Titusdot Groan's Journal: SCO -- A Theory on how they ended up here

This was originally a posting of mine in slashdot thread

My theory on the series of events is this:

1. Some bright intern in SCO legal came across the IBM contract and said "Ah ha!, I bet IBM forgot about this clause."
2. Some old timer in Legal says, "Hey, we have a bunch of code in escrow from the MERCED, I bet those IBM dummies put some of it into Linux"
3. Some technical manager is asked to check to see if there is any code in both MERCED and in Linux. Answers "Yes" because he's a climber or is too stupid to know what is or isn't actionable.
4. SCO launches it's lawsuit.
5. SCO's real lawyers get the evidence.
6. Boies, and by now everybody else, finds out IBM never forgets when it comes to IP. Never. There is nothing actionable in MERCED that made it into Linux or there isn't enough to make a real lawsuit out of it.
7. It's too late to stop -- they've destroyed any hope of remaining a going concern with their software business.
8. SCO can't find evidence in the source they have so they start requesting source that may have actionable items.
9. Boies finds out that IBM's lawyers are on to this when they demand real evidence before turning over anything.
10. The tap dancing begins ...

Things are getting nasty for SCO. What I'm surprised about is how people keep getting surprised by IBM's "Ninja Lawyers" and how tight their IP controls are. It's a long running industry gag.