I’m usually not one to celebrate others misfortunes, but seeing the fire sale of SCOX (the stock listing for the SCO Group) gives me a tingle of joy. The SCO Group has been threatening Linux users with lawsuits on grounds that Linux contained “millions of lines” of copyright infringing code from UNIX, a copyright that the SCO Group claimed to own. In a recent ruling on long-standing pending litigation, a federal district judge declared that Novell owns the UNIX copyrights, not the SCO Group. And, the market responded accordingly today.

The movement in the stock market indicates that 71% of the SCOX market cap was based on a lame set of copyright lawsuits. I don’t have much sympathy for investors that were long SCOX when this ruling came down. They were making the following bets: 1) in favor of outdated copyright law, 2) in favor of aggressive litigation in place of innovation, and 3) against Linux (and thus against an important part of open source software). Three bets I cannot support.

Source: Ars Technica