> > Real IP lawyers cost real money. Anyone working pro-bono on something of this size > probably isn't qualified to work on it.
IIRC, during the David Foley trademarking MAME incident, a lawyer offered to do some pro bono work. I'm not sure if this ever actually happened or the situation was resolved before it was necessary. Nor do I know if this lawyer would be willing or even qualified to help with this. But I don't think it's implausible that MAMEdev could at least get some basic legal advice. I'm not talking about having a law firm actually comb through the source code line by line, which would be a hugely expensive job.