSoft also squeaking about patent infringements in free unix distro's?

Is not that why they handcuffed Novell to the bed, and dragged in a few other small fry, in their "non-legitigation promise"?

So, Steve and Bill, bring it on.

Just remember, we got The GIMP*

*Gnu Image Manipulation Program (look it up, sloth!)

Their web site is just one big image:

http://www.yorkcapital.com/

I can imagine future versions of the OS will just be a big image map for functionality :)

Sweet.

I feel no sympathy for SCO. Once a great company, the past few years have seen them spent their time and all their money, investing in frivolous patent lawsuits.

When did they last release a new product?

Ok, they may or may not hold the patents for Unix, but why run a good company, with a large capital, into the ground in cases that, if you ask many experts, they were doomed to lose.

The moment a company stops innovating, and spends its time trying to rob other organizations hard earned cash (patent violations or not), then it is doomed to fail.

SCO tried to be the school bully. It ended up with no friends, no respect and nothing to show for it.