In my very strong opinion no. There are only three kinds of lawfully claimable IP, patents, copyrights, and trade secrets.

SCOX has no pertinent patents and if ever there were trade secrets released to Linux they are no longer trade secrets by virtue of having been released in Linux - whomever contributed such might be liable, but Linux users would not be beholden in any way. And the technologies controlled by SCOX are ancient and were distributed to academia for teaching purposes long before SCOX's "predecessor in interest", Santa Cruz Operations, bought the Unix business from Novell.

That leaves copyright. But SCOX has several hurdles before establishing copyright claims against Linux code. First is that the only code to which SCOX has any claim at all which may be ancestral to any Linux code is SysV, and several independent studies, including those by SGI and HP, have found no significant overlap between SysV and Linux. The second is that SCOX may not own copyright to SysV code; for a long time it was assumed that they did, but when SCOX began it's claims Novell averred that they never sold copyright. To date the only documentation to SCOX's claim to copyright, the APA and second amendment to it between Novell and Santa Cruz in 1995 and 1996 respectively, do not appear to be a clear copyright conveyance under law as per Judge Kimball in a hearing of SCOX's slander of title suit against Novell. Third is that SysV is largely derived from System 32v code which in USL v BSDI judge Debevoise found the bulk of copyrights thereto are very likely unenforcible. Fourth and finally, to establish copyright infringement SCOX would have to establish clear provenance for specific lines of code in specific files from SysV which are also in Linux. A large part of the USL v BSDI outcome was based upon AT&T, not (under it's antitrust consent decree) not being in the software business as such and therefore being very lax in tracking specific contributions from licensees versus code written directly under it's auspices. It is very likely in many cases that exact authorship and therefore copyright of particular code in SysV cannot be established at all.

IBM's customers want assurance that IBM respects their confidentiality and abides by law. Total vindication of IBM by court ruling will aid that comfort; a settlement would leave doubt in some minds.

A reputation for integrity is a large part of IBM's business. The cost of pursuing the lawsuit is insignificant compared to their current and future business prospects. As for recovery I can make a good argument for more than 1B in damages; SCOX cannot pay, but Canopy could be liable for a large part of it and if they can get a 10th of that from Canopy, then they will have covered their legal costs, and still won vindication for comfort of their customers and good will from us with an interest in Linux.

Vengance is also a reason. It's part of our evolutionary heritage for good reason. If IBM demonstrates that it will extract maximum damage to those attacking it, it changes the cost/benefit equation of those thinking about such in the future. Some argue that corporations don't have emotions. But business and legal actions are conducted by human beings who do have emotions. The "logical" and accounting issues are adequate for IBM to push this to it's conclusion. And that the emotional issues also favor that conclusion, negative against making an adversary of IBM and positive for good will of techies who are or will be in position to do business with IBM in the future, all lead me to believe that IBM will push this at minimum to bankruptcy for SCOX.

SCOX will not have assets to cover the damages which will eventually be levied against it, but SCOX is, to some extent under the influence of Canopy, and Canopy's coffers are enough to pay enough damages to at minimum cover IBM's legal costs. There will never be a settlement with between IBM and SCOX, but I would not at all be surprised at some point to see a settlement between IBM and Canopy ... which will include the dismantling of any remaining remnant of SCOX.

SCOX has no positive value to anyone but it's few remaining customers - and either Novell or RedHat possibly with assistance from IBM will be able to do better for them than SCOX can. SCOX will not be missed by anyone and has no positive contributions to make to the technical or business landscape.

(Largely from Y SCOX 119998)

A buyout won't happen.

IBM won't because they want SCOX crushed and made an example of. They also know enough and are powerful enough to know that fighting up front is cheaper than danegeld.

Other parties won't buy them out because buying SCOX at this point in time means buying liability for all the potential claims against SCOX for it's recent business practices. SCOX's attornies' admissions in the September 15th (2004) hearing practically admitted Lanham act violations by SCOX president Darl McBride.

Microsoft could theoretically afford to fight and pay those claims against SCOX as SCOX but if they buy SCOX out, with the outing of their involvement in Baystar deal from the Anderson memo, and with their anti-trust conviction on record, those claims would expotentate as half the court battle for additional claims against MS would already be a matter of public and judicial record.

Approximately 90% of SCOX is held by insiders and institutions. There is very little liquidity in this stock. Because of this leverage those insiders can trade among themselves or support the stock at any given price with very little outlay of cash (this may or not be unlawful depending upon technicalities). The price at any given time is a reflection of what those insiders think of the stock and what they hope or want to do with it in the future; it has almost nothing to do with what "the market" or the public thinks of SCOX as a business entity or their chances in court. The only constraint upon the insiders' manipulation of the stock price is the risk that they may be seen in violation of SEC regulations.

The balance of trades are more than likely day and short term traders who may see an opportunity for short term profit in the volatility of this stock near the price set by the insiders. It is possible to make a profit this way, but very risky.

A common thought here on the SCOX board is that many of the insiders are caught in "the prisoner's dilemma". They all know that SCOX is headed for bankruptcy but all realize that any one of them dumping their holdings will reduce the stock price to near zero, hence they watch each other and each unload in small amounts when they think they can, each hoping that none of the others bails first. While not all of us are completely sold on the applicability of this theory it remains a real possibility: SCOX could tank completely to under $1/share on almost any day.

(Largely from Y SCOX 126428)

That's easy. Without Linux they have to support six operating systems and utility tool sets over four platforms. They're hoping over time to wind that down to two or three -- with the community doing the bulk (not all) of the work for linux. Supporting MS, AIX, AS400 (what is it's OS?), z/VM, zVSE and zOS are a major expense. (I would love to see if/how they plan to move z/OS workloads to linux. Off hand It wouldn't be easy, but it could be technically exciting if they're planning it!). This means potentially drastically cutting expenses while maintaining margin on hardware.

Additionally, of course they're well aware that MS's TCO/machine is way out of proportion and smell a long term vulnerability which they are and have been positioning to exploit.

(from Y SCOX 155066)

(I'll start, not very good:)

Three:

Darl to claim to own the darkness.
Biff to explain how the bulb fits into the wrong hole.
Ledite to stick his finger in the socket and scream "Strong Buy"