
SCO's
lawsuit filed in Utah last week claims that IBM integrated computer code belonging to another company into the Linux operating system, touching off speculation that
the lawsuit could hurt other Linux companies, including Red Hat, the country's largest distributor of the software. Red Hat isn't involved in the dispute, but some analysts say that the Raleigh-based company won't be able to escape the fallout. "
It's kind of irrelevant who wins the lawsuit," said Victor Raisys, analyst with Soundview Technology Group in San Francisco. "
You can't take back the fact that someone has tried to claim intellectual property on Linux. The genie is out of the bottle."
The Judge could just rule for a summary dismissal of the lawsuit, based on the lack of merit of any lawsuit that claims IP rights over Linux based on ownership of IP rights over UNIX.
Linux is not a derivative work of UNIX, I think Bruce Perens has clearly made a case for this in his comments..
Andrew