I think I can explain SCO's point of view on that. Suppose you were the author of a book, and another book turned up in the bookstores with portions of your book included, but with no acknowledgement or payment to you. You confront the author/editor, who says, "I'm sure it was accidental. Just tell me the parts that we copied, and we'll rewrite those."
In your mind, does that absolve the author or editor from responsibility for plagarism? Keep in mind that the originally printed books are going to be out there no matter what.
Similarly, if SCO has a copyright-infringement case, then even if Linux is changed today, there will be many copies of Linux still out there. And just saying, "Hey, it was all an accident" does not absolve those who appropriated intellectual property.
The big problem here, and the biggest difference from the book case posited above, is that no one owns Linux in any meaningful sense. Therefore, there is no easy way to assign responsibility for copyright infringement (or any other liability issues). Whether the Linux folks want to admit it or not, this is a serious flaw in Linux for business users. (Personal users don't have any realistic concern because it's not economic to sue them.)
Still true. SCO doesn't want removal, they want a shakedown.
They are now saying that some of the code may have originally been GPL'd,Berkeley code, but if AT&T copied it (remember, SCO themselves bought this in -- they develop NOTHING) then the AT&T and subsequent SCO licence override the GPL.
In plain English, "We copied it, but it's OK; if you copied it from the same source, you have to pay us."
Their legal strategy will hinge on getting a very stupid jury, sending them to sleep with long and irrelevant exhibits, and banging on the table in the closing arguments.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F