[FW] SCO vs. IBM looks like it's over for good

[Man-wai Chang]

Source: <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/29/sco_vs_ibm_over/>

The long-running SCO vs. IBM case looks like it might just be over.

A new filing (PDF) scooped up by the good folks at Groklaw sees both SCO 
and IBM agree to sign off on two recent decisions in which SCO's 
arguments advancing its claims to own parts of Unix were slapped down by 
the US District Court.

As The Register reads the PDF we've linked to above, and our informal 
legal counsel concurs, the new document describes IBM and SCO both 
signing off on the recent court orders. Those orders left SCO without a 
legal argument to stand on.

The new filing also points out that SCO remains bankrupt and has “has de 
minimis financial resources beyond the value of the claims on which the 
Court has granted summary judgment for IBM.”

Or in plain English, SCO is broke and the only asset it possess of any 
value is its claims against IBM, and how it doesn't even have those 
because it just lost a court case about them. That leaves SCO in no 
position to carry on.

“Accordingly,” the new filing continues, “the disposition of SCO’s 
appeal is the practical course most likely to conserve both judicial and 
private resources.” That's the legal sense of “disposition”, by the way, 
so what the document's saying is that SCO giving up its appeal is most 
likely to stop the courts spending any more time or energy on this 
matter. Courts don't like wasting resources. So this is both parties 
explaining that wrapping things up now is a desirable thing.

The filing goes on to say that it's possible to wrap up SCO's case 
against IBM without upsetting IBM's counter-claim against SCO. On the 
off-chance IBM wants to return to court to sue Zombie SCO, that is.

Our legal friends therefore reckon this document is probably the final 
full stop in the long, long, case over whether or not IBM pinched bits 
of code and used them in its own operating systems.

We're not so certain there's zero possibility of footnotes being 
required, because the document doesn't mention costs which are yet to be 
sorted out. But this does look like legal argument in the SCO vs. IBM 
case is done and dusted. Probably for all time. ®