The long legal battle over ownership of Linux "is closer than ever to ending," reports the Register, "after a panel of three judges ruled a claim against IBM and Red Hat isn't valid, and that time has expired for further action."

In 2021, an heir to SCO settled with IBM for $14.25 million — a sum that reflects the fact SCO had for years failed to produce strong evidence to back its claims. Another of SCO's legal successors, Xinuos, filed a new claim that IBM should be on the hook because Big Blue knew it did not own the code it contributed to Linux but instead had a non-exclusive license to use it. Xinuos argued that when IBM contributed Project Monterey code to Linux [25 years ago], it b...