What is really going on here is that the lawyers for open
source have
been unable to persuade the lawyers for the corporations that the
reciprocity terms in the GPL are enforceable. There is no case law
that is convincing on the issue [...]
Not in the USA, perhaps.
Not in any common law jurisdiction.
The idiot patent office that people are concerned about is the USPTO so USA
law is the one that matters.
Lawyers are not just concerned to avoid losing a case, they are concerned at
the cost of the lawsuit. IBM has probably spent over $50 million so far on
SCO.