Ralph Yarro III
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Ralph J. Yarro III is currently chairman of the board and the largest shareholder in The SCO Group, Inc. Previously, he was CEO of The Canopy Group, Inc.. His SCO holdings amount to about 5.621 million shares, or about 31.4% of SCO's common stock, based on his March 21, 2005 schedule 13D SEC filing.
His SCO bio lists as prior experience employment by the Noorda Family Trust as a graphic artist.
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[edit] Yarro case
In 2004-2005, Yarro was involved in a lawsuit. Yarro was fired for cause from his job as Director of the Canopy Group, along with two other Canopy executives, Darcy Mott (who had been the Chief Financial Officer) and Brent Christensen (who had been the Corporate Council), by the founders Raymond and Lewena Noorda. Yarro, Mott, and Christensen sued Canopy for USD$100,000,000, claiming they were "illegally ousted"[1] by a group led by Val Noorda Kreidel, Raymond Noorda's only daughter.
The Canopy Group (now run by William Mustard) countersued, claiming that Yarro had misappropriated $20,000,000.00 by "a series of self-dealing and wasteful transactions." On March 8, 2005, the day before initial hearings, the suit was abruptly settled[2]. It was disclosed that the negotiated settlement would result in Yarro gaining all of The Canopy Group's shares in The SCO Group, that Yarro, Mott, and Christensen would be paid an undisclosed sum of money, and that they had ceased to hold any interest in Canopy and had resigned from all positions there. The actual settlement is sealed, so that only the principals know the full details, though a joint statement was issued[3]. Val Noorda Kreidel was found dead about one week after the settlement[4].
[edit] Clean Internet
Yarro now (2006) spends most of his time fighting Internet pornography with CP80. He is pushing for state legislation to move all mature content to a different port than the standard HTTP port 80. On March 13, 2007, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. held a ceremonial signing of House Concurrent Resolution 3, which urged the U.S. Congress to pass stricter anti-Internet pornography legislation.
The CP80 foundation, a longtime Internet pornography foe, was directly involved with the legislation. Its Internet pornography solution is part of the resolution.
Yarro was quick to laud the signing
In April 2004, Yarro has been pushing for extending the legislation making ISPs responsible for content on open wireless access ports. The plan is to give tax incentives to ISPs who co-operate and volunteer as "community-protectors". It has not been made clear who exactly sets the standards and who stands to benefit from deployment of approved technical filtering and a rating system. According to the Deseret News Article Utah ISP representatives, such as XMission owner Pete Ashdown, are opposed to restricting their operations while their out of state competitors aren't restricted. In the same article, Ashdown also questioned why local ISPs should be singled out when other local businesses, such as local hotels, can freely show porn on adult channels.
[edit] Yarro's Law
Starting in 2003, Yarro has sponsored a state bill (S.B. 239)[5] making intellectual property laws stricter.Titled "The Unfair Competition Law", S.B 239 has cleared the Utah legislature approval in the spring of 2004. Yarro, then, has taken credit[6] for getting the bill passed.
S.B. 239 has been applied retroactively[7] by SCO's attorneys to the Santa Cruz - IBM Monterey agreement in the SCO vs IBM case. The same bill has also been cited as by SCO's attorneys in the SCO vs Novell litigation.[8]
[edit] Political contributions
Yarro has contributed money for the election committee of Senator Orrin Hatch (R, Utah), and for the election of Christopher Cannon (R, Utah). On one occasion, six separate contributions from six different people sharing the last name "Yarro" (First names: Ralph, Jackie, Riley, Tanner, Noah, Sydney) to Senator Orrin Hatch were made on August 30, 2006. On March 9, 2007, Yarro contributed to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign.
