Don’t you think it’s odd that a hedge fund with little experience to speak of in technology suddenly out of the blue makes a $2 billion bid to take Novell private – Novell, one of techland’s more screwed-up, unfixable brews – it even defeated Eric Schmidt, who’s supposed to be oh so smart, ah, but now he has his Google billions to console him – but don’t you think it’s odder still that the hedge fund makes this offer five days before Novell’s supposed to go to trial over its alleged mistreatment of SCO and the ownership of Unix?

Oh, yes, yes, conventional wisdom holds that SCO’s gonna lose and Novell’s gonna be vindicated and that any doubts about the purity and originality of the Linux operating system will finally be laid to rest. Except so far it’s Novell that’s been doing the losing.

Novell has filed maybe two dozen pre-trial motions in the past few weeks trying to put a dent this way and that in SCO’s case and so far it’s failed on every count.

SCO’s whole case has survived pretty much intact – (amazing what a change in courtroom can do) – including – and this is important – its expert witnesses, who are supposed to testify that SCO was damaged to the tune of $130 million to $200 million and change. And that’s supposed to be a conservative estimate. That’s also before punitive damages.

Who in their right mind bets against a jury in a country where damages are awarded to a woman who sticks a hot cup of coffee between her legs, spills it, scalds herself and sues the vendor for making the coffee too hot?

Why suddenly so eager? Why now? Elliott said it’s been amassing Novell stock since January 4 when it was cheaper. Why not then?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to wait out the three-week trial? If Novell loses, its stock will get hammered. Then would-be buyer Elliott Associates could get it on the cheap – except of course for the payment to SCO and any appeals. If Novell wins, well, any tickle to its stock price isn’t likely to last very long. Heck, it’s probably already built into the stock price.

And it’s not as if Elliott wasn’t aware of SCO. Back when SCO started litigating against IBM and Novell, it was known to sit in on the conference calls.

Then too Elliott’s offer of $5.75 a share, a height Novell hasn’t seen since the summer of 2008, is tied to the $991.3 million that Novell had in the bank at the end of January, a stockpile that could be depleted if SCO prevails.

In its offer letter to the Novell board Tuesday Elliott took Novell’s bank account out of the equation and said Novell is really only worth its “enterprise value,” its market cap less cash on hand, or roughly $2.30 a share but it’s willing to pay $5.75 a share – either a 21% premium over Novell’s closing price before its bid or a 49% premium to the enterprise value that the Street puts on the company depending on how you look at it – since it’s going to get the rest back – although, it complains, a lot of it is overseas and hard to repatriate without paying the IRS.

Well, it may be even harder and more expensive to repatriate from a jury verdict.

The timing is just so odd maybe the conspiracy theorists are right and Elliott is somebody’s cat’s-paw.

Imagine, say, that Elliott was designated long ago as the back door in the Alamo in case things went bad for Novell – and therefore for IBM – in the SCO litigation. IBM has never had any real objections to paying SCO off it just didn’t want to be seen doing it. Neither IBM nor Novell could be blamed – and held in disrepute by the Linux mob – if Elliott up and made the necessary arrangements. Probably nobody would even ask where the money came from. With $16 billion under management it’s hard to keep track of every dime.

Heck, who’s to say that with 141 million shares of Novell trading hands Wednesday – practically half Novell’s shares outstanding – and another 38 million Thursday – when Novell’s average volume is five million a day – that Elliott or its proxies don’t already own a lot more than the 8.5% of Novell they started with on Tuesday. Offer on the table or no – and even paying a premium on a premium – it’s been know to happen. Monday draws nigh and things are gonna be said in that courtroom – if anybody’s paying attention – that a lot of people don’t want to hear.

But, of course, nobody is paying attention so folks may feel comfortable letting the decision go the jury room door, a playbook used in the Compuware case.

On the other hand, imagine that the iron fist in the velvet glove is somebody like – oh, say, Larry Ellison who’s now got Solaris to protect. Wonder what he could do with a Linux tax. Bet he’d love to levy it.