SCO is part owned by The Canopy Group, an investment company that funds small technology startups. The company was founded by Ray Noorda in 1995, after he left Novell.
Noorda has a well known dislike of Microsoft and Bill Gates. This has led him to finance a number of Linux based startups. Many of these are now long forgotten (cf Willow Software) but over the years a number have managed a certain amount of success.
So, one would expect The Canopy Group to be financing Linux startups, and indeed it does have some on it's books as can be seen on their web pages. But Canopy also has SCO on it's books, and SCO seems to be intent on destroying Linux with their current legal activities.
There have been many comments on the web accusing Canopy of being in some kind of secret association with Microsoft to use SCO to destroy Linux. This would be a very risky thing for Microsoft to do. Given their current monopoly position in the desktop operating system market, to be discovered financing the destruction of a potential business rival would result in instant court time and massive fines (assuming the US government wanted to enforce the law in this case.)
So, what is going on? Why is a company led by Ray Noorda apparently attacking the one development that stands a chance of pushing Microsoft off the top of the hill? An attack that seems doomed to failure?
One explaination is that SCO is out of control. Canopy dislikes what SCO is doing but is unable to stop it. This seems unlikely as the Canopy web site is currently holding a news item on it's home page announcing SCOs cancelling of IBMs AIX license. Besides, as a majority share holder, Canopy will have a huge influence over SCO corporate policies, indeed Ralph Yarrow (CEO of Canopy) is himself on the SCO board of directors. So it looks like Canopy really does approve of SCOs behaviour over the past eight months.
Does this mean that Ray Noorda has had a massive change of heart and now is just after more money obtained by any means possible? Raymond John Noorda was born in 19 Jun 1924 and at 79 nobody would blame him if he wanted to retire.
Looking on the Canopy web site, Ray Noorda is notably missing from the list of the management team. These days Canopy is run by President and CEO, Ralph Yarro. So the group policy about SCO is ultimately decided by Ralph who also appears to speak on Noordas behalf.
(As a curious aside, Ralph Yarro is described on one SCO web page as "a graphic artist for the Noorda Family Trust". One of the most bizarre descriptions of a CEO I've ever seen. Yet a bit of googling returns the information that a Ralph Yarro is credited in a computer game "Under a Killing Moon" in 1994. If it's the same person he certainly has done well over the past nine years...)
While at Caldera, Yarro apparently "engineered the suit against Microsoft in 1996". As this cost Microsoft about $250M I can't imagine that Bill Gates would want to deal with Yarro again -- but then, the enemy of my enemy...
Ralph Yarro is also a Trustee for the Noorda Family Trust. The NFT is famously secretive but owns a block of IP numbers and gives it's WHOIS address as 333 S 520 W Ste 300 Lindon, UT, the same as Canopy; which is just down the road from SCO at 355 S 520 W Lindon UT. An outside observer would be forgiven for assuming that the difference between NFT, Canopy and SCO existed purely in the paperwork...
(As another aside, the Noorda Family Trust web site is reported by Netcraft to be running Linux and to use an IP number from a block owned by NFT. If you follow the link on the Netcraft page you find that all SCOs, Canopys, Calderas etc etc web site IP numbers come from the same block...)
Returning to the Canopy web site. In this world of turmoil, www.canopy.com is a place of piece and quiet. Nothing much changes in www.canopy.com, not even the copyright date for 2002. It seems that little happens within Canopy that is worth reporting...
For an organisation that describes itself as "A dynamic operating company" not much is happening.
The easily available paper trail ends with Canopy and NFT. Neither are public limited companies and so need not file papers with SEC etc. The only clues about what Canopy is doing is from their public share trading, in this they seem to be doing well.
One of the Canopy successes is Altiris, Inc which sells Windows system management software. Canopy is selling Altiris shares and so far this year has made over $38M. Now, the Vice President of Altiris is Jane Newman, who is also selling shares (approx $1M worth this year so far.) This would be of no interest if it were not for the existance of the Newman Family Trust (NFT) That Ralph Yarro is closely connected to two different family trusts, both with the initials NFT must be just a strange coincidence.
I believe that...