Big Blue announced its intention not to drag open sauce developers into court back in 2005, and apparently managed to stick to its promise for five years. Now however, IBM has pointed its Nazgul lawyers at mainframe emulator Turbohercules, alleging that it is infringing some IBM patents.
According to blog posts from Turbohercules' chief, IBM has threatened the firm with a lawsuit, but only since it got around to building its own mainframe emulator.
"Readers may draw their own conclusions as to whose software is the 'knock-off' and whose is the real thing", wrote Roger Bowler, creator of Hercules and co-founder of the company.
The argument has seen some to-ing and fro-ing and Turbohercules has returned fire with its own legal case.
According to Bowler, IBM has alleged that, "Turbohercules seeks a free ride on IBM's 'massive investments in the mainframe by marketing systems that attempt to mimic the functionality' of its machines."
In response Turbohercules has filed an antitrust claim against IBM in France, however it is not seeking any damages despite IBM's move seeming to be against its own patent pledge.
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