Dreaded SCO Group is back, with money to go after Linux users
Amazingly, the obscure Utah-based SCO Group that sparked outrage four years ago when it began suing Linux users, is back.
The company, which sued Novell, IBM and other Linux users for infringing on its ownership rights of the Unix Operating System, has raised $100 million from private equity investors (see its announcement), which it will use to exit bankruptcy.
SCO filed for bankruptcy protection in September, after a court ruled in August that Novell controlled the rights to the Unix Operating system — which SCO had hoped to sell to pay off creditors.
The funding came from the private equity firm Stephen Norris Capital Partners and partners in the Middle East. The firm and its partners will have a controlling interest in SCO.
This gives SCO resources to continue its court battle with Novell over royalties from the Unix server operating system.
Silicon Valley lawyer Mark Radcliffe of DLA Piper calls the investment “puzzling,” explaining why in his post here, and said that in his 25 years of practice, the SCO case represented “one of three most dramatic failures” of an intellectual property strategy. The bizarre case continues.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
