am i just silly or... (Score 1)

From the article:

The reality is that, noone, including Linus Torvalds, can ever guarantee that code in the Linux kernel is free of counter ownership, or attribution claims.

The following equally applies:

The reality is that, noone, nobody anywhere, can ever guarantee that code in any piece of software ever written is free of counter ownership, or attribution claims.

This is because anyone at any time can challenge the ownership or attribution of any software at any time in the future. All they need is a lawyer. Noone can ever "guarantee" that someone else in the future will not sue and gain ownership of "their" code.