SCO Puts Unix Assets On the Block 217
itwbennett writes "SCO Group announced Thursday that it plans to auction off most of its Unix assets, including 'certain UNIX system V software products and related services,' ITworld reports. 'This asset sale is an important step forward in ensuring business continuity for our customers around the world,' said Ken Nielsen, SCO chief financial officer, in a statement. 'Our goal is to ensure continued viability for SCO, its customers, employees and the Unix technology.' Interested parties must submit a bid for the assets by Oct. 5."
Can they do that? (Score:2, Insightful)
I thought Novel owned Unix and only licensed it to SCO, and that was already settled. How can they sell Unix if they don't own it?
Microsoft Should Buy Them (Score:5, Insightful)
They could use a decent operating system to sell
Re:don't forget to pay your $699 license fee (Score:2, Insightful)
As long as we're selling software we don't own (Score:5, Insightful)
They are trying to get bought (Score:1, Insightful)
This will make their debt the responsebillity of the buyer and not the management, which basically had extortion as a business model.
Here's for hoping nobody shows any interest whatsoever, so SCO must close its doors. It'll be even better if the SEC starts poking around, because then ties to Microsoft will be exposed and the fireworks can start.
Propagation (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe Paul Allen [techdirt.com] will buy them.
Re:First Bid! (Score:5, Insightful)
SCOXQ already has a buyer in mind (probably Yarro), or they wouldn't do this auction.
Re:don't forget to pay your $699 license fee (Score:2, Insightful)
yeah, or maybe a post comprised entirely of "you cocksmoking teabaggers" is just sort of trollish?
Re:Microsoft Should Buy Them (Score:1, Insightful)
In many ways, it's still a better UNIX than Mac OS X currently is.
Re:Let's bid on it (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not a SCO Unix guru by any stretch of the imagination, but having used it casually for years I don't see anything in it of value which does not already exist in Linux or the BSDs.
I think Darl McBride had the same thought. In choosing litigation over innovation, to quote the guardian of the Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: "He chose poorly."
Re:Microsoft Should Buy Them (Score:2, Insightful)
Cygwin on windows is a better unix than OSX is.
Re:Microsoft Should Buy Them (Score:4, Insightful)
I always read their willingness to pay differently than you.
1. MS is so freaking huge that it would be stupid to not pay chump change for the "rights" to a major chunk of worldwide computing technology.
2. By paying, they "legitimized" SCO's claims and thereby helped to put a big question mark on the viability of Linux.
3. They were also backdooring money to SCO in furtherance of #2.
You can spin it any way you want but it was never anything more than racketeering by SCO and MS.
Re:Let's bid on it (Score:1, Insightful)
Dude, that's worth at least $100.
What SCO's selling... (Score:3, Insightful)
... is probably a bunch of old crap that's on QIC-02 tapes.
I still have bad memories of having to use SCO back in the mid/late-90s. When I left that job, I left the SCO manuals -- that I bought on my own dime -- in the bottom drawer of my desk. I couldn't bear having any evidence of having used that atrocity of a UNIX; didn't want anyone to know I'd been exposed to it. They might ask me to work with it again.