By the time things like the SCO lawsuit happened, Linux already had the momentum and corporate financial backing so it could weather it. Had that lawsuit happe

By the time things like the SCO lawsuit happened, Linux already had the momentum and corporate financial backing so it could weather it. Had that lawsuit happened in the early days, history would have likely played out differently. (i.e. imagine you were in college getting sued by AT&T over a project that barely anyone had heard about... I suspect most would decide to find a different hobby project) When the AT&T lawsuit happened it had the direct effect of steering people from *BSD to Linux at a critical time for both, so I'd say that it was definitely a factor.