In a move which might have taken one or two industry pundits by surprise, SCO has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection from its creditors. This automatically puts on hold the trial by Novell for damages due to SCO violating copyrights held by Novell.

SCO, which is headquartered in Linden, Utah, was scheduled to appear in federal District Court in Salt Lake City Monday as a defendant in a trial to determine how much it has to pay Novell in licensing fees for violating Novell’s copyrights for Unix and UnixWare software. U.S. District Court Judge Dale Kimball, who was to preside over the trial, was the same judge who ruled Aug. 10 that Novell, not SCO, owned the copyrights.

In a related story, SCO CEO Darl McBride blames Linux for his company's woes. The mind boggles.