Originally Posted By: canuckInOR
Originally Posted By: sn00p
But why haven't they (IBM, RedHat, <insert other parties with vested interest in Linux) bought the "IP" from dead SCO/Oracle/whoever owned it last and buried this for good?

I'm assuming it's for precedent. SCO/Oracle/whoever doesn't actually own any "IP" being infringed on. It's a shakedown. The only "copied" code that's been shown in the last decade have been a few sections of a few header files for common APIs. IIRC, those are defined in specifications, but even if they weren't, any junior engineer would come up with a similar clean-room implementation from a set of man pages. If IBM rolled over and payed out money for this sort of dubious claim, that would open the door for everyone and their brother to make similar claims in the hope of a payoff.

Quote:
I assume the lawyers are doing very well out of this.

Except for SCO's lawyers. I think SCO ran out of money and couldn't pay them.


I'm aware of the situation, but buying the "IP" wouldn't be a verdict on whether or not an infringement occurred as least from my very nieve non-legal standpoint, it would however nail the coffin firmly shut. Maybe the law sees it differently, paying out royalties/penalties would be an indication of infringement but that's different (in my eyes) from buying the "IP".

Regardless of whether or not IBM/whoever bought the "IP", these types of claims will still happen regardless because patent trolls exist.

I think this is just such a specific situation that potentially has such dire consequences that I would have thought that obtaining would have been in linuxs be interest.