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Shareholder seeks to commit SCO's Darl McBride
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Shareholder Seeks to Commit SCO's Darl McBride
Posted GMT
On Monday morning at the county courthouse in Provo, Utah, concerned SCO shareholder Marlien Shalotny met with a district court official, who must now decide whether to approve the unorthodox request to commit SCO President and CEO Darl McBride to medical authority.
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| SCO's Darl McBride "may do himself harm", says shareholder |
The application for commitment alleged "unstable, incongruous behavior" on McBride's part and claimed that he could do himself or others harm in the immediate future.
Shalotny owns "a considerable number" of SCO
shares and was employed as a file clerk from 2001 to 2003. "I
frequently saw Mr. McBride going to and from the toilet," she related
in an exclusive interview with HACT, "and if the day's news was bad
he'd be angrily muttering to himself, which I found quite alarming.
"What with the earnings conference call coming up, that Novell lawsuit and the whole Mydoom virus thing, I felt things were coming to a head," stated Shalotny. "I can just see Mr. McBride stewing away in his office, maybe planning another lawsuit against one of his customers."
In order for an adult to be committed to medical authority in Lindon, Utah, base of operations for the SCO Group, the applicant must submit a statement that the person in question may cause harm to himself or others. In addition, a statement from a physician or medical examiner is needed, unless the person has refused to submit to an examination of his mental condition. "I called Mr. McBride and explained that he needs to be assessed by a physician, and he hung up on me," writes Shalotny in the application.
The application goes on to cite examples of McBride's alleged instability:
- Disconnection from own identity: "We're either right or we're not. If we're wrong, we deserve people throwing rocks at us. But what if SCO is right?"
- Paranoid and self-deluding behavior: "We're finding code that looks like it's been obfuscated to make it look like it wasn't UnixWare code -- but it was."
- Inability to distinguish between right and wrong, flattening of affect: "[On suing SCO's own customers] First, it's not our customers. I would say we're suing end users. There are only two industries who use the term 'users' -- computers and drugs. Not sure if there's a connection there."
- Delusions of grandeur: "There will be a day of reckoning for Red Hat and SuSE when this is done."
"I must confess, I've never had a request quite like it," he declared. "Most applications for commitment, and we don't get a lot, come from family members.
"But this guy, I don't know. That Ms. Shalotny, maybe she has something here." §
(The HACT team produces humor and opinion articles, not official news. Any resemblance to actual news is just a matter of style.)