

SCO is finally “Dead Parrot” dead - tanglesome
http://www.zdnet.com/sco-is-finally-dead-parrot-dead-7000002357/

======
cstross
Sigh. Circa 1991-95, when SCO was a _real_ UNIX company -- revenues of
$200M/year, the most popular vendor of UNIX for i386, not suing anyone -- I
worked in techpubs with the group doing core OS development. There go some
interesting memories.

(The SCO we all know and hate is actually the rump of Caldera, a Linux vendor
established around 1995 with capital from Ray Noorda, based in Utah. Caldera
got into the habit of litigation by buying the rump of Digital Research --
inventors of CP/M -- and inheriting their lawsuit against Microsoft for
locking Windows 95 down so it wouldn't run on DR-DOS. They cleaned up to the
tune of around $500M, but still burned through their capital without
overcoming SuSE or Red Hat, at which point they bought most of SCO (the rest
became a middleware vendor) and tried to do it again. Only this time they
picked on IBM and Novell, and the rest is history ...)

(Did I say "hate"? That's four years of my resume that's a toxic exclusion
zone, thanks to those shysters ...)

~~~
16s
Your employment with them does not reflect on you professionally or
personally. You should list the work you did while employed for them and be
proud of it. There's no shame in doing that.

~~~
ghshephard
I would be leery hiring anybody associated with SCO. I'm not saying that it
would be a "No-Hire" - but it is a big red flag would involve a lot of
questions. It's far enough back now, that I would not mention them on your
resume (Typically resumes don't include every company you've ever worked for)
unless you were applying for a position that requires "100% disclosure" of all
companies you've been associated with. cstross, though, is one of the few
people who has told the SCO story in a way that it probably might not hurt him
too much... In general - just agreeing that what they did was bad, might be
enough in most "Side of Light" companies.

On the flip side - if you are applying for a job at a Patent troll (Side of
darkness) - then maybe a person's time at SCO might be a bonus?

SCO really is a very, very toxic company - and there are a number of senior
managers of that company that I wouldn't eat dinner with, and certainly would
never shake their hands. The way I explain it to my friends - As Enron was to
manipulating markets and shady financials, SCO was to open source software.
Good riddance, one of the very few companies I'm happy to see die.

~~~
ScottBurson
I think we all agree with you about the recent incarnation of SCO, but the
point is that the original SCO was a perfectly legitimate business.

~~~
ghshephard
Ah - that point got by me, Sorry. Now, the challenge is, on your resume (in
this, and any other situation) is to differentiate between when the company
was wonderful, and did good things, and when it was under new management, and,
to capture how long you stuck around under the new management.

For example - I wonder if there was a time that Enron was a great company as
well?

------
dredmorbius
Where are they now?

Darl McBride (CEO of SCO): "Me, Inc" <http://www.linkedin.com/pub/darl-
mcbride/0/889/95b>

Chris Sonntag (Sr. VP @ SCO): AWOL (There's a Sonntag at Franklin Templeton,
and a few others elsewhere).

Blake Stowell (PR at SCO): Analyst Relations at Adobe Systems
<http://www.linkedin.com/in/blakestowell>

(Way to keep it classy, Adobe).

Maureen O'Gara (very SCO-friendly "analyst") Sys-Con Media:
<http://maureenogara.sys-con.com/>

David Politis (columnist, Utah Tech Watch, and marketing/communications
consultant): CMO ISYS Technologies and Xi3 Corporation (subsidiary of ISYS),
as well as CEO of his own consultancy Politis Communications.
<http://www.linkedin.com/pub/david-politis/0/36/a59>

Ralph Yarro (Chairman @ SCO): CEO/Chairman, ThinkAtomic
<http://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphyarro>

Jeff Hunsacker (President & COO, Sr. VP/GM, Sr VP WW Sales, VP
Sales/Marketing, @ SCO): President, US Operations, UK2 Group
<http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jeff-hunsaker/1/70/7a8>

Joe Barr, LinuxWorld columnist (heavily critical/skeptical of SCO) passed away
in 2008: <http://archive09.linux.com/feature/141548>

~~~
krakensden
Is Dan Lyons still at Forbes?

~~~
dredmorbius
According to his Wikipedia page, he's at NewsWeek now.

I don't particularly hold a grudge against Lyons as he recanted his pro-SCO
stance pretty much totally: [http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/19/software-linux-
lawsuits-tec...](http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/19/software-linux-lawsuits-
tech-oped-cx_dl_0919lyons.html)

O'Gara, Politis, and DiDio are different animals (Laura's now principle of her
own consultancy as well: <http://itic-corp.com/>).

And I keep having to check myself from not transposing the 'l' and 'u' in
"consult" ....

------
mrspeaker
Phew, things move awful slow in the world! I remember when this broke (in
like, 2005?). It was HUGE news on Slashdot - many of the comments were along
the lines of "This fud will be killed, and SCO will be dead in months.". And
here we are, 7 YEARS later!

~~~
astrodust
It always amounts to: "SCO will be dead in N months where N is a number
greater than zero."

~~~
jack-r-abbit
Well, typically you stop using "months" once you've gone beyond a year or so.
I tell people my kid is 5 years old... not 64 months. To say something will be
gone "in months" would imply you think it will be less than a year... not 7
years.

------
lifeguard
1\. Remember that this is TSG, not SCO.

2\. Not dead yet. Khan might even continue as trustee.

pj at Groklaw.net breaks it down:

"I will try my best to translate the legalese for you: the money is almost all
gone, so it's not fun any more. SCO can't afford Chapter 11. We want to shut
the costs down, because we'll never get paid. But it'd look stupid to admit
the whole thing was ridiculous and SCO never had a chance to reorganize
through its fantasy litigation hustle. Besides, Ralph Yarro and the other
shareholders might sue. So they want the litigation to continue to swing in
the breeze, just in case. But SCO has no money coming in and no other
prospects, so they want to proceed in a cheaper way and shut this down in
respects to everything else.

I guess that will mean there is little chance of IBM or anyone else seeing a
dime ever for all the torts and wrongs SCO perpetrated on IBM and Linux and
its debtors. The lawyers and professionals, including the firm representing
the Chapter 11 trustee, got it all. Now that there is no more, off we go to
Chapter 7. "

<http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120807133033596>

------
chaostheory
SCO was a one trick pony. IV has taken its place.

~~~
SwellJoe
IV is actually much more toxic. SCO was a failure at being an IP troll. IV
actually successfully shakes people down every day for protection money. SCO
also actually had products at one point in time (not even bad ones, honestly,
if you go back far enough).

~~~
chaostheory
too young to remember that sco even made products hehe

I agree with you about IV, which is the reason why I mention it. The time for
celebration after a victory is typically short lived.

~~~
SwellJoe
I did a couple years of contract work on SCO systems, doing migration to Linux
systems. SCO UNIX wasn't awful. It wasn't _good_ , at least not when compared
to Linux (which was _really_ solid and powerful by that time, I think we were
moving to RHEL 2), but it wasn't bad, either. Extremely reliable, anyway.
There was probably a way for them to build on their strengths and embrace the
new Open Source reality, but they obviously missed it.

cstross has written some interesting stuff about his time at SCO, linked
elsewhere in this discussion. I found it a good read.

------
jack-r-abbit
\- _... there's really is much for a trustee to do ..._

\- _... in the early and mid-200s ..._

What the hell happened to ZDNet? That article has a few typos. Do they not
have anyone proof read things?

------
SwellJoe
I like to think I contributed in some small way to their demise. My publisher
sued SCO on my behalf while the IBM stuff was going on, and settled for a
reasonable sum.

------
orenmazor
"dont let the door hit you on the way out" - old slashdot unix nerd me.

~~~
linker3000
I'll believe SCO are dead when Netcraft confirms it.

------
EvaPeron
To all the "haters" on this thread, I will simply say this:

Senator, I worked with Darl McBride. I knew Darl McBride. Darl McBride was a
friend of mine. Senator, you're no Darl McBride.

:-)

------
Intermediate
Current state of SCO = future for Microsoft

~~~
smashing
Nope. Apple.

------
smashing
First, SCO. Next, Apple.

