SCOfacts: some information about The SCO Group.

top attractions: Scorecard [ http://scofacts.org/scorecard.html ], Daimler case file [ http://scofacts.org/daimler.html ]

Compiled by Al Petrofsky. Please send corrections to <al@scofacts.org>.

Disclosure: I have a short position in SCO's common stock (12,000 shares as of 2004-07-15). Thus, I have a direct financial interest in decreasing the public perception of SCO's value, and the prudent reader will scrutinize any information I provide that is unflattering to SCO. To facilitate this, I attempt to provide, wherever possible, convenient links to more persuasive documents, e.g., links to images of signed court filings, or to SEC filings directly from sec.gov.

Disclaimers:
The "sco" in "scofacts.org" is only used to identify the subject matter here. Scofacts is not endorsed by the "SCO Group" Delaware corporation, nor by any of the registered owners of "SCO" trademarks.
I am not a member of any bar, and I am certainly not your attorney at law. Nothing I write should be relied upon as legal counsel.
I was licensed by the NASD (CRD# 4169912) and by several states to advise investors, but I do not currently work in that industry, I know nothing of your finances, and I do not purport to give investment advice.
I received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from U.C. Berkeley in 1995, but I am not a licensed electrician, and I know nothing of your home's wiring.
As a Notary Public (commission #1285745), I am a sworn officer of the State of California, and this is so irrelevant that you should hold it against me that I seem to be holding this out as some kind of qualification.

Introduction

On May 14, 2003, Linux vendor Caldera International (which, two days later, changed its name to "The SCO Group" [ http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1102542/000104746903023479/a2114250zex-3_3.htm ]) announced [ http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1102542/000110465903010068/j1213_8k.htm ] that it would cease distributing Linux, that it now considered Linux "an unauthorized derivative of UNIX", and that "legal liability for the use of Linux may extend to commercial users". Thus began its so-far unsuccessful campaign to collect license fees from the world's Linux users. Two months earlier, Caldera had sued IBM [ http://sco.tuxrocks.com/Docs/IBM/IBM-1-A.pdf ] for misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, and two contract claims, seeking at least $1 billion in damages. By Autumn, SCO's market capitalization (the market value of its stock) had jumped from less than $20 million to over $200 million, thus capturing the interest of investors as well as Linux users.

There's much more to say, but the current focus of Scofacts is simply to help people check the current status of the SCO situation, and to find the pertinent documents and records. My theory is that if you want more narrative about the matter, then your best source is the judges' rulings in the cases (to the extent any rulings have been made), and your second-best source is the briefs of the parties to the cases. You can find those here, plus a few other bits of information I've thrown in now and then.

For copious analysis and speculation (including occasional contributions from me), see groklaw.net , the Caldera topic on slashdot.org [ http://slashdot.org/search.pl?topic=88 ], and Yahoo's SCOX message board [ http://messages.yahoo.com/?action=q&amp;board=SCOX ] (the search/index features of Yahoo boards are sorely lacking, so see also the handy Yahoeuvre [ http://yah.warmcat.com ]). Those are all open forums, meaning that of course 90% of what you'll find there is absolute rubbish, but there's a lot of good information to be found in the other 10%.

Scorecard

The Scorecard [ http://scofacts.org/scorecard.html ] attempts to somewhat concisely track the status of all the claims in the SCOsource-related suits by and against SCO. It also attempts to provide convenient links to the most pertinent documents.

Miscellany

Legal filings

SCO vs. DaimlerChrysler [ http://scofacts.org/daimler.html ] (tuxrocks page [ http://sco.tuxrocks.com/?Case=DaimlerChrysler ])

Here [ http://scofacts.org/daimler.html ] is a nearly complete archive of filings in the Daimler case.

For the other SCO cases, I only place items here when I happen to come across them before sco.tuxrocks.com [ http://sco.tuxrocks.com ] does. See the tuxrocks pages for complete listings.

SCO vs. AutoZone (tuxrocks page [ http://sco.tuxrocks.com/?Case=AutoZone ])

SCO vs. IBM (tuxrocks page [ http://sco.tuxrocks.com/?Case=IBM ])

Red Hat vs. SCO (tuxrocks page [ http://sco.tuxrocks.com/?Case=RH ])

MarchFirst bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Illinois

Lead docket is 2001-BK-24742. Here's a docket sheet (2004-06-01) [ http://www3.scofacts.org/~alpetrof/scofacts/marchfirst-docket.htm ] listing all the filings in the case.

Bert Young was hired as SCO's CFO on 2004-04-20 [ http://ir.sco.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=133278 ]. He served as marchFirst's CFO from its eponymous inception date, 2000-03-01, until 2000-10-31.

Andrew Maxwell is the court-appointed trustee of marchFirst's bankruptcy estate. He has filed, on behalf of marchFirst's creditors, two currently ongoing suits that name Bert Young as a defendant. Trial dates have not yet been set for these cases.

Andrew J. Maxwell vs. Bert B. Young et al. 2002-AP-00194 docket sheet (2004-06-01) [ http://www3.scofacts.org/~alpetrof/scofacts/maxwell-vs-young-02-docket.htm ]

Andrew J. Maxwell vs. Bert B. Young et al. 2003-AP-01412 docket sheet (2004-06-01) [ http://www3.scofacts.org/~alpetrof/scofacts/maxwell-vs-young-03-docket.htm ]

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Copyright 2004