SCO Files Notice of Appeal in Novell Litigation (Groklaw)

The overwhelming evidence is that SCOG never wanted this case to see the cold light of a court room. Clearly they bet their entire business and the reputations of their officers on the prospect of getting IBM to settle out of court or buy them up as a nuisance.

That IBM chose to fight it was the first blow to their plan. A gaping hole at the waterline. Their "revocation" of IBM's UNIX licenses (allegedly forestalling them from shipping any more AIX) showed true commitment to their course. This brought Novell's frigates into the fray.

Novell's recision of this alleged "license revocation" took the wind out of SCOG's sails and left them proverbially dead in the tide and taking on water.

For SCOG to then fire a volley on Novell, engaging battles on both fronts, was clearly an act of desperation. (It's easy to forget that SCOG is the plaintiff here --- having filed a case under the dubious "Slander of Title" allegations).

From there the rest of the SCOG vs. Novell case was a foregone conclusion. The plain language of the contracts would have left no reasonable doubt in any rational, literate person's mind that SCOG was authorized only to act as an agent for collection of revenues from the UNIX products (and entitling them to a small portion of the returns therefrom). Their efforts to argue that the contract must have meant something else hinges only on the incredibly extravagant price that they paid for this dubious set of intangible "assets."

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present to you that my client's predecessors in these arrangements could not possibly have been so stupid as to enter into at agreement that was this absurdly over-priced. It's inconceivable that our local tax-paying, job providing, good mormons could have done anything so inept. Therefore I move that we read this contract in a novel way which is preferential to my client and more like what any sensible one of you would have expected for laying out the sort of funny money that's described in this 'asset purchase agreement.' You're only option is to protect our prominent local business folks from those atheist smooth talking New York city slickers by ruling in our favor and making that other poor, misguided, local company ... Novell, which has grown way too big for its britches and obviously been seduced by the evils of Armonk ... hand the actual rights and title to UNIX over to my clients. My poor misunderstood clients who weren't party to any of these shenanigans between their predecessors and Novell and who were hoodwinked into taking over this brave little underdog of a prominent, local, tax paying, job-providing businesss" (et cetera ad nauseum).

From the outset all SCOG has been doing has amounted to running the sump pumps at full steam in a hopeless effort to keep one gunwale above the surface. Filing an appeal now, and others in the bankruptcy and IBM proceeding is just furtherance of that. The barratry will continue until the only the coffers are dry.