Published at LXer:

I've started to wonder if Novell or IBM has explained to SCO's Chapter 11 Trustee Edward Cahn how the GPL works. It cuts through all the other ways SCO is bound to lose, in my view. Then, I thought: why not just explain it myself? You never know. It might prove useful to put it all in one place. So, here goes, SCO and the GPL. As you may recall, if you've been around since 2003, SCO's position on the GPL has been that while it may have distributed its code under the GPL, it didn't mean to do it, that it never knowingly distributed Unix or Unixware code under the GPL. I'd like to briefly explain why that excuse doesn't matter to either Novell or IBM. IBM of course has always taken the position that it hasn't infringed any copyrights, no matter who owns them. But let's take SCO's words at face value, and pretend that they are true. Then how does the GPL moot their claims?

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Old news. People have been saying this for years.

What anyone ever involved in a lawsuit knows is that reality doesn't depend at all on what a reasonable person thinks a contract SHOULD mean.

A non-technical judge could decide that SCO's arguments make perfect sense. It doesn't work like it does on TV - it doesn't matter what's right, what's fair, what makes sense: it matters only how a judge interprets it.

That has been my biggest fear all along: that a technically illiterate, pro-business judge will decide that SCO is right.

If the GPL argument was actually as strong as Groklaw thinks it is, this would have been over long ago. It's not, which ought to tell you something.

On the other hand, it would be wonderful if it all turns out that way. The thought of SCO being liable for damages is delicious to contemplate - it could only get better if The Borg somehow got dragged into it! Even without that, I'd be grinning for weeks.