In the almost five years since SCO launched its attack on Linux and IBM, open-source and legal experts have predicted that SCO would fail and the company would collapse with its lawsuits. That day is one day closer at hand. On Dec. 27, SCO was delisted from the Nasdaq.

There’s no surprise here. After several escapes from being delisted, the Nasdaq had been seeking to remove SCO from its trading floor for two reasons: The Unix company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the stock’s price had declined below a dollar a share for 30 business days.

In the end, it was the bankruptcy that pushed SCO off the Nasdaq and into the pink sheets of penny stocks. The Nasdaq on Dec. 21 had informed SCO that Dec. 27 would be its last day on the big board, but SCO only notified the public on the day it actually exited the market.

SCO had had a spark of hope that York Capital would buy it out of the jaws of bankruptcy and into private ownership. The York deal came to nothing, though.

Then, throwing salt into the company’s self-inflicted wounds, the Delaware bankruptcy court threw SCO’s fate back into the hands of the U.S. District Court in Utah. The bankruptcy court decided that since the SCO/Novell case was so far advanced and was going to largely determine how much, if any, assets SCO would have left for its bankruptcy, Novell should really be allowed to take its case in Utah forward.

Since Judge Dale Kimball has already ruled on the heart of the matter, that Novell, and not SCO, owned Unix’s IP (intellectual property), it seems almost a foregone conclusion that SCO will go down in defeat in its final hearings. The only substantive question left would seem to be how much will Kimball rule of SCO’s revenue from its Unix IP deals with Sun and Microsoft should have gone to Novell.

Some SCO officials aren’t waiting around to see what’s left. On Jan. 4, 2008, Sandeep Gupta, the president of SCO, will leave the company. In the meantime, longtime SCO employee Jeff Hunsaker will serve as president and COO.

A version of this story first appeared in Linux-Watch.