"SCO, the dying Utah UNIX vendor, could finally be headed for
Chapter 7 bankruptcy and liquidation. The US Trustee representing
the Justice Department in SCO's bankruptcy proceedings has filed a
motion to dissolve the company, asserting that its repeated
attempts at reorganization have failed and that it has practically
no hope of recovering. CEO Darl McBride says that SCO intends to
fight the motion.
"SCO achieved infamy by attempting to sue users of the open
source Linux operating system, alleging that Linux misappropriated
intellectual property from UNIX. In 2007, a judge ruled that Novell
is the rightful owner of the original SVRX UNIX copyrights and not
SCO. Without standing to bring a lawsuit over SVRX copyright
infringement, SCO could not proceed with its litigation against
Linux users. During the case, evidence emerged which unambiguously
indicated that SCO's own internal audits of Linux source code
showed no evidence of infringement. Further, the court found that
SCO's sale of broad SVRX licenses was a violation of its contract
with Novell and ordered SCO to pay millions of dollars to the Linux
company."