The New York Times offers the most complete coverage of this story. As currently being considered, it would not be an outright sale. The complicated deal would net Yahoo about $17 billion in cash and allow it and its partners to avoid having to pay taxes on it. According to the Times, the terms of the deal involve Alibaba and Softbank (the major stakeholder in Yahoo Japan) setting up new subsidiaries consisting of both cash and operating assets which Yahoo wants to run. Yahoo would swap out most of its stake in Alibaba and all of its stake in Yahoo Japan for these subsidiaries, effectively se…