RE: criminal use of linux

[Patrick Kobly <patrick@xxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original message-----
From:	Christopher Svanefalk <christopher.svanefalk@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent:	Wed 01-08-2012 10:48
Subject:	Re: criminal use of linux
To:	Community support for Fedora users <users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; 
> Best,
> 
> Christopher Svanefalk
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 5:13 PM, Jack Craig <jack.craig.aptos@xxxxxxxxx 
> <mailto:jack.craig.aptos@xxxxxxxxx> > wrote:
> Typical M$ thinking, and within recent history, SCO!!
> 
> Thing did not go very well for SCO in the end.
> 
> Why is this not being brought into a courtroom, rather than companies just 
> paying licenses?

It is frequently the case that even a successful defense against a patent lawsuit costs more than licensing a bogus patent.

Furthermore, there is a non-zero probability of losing said lawsuit, with costs that would significantly exceed the costs of a license.

So if w is the cost of a license
p is the probability of losing a lawsuit
z is the probability of a lawsuit even being filed
x is the cost of defending the lawsuit and winning
and y is the cost of defending the lawsuit and losing

if 
w < z(py + (1-p)x)
w < z(p(y-x) + x)


Then it makes sense to just settle.  Some firms may make a more conservative estimation of p than others.  Some firms believe that y and x are quite close, and much larger than w - which means the probability of winning or losing doesn't really matter.  Some firms assume z is 1 - a lawsuit is inevitable.
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