Yes, I do understand that SCO has made their own flavor of Linux, and continues to distribute it today under the GPL. However, SCO claims that IBM illegally added this code which Sequent wrote, and allegedly under the Sequent-AT&T license that code is derivitive work that allegedly becomes part of the Sytem V code it was added to, and therefore property of SCO. So SCO says that since IBM couldn't legally release the code under GPL, it was not released under GPL at all, even though SCO continued to distribute Linux after they knew the contested code was in there.
So they are trying to say that their code was never really under the GPL, so it is still theirs and still a trade secret, but at the same time they say that all other code released under the GPL has been made public domain since the GPL is illegal.
This public domain crap is the only way they can defend themselves against Red Hat et al, but I don't think it is going to work.
But the most recent guy to look at all available information about temperatures concluded that Europe's climate was warmer in the 1300s than it is now.
"Environmental scientists seem to agree that the speed of the climatic change is what is not normal. So basicly instead of having a climatic change over a period of 400 years we now have one over a period of 100 years."
Since we do not have 400 years of complete and accurate climate data there can be no scientific finding of increased climatic change. There can only be guesses based on suppositions and models and projections.
I know I'm not taking a popular position here, but I'm really unhappy with the idea that we must change our CO2 production levels because it MIGHT be changing the climates, or maybe the sun is a little warmer, or maybe we are a little closer to the sun, or maybe this is only the usual change and we cannot influence it for better or worse however hard we try. There just seems to be a lack of science in environmental science. There are an awfull lot of balancing factors that do not seem to be accounted for in these models. More CO2 means plants grow better, and more plants absorb more solar energy without raising the surface temperatures, and the plants also reduce CO2 levels. Higher surface temperatures means more evaporation, which means more clouds, which lowers the surface temperatures. CO2 is actually a very weak greenhouse gas, dwarfed in comparison to methane, but no one is calling for a reduction in methane production.
I'm just sayin' I'm not conviced yet. And no, more evidence of climate change is not evidence of man's influence.
If you melt 1kg of ice you get 1kg of fresh water.
Salt water is more dense than fresh water and cold water is more dense than warm water.
Therefore the resulting 1kg of melted ice will not displace exactly the same volume as 1 kg of seawater.
Still don't believe me?
Ok if you put 1kg of lead in a boat, it dispaces 1kg of water. However, if you throw the lead weight into the lake, the boat will rise by 1kg worth of lake water and the lake's water-level will drop by that 1kg of lakewater volume. This will be slightly offset by the 1kg of lead sitting on the bottom of the lake raising the lake level, but the volume of the 1kg of lead added is much smaller than the volume of the 1kg of lake water that was displaced when the lead was floating.
Density is only irrelavent as long as the different forms of mass still float.
What they are going to try to do is say that anything lawfully released under the GPL is really public domain, but SCO IP that was illegally released under the GPL by IBM is not released at all.
Of course that is ridiculous. There is NO "oops, you made it public domain" clause.
This does make sense in SCO's world though: since they must invalidate the GPL or else face willfull copyright infringement suits from Red Hat and any other of the hundreds of Linux copyright holders for distributing Linux without a license.
Yeah, I'd put money on genetic cures, I'd even give you 2:1 odds.
I don't want to belittle the danger posed by biological weapons, especially in this day and age where air travel can spead a pathogen far and wide in short order. Man continues to increase the efficiency and speed at which war can kill. However, the number of people killed by disease every day, during peace or war has historically dwarfed the number of people killed by war, so I think progress is more likely to have a larger impact there. Did you know 6,000 people are killed every year in the USA alone by tainted meat, far more than were killed on 9/11, yet we aren't spending billions of dollars to improve the purity of our food supply. Did you know more people died in the 1918-1919 flu pandemic than died in enemy action in WW1?
Now the biggest flaw in my argument is that most of the people in 3rd world countries that die of diease, die of preventable or curable diseases, but lack adequate medical care. So even if science develops "miracle" cures for malaria, dengue, the flu, AIDS, SARS, etc. why would that have any effect on poor Africans?
I'm not sure if that makes me an optimist or not, but it is a suckers bet, since if you win I probably won't be around to pay you.
"No, they have said that Caldera OpenLinux users have a license for "their IP". But ONLY for use in purchased copies of OpenLinux. So you can't transfer it to Red Hat."
How come no one in the mainstream media that is covering this issue has realized that SCO is in a self-contradictory position here. SCO CANNOT license "their IP" separately in the OpenLinux distribution without getting another non-GPL license to distribute from each of the hundreds of Linux copyright holders. When they claim ownership of part of Linux, they lose their GPL for the rest of Linux and are violating the separate copyrights of hundreds of Linux developers whenever they distribute OpenLinux.
SCO just can't have it both ways. They needed to IMMEDIATELY stop distributing any GPL'ed software the instant that they discovered that "their IP" had been (allegedly) misappropriated into Linux. But they didn't. Game over. Red Hat will win their case.
Well, one possiblility is that SCO will not only lose against IBM, but also Copyright infringment cases from Linux writers, and quietly go bankrupt. The execs will have already sold most of their stock and will just laugh all the way to the bank and they go find another company to buy that has some vague IP claim and do it again.
The SCO stockholders and Linux will have been the losers.
But that is just my opinion, and I'm in no position to know.
Well, days have passed so you will probably never see this, but what I meant was that you are wrong in thinking that using Linux can make you a defendant, IMHO and IANAL. If you just prefer *BSD, more power to ya, but there is no mechanism for SCO to sue users. Before that could happen, SCO would have to let Linux developers know where copyright infringement is occuring (if there really is any infringement that is) and that would allow Linux to be "cleaned" long before SCO could target users.
When it comes to copyright infringement, all developers and users need to do is a good-faith effort to comply with the law in order to avoid any penalties. The only people SCO can really get are people who might have (though I doubt it) claimed copyright over code they don't really own.
Add to all that the fact that SCO has either released the code itself by distributing Linux, or willfully violated the copyright all the hundreds of Linux writers and it becomes apparent that SCO is just issuing wild, unfounded threats.
"If you were trying to sway him, you might have considered going to him before you went off on your own and did something that you obviously knew he wouldn't appreciate."
It is almost always easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission. As it is, he got his way. If he had asked his boss first, he would not have.
That doesn't change the fact that he is wrong, it is just a reason to not ask first.
"I could see something where the phone company allowed you to place a message for all callers where you could say "no solicitors allowed" or whatever. See, that would be left in the hands of private citizens, and not the government, which is already WAY too big. It would only go to the government if seriously abused by the same person or group repeatedly."
You seem to be ignoring the fact that this government system is far cheaper and more efficient than the solutions that private interests have offered, plus the government solution works, and what the phone company offers doesn't. If you think "Big Government" is always a bad thing, and private interests who only want to make as much profit as possible are always better, then you are ignoring lots of facts that don't fit your viewpoint.
"But I have no right to prevent someone coming near my property and shouting in my direction "are you home?""
Sure you do, if that person's shouting were disturbing the peace. Your right to swing your arms ends at my nose, and all that. But that is just an analogy, and shouting from the sidewalk is not like calling my on my phone. Since the phone system exists because of government granted monopolies and right-of-ways, etc. why shouldn't we, the taxpayers, have a say in how the phone system gets used? I feel perfectly justified in asserting that I not be subjected to uninvited commercial phone calls on our public system to my home, even if Verizon "owns" the lines that come to my house.
"If you want a different kind of phone (e.g. one that only rings when the call comes from your whitelisted allowed callers), then buy one or build one yourself. But don't complain when you buy a phone and a phone service that are designed to allow anyone and everyone call you, and then this is exactly what happens."
Why should the current phone system allow anyone and everyone to call me? I think I would rather have a virtual "no soliciting" sign on my phone. There are enough people that would like this OPTION that we have convinced our congresscritters to change the way the public phone system works. This is a much more effective and efficient way for me to prevent myself from being harassed in my own home, which is something you have stated I have a right to do. The phone systems were created with heavy involvement from the government, because the communication infrastructure is key to the public good. So why shouldn't the government be involved in this?
But what case does RedHat have? The way I see it, SCO has violated the GPL by claiming proprietary ownership of parts of it. Therefore, they seem so be distributing Linux without a license, and therefore violating the copyright of Mr. Torvalds and Mr. Stallman and a few hundred others.
Maybe SCO is counting on NOT getting sued by the small copyright holders who don't have a big legal team or a litigation budget? That seems like a bad bet, considering that IBM and many other companies that have a large interest in Linux would probably be happy to contribute to a Linux legal fund.
Then again, maybe SCO just expects that the penalties for their copyright violation will come long after the executives have sold off their stock.
"...or force Linux users to pay damages as well, depending on the wording of the licensing agreements in the distros being used."
Linux users are not party to the contract between IBM and SCO, so nothing in that contract can compell Linux users to do anything.
The most the courts can do to Linux is force them to remove code IF (and I just can't see how it could, but if) SCO does in fact own the rights to code submitted to Linux by IBM. Linux will live on no matter what and SCO can't touch users or developers.
Since a contract is being formed between PeopleSoft and their customers, (and I mean an honest to goodness contract, not some click-through agreement) it seems like there is no way for Oracle to avoid the obligation IF it were to buy PeopleSoft.
IANAL, but I can't see anything illegal or non-binding about it. It is just an extreme guarantee.
"If it's in fact true that there is no real user consent to the gator-driven pop-ups, then I'd tend to think that the owners of websites defaced by the popups have a reasonable claim for damages."
I don't see how these two things are related. WhenU isn't touching UHaul's server so they are not defacing it. UHaul doesn't have any rights to the user's computer and how they display the website. They cannot stop you from using a pop-up blocker or resizing the text, or loading only the text, or replacing some images with others of your choosing.
OTOH, if WhenU and Gator are being deceptive when they get consent from the user, then the user might have some recourse, but UHaul is SOL.
"Do you really trust IBM to look out for your interests? They're not into Linux for the goodness of it."
You are correct that IBM is not helping develop Linux just out of the kindness of their heart. Here is why they do it: IBM is a hardware company and hardware sells better if software is cheap/gratis/libre. Microsoft made much of it's money because cheap Intel hardware helped to sell it. Now Microsoft's share of a new computer has grown and grown as a percentage of the system coast, so IBM and other hardware vendors want to get rid of the Microsoft Tax with the expectation that lower system costs will increase the sales of hardware.
I agree with you though that you can only expect IBM to watch after its own interests, and sometimes those coincide with our interests.
Okay, Mr. Paranoid, here's a data point then: I am on a state no call list, and have been for 5 or 6 years now. I get called 3 or 4 times a year by two charities who pick up donations curbside because I have told them "You can call me next time you have a truck in the neighborhood." I get maybe one charity cold-call per year, and they don't call back when I tell them I'm not interested. Charities don't get a high-enough success rate on cold-calling to make it pay, so they just don't do it much. I get probably one survey call per month, or less. My wife gets several automated phone messages from politicians in the 3 or 4 days before each election, so a couple calls per night for about one week worth out of 104. I'm registered Green, so I don't get political party phone calls.
Bottom Line: IT WORKS and it is cheaper than commercial solutions. You're not giving them any information they don't already have. There is no downside.
That is okay, I buy things with cash so they don't get my phone number.
If it really is something that I want to register and give a phone number on, then they only get one call out of it, because they are still required by law to not call you if you request it. So you just remove their permission the first time they call.
They will be shooting themselves in the foot if they give you an incentive NOT to register the product.
My state list was $6 per year, rather than $4 per month, and it works. The Federal list is free.
The bummer I have experience with the caller-ID system like the one you are using is that the digital phone system here at work does dot provide caller-ID data on outgoing calls, so my Mom, who uses caller-ID, doesn't answer the phone when I call her from work, since I look like a telemarketer.
If the federal list works, you won't have to check caller-ID, you can just answer the phone.
You think SCO wants to have the GPL challanged? But if the GPL is invalid, then SCO has no permission from the hundreds of copyright holders of Linux to distribute it. I cannot imagine any way for SCO to avoid charges of willfull copyright infringement from any of the many authors of Linux.
And I think companies like Disney and the **AA's have paid for really very strict legislation against copyright infringment, which means that people like Linus have all the teeth here.
You are correct that the SCO vs. IBM breach of contract suit is not going to test the GPL. However the counter-suit that the hundreds of Linux copyright holders can file against SCO for willfull copyright violation (they continue to distribute copyrighted Linux while claiming closed ownership of some of the content) seems like a pretty strong demonstration of how the GPL protects Linux (and Linus) IANAL, but I think the courts take willfull copyright violation pretty seriously.
IANAL, but I don't see anything damaging in Linus' statement. As a coder, he needs to stay "clean" and not see anyone else's proprietary copyrighted code or code patents, so that what he writes in undeniabley his own. I think a judge is going to clearly understand the good reason for willfull ignorance. I think and hope a judge will see it is reasonable for Linus to expect contributors to only contribute their own code. The burden is on the contributor not to violate the laws. I think the judge will see the peer-review process Linus has in place as a reasonable effort to keep the code clean, and the communities willingness to remove any unclean code when notified by the patent or copyright holder as a good-faith effort.
Copyright law used to be this way, before the DMCA, and Linus' statement may have been made pre-DMCA since no date is provided in the article. Back then, it was legal to print anything that you had a reasonable belief was public domain. And if it turned out later that someone still owned the copyright, it wasn't a crime, you just had to stop printing it or license it/get permission after you found out.
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Yes, I do understand that SCO has made their own flavor of Linux, and continues to distribute it today under the GPL. However, SCO claims that IBM illegally added this code which Sequent wrote, and allegedly under the Sequent-AT&T license that code is derivitive work that allegedly becomes part of the Sytem V code it was added to, and therefore property of SCO. So SCO says that since IBM couldn't legally release the code under GPL, it was not released under GPL at all, even though SCO continued to distribute Linux after they knew the contested code was in there.
So they are trying to say that their code was never really under the GPL, so it is still theirs and still a trade secret, but at the same time they say that all other code released under the GPL has been made public domain since the GPL is illegal.
This public domain crap is the only way they can defend themselves against Red Hat et al, but I don't think it is going to work.
Most trees don't live to be 400.
But the most recent guy to look at all available information about temperatures concluded that Europe's climate was warmer in the 1300s than it is now.
"Environmental scientists seem to agree that the speed of the climatic change is what is not normal. So basicly instead of having a climatic change over a period of 400 years we now have one over a period of 100 years."
Since we do not have 400 years of complete and accurate climate data there can be no scientific finding of increased climatic change. There can only be guesses based on suppositions and models and projections.
I know I'm not taking a popular position here, but I'm really unhappy with the idea that we must change our CO2 production levels because it MIGHT be changing the climates, or maybe the sun is a little warmer, or maybe we are a little closer to the sun, or maybe this is only the usual change and we cannot influence it for better or worse however hard we try. There just seems to be a lack of science in environmental science. There are an awfull lot of balancing factors that do not seem to be accounted for in these models. More CO2 means plants grow better, and more plants absorb more solar energy without raising the surface temperatures, and the plants also reduce CO2 levels. Higher surface temperatures means more evaporation, which means more clouds, which lowers the surface temperatures. CO2 is actually a very weak greenhouse gas, dwarfed in comparison to methane, but no one is calling for a reduction in methane production.
I'm just sayin' I'm not conviced yet. And no, more evidence of climate change is not evidence of man's influence.
If you melt 1kg of ice you get 1kg of fresh water.
Salt water is more dense than fresh water and cold water is more dense than warm water.
Therefore the resulting 1kg of melted ice will not displace exactly the same volume as 1 kg of seawater.
Still don't believe me?
Ok if you put 1kg of lead in a boat, it dispaces 1kg of water. However, if you throw the lead weight into the lake, the boat will rise by 1kg worth of lake water and the lake's water-level will drop by that 1kg of lakewater volume. This will be slightly offset by the 1kg of lead sitting on the bottom of the lake raising the lake level, but the volume of the 1kg of lead added is much smaller than the volume of the 1kg of lake water that was displaced when the lead was floating.
Density is only irrelavent as long as the different forms of mass still float.
What they are going to try to do is say that anything lawfully released under the GPL is really public domain, but SCO IP that was illegally released under the GPL by IBM is not released at all.
Of course that is ridiculous. There is NO "oops, you made it public domain" clause.
This does make sense in SCO's world though: since they must invalidate the GPL or else face willfull copyright infringement suits from Red Hat and any other of the hundreds of Linux copyright holders for distributing Linux without a license.
Yeah, I'd put money on genetic cures, I'd even give you 2:1 odds.
I don't want to belittle the danger posed by biological weapons, especially in this day and age where air travel can spead a pathogen far and wide in short order. Man continues to increase the efficiency and speed at which war can kill. However, the number of people killed by disease every day, during peace or war has historically dwarfed the number of people killed by war, so I think progress is more likely to have a larger impact there. Did you know 6,000 people are killed every year in the USA alone by tainted meat, far more than were killed on 9/11, yet we aren't spending billions of dollars to improve the purity of our food supply. Did you know more people died in the 1918-1919 flu pandemic than died in enemy action in WW1?
Now the biggest flaw in my argument is that most of the people in 3rd world countries that die of diease, die of preventable or curable diseases, but lack adequate medical care. So even if science develops "miracle" cures for malaria, dengue, the flu, AIDS, SARS, etc. why would that have any effect on poor Africans?
I'm not sure if that makes me an optimist or not, but it is a suckers bet, since if you win I probably won't be around to pay you.
"No, they have said that Caldera OpenLinux users have a license for "their IP". But ONLY for use in purchased copies of OpenLinux. So you can't transfer it to Red Hat."
How come no one in the mainstream media that is covering this issue has realized that SCO is in a self-contradictory position here. SCO CANNOT license "their IP" separately in the OpenLinux distribution without getting another non-GPL license to distribute from each of the hundreds of Linux copyright holders. When they claim ownership of part of Linux, they lose their GPL for the rest of Linux and are violating the separate copyrights of hundreds of Linux developers whenever they distribute OpenLinux.
SCO just can't have it both ways. They needed to IMMEDIATELY stop distributing any GPL'ed software the instant that they discovered that "their IP" had been (allegedly) misappropriated into Linux. But they didn't. Game over. Red Hat will win their case.
Well, one possiblility is that SCO will not only lose against IBM, but also Copyright infringment cases from Linux writers, and quietly go bankrupt. The execs will have already sold most of their stock and will just laugh all the way to the bank and they go find another company to buy that has some vague IP claim and do it again.
The SCO stockholders and Linux will have been the losers.
But that is just my opinion, and I'm in no position to know.
Well, days have passed so you will probably never see this, but what I meant was that you are wrong in thinking that using Linux can make you a defendant, IMHO and IANAL. If you just prefer *BSD, more power to ya, but there is no mechanism for SCO to sue users. Before that could happen, SCO would have to let Linux developers know where copyright infringement is occuring (if there really is any infringement that is) and that would allow Linux to be "cleaned" long before SCO could target users.
When it comes to copyright infringement, all developers and users need to do is a good-faith effort to comply with the law in order to avoid any penalties. The only people SCO can really get are people who might have (though I doubt it) claimed copyright over code they don't really own.
Add to all that the fact that SCO has either released the code itself by distributing Linux, or willfully violated the copyright all the hundreds of Linux writers and it becomes apparent that SCO is just issuing wild, unfounded threats.
"If you were trying to sway him, you might have considered going to him before you went off on your own and did something that you obviously knew he wouldn't appreciate."
It is almost always easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission. As it is, he got his way. If he had asked his boss first, he would not have.
That doesn't change the fact that he is wrong, it is just a reason to not ask first.
"I could see something where the phone company allowed you to place a message for all callers where you could say "no solicitors allowed" or whatever. See, that would be left in the hands of private citizens, and not the government, which is already WAY too big. It would only go to the government if seriously abused by the same person or group repeatedly."
You seem to be ignoring the fact that this government system is far cheaper and more efficient than the solutions that private interests have offered, plus the government solution works, and what the phone company offers doesn't. If you think "Big Government" is always a bad thing, and private interests who only want to make as much profit as possible are always better, then you are ignoring lots of facts that don't fit your viewpoint.
"But I have no right to prevent someone coming near my property and shouting in my direction "are you home?""
Sure you do, if that person's shouting were disturbing the peace. Your right to swing your arms ends at my nose, and all that. But that is just an analogy, and shouting from the sidewalk is not like calling my on my phone. Since the phone system exists because of government granted monopolies and right-of-ways, etc. why shouldn't we, the taxpayers, have a say in how the phone system gets used? I feel perfectly justified in asserting that I not be subjected to uninvited commercial phone calls on our public system to my home, even if Verizon "owns" the lines that come to my house.
"If you want a different kind of phone (e.g. one that only rings when the call comes from your whitelisted allowed callers), then buy one or build one yourself. But don't complain when you buy a phone and a phone service that are designed to allow anyone and everyone call you, and then this is exactly what happens."
Why should the current phone system allow anyone and everyone to call me? I think I would rather have a virtual "no soliciting" sign on my phone. There are enough people that would like this OPTION that we have convinced our congresscritters to change the way the public phone system works. This is a much more effective and efficient way for me to prevent myself from being harassed in my own home, which is something you have stated I have a right to do. The phone systems were created with heavy involvement from the government, because the communication infrastructure is key to the public good. So why shouldn't the government be involved in this?
But what case does RedHat have? The way I see it, SCO has violated the GPL by claiming proprietary ownership of parts of it. Therefore, they seem so be distributing Linux without a license, and therefore violating the copyright of Mr. Torvalds and Mr. Stallman and a few hundred others.
Maybe SCO is counting on NOT getting sued by the small copyright holders who don't have a big legal team or a litigation budget? That seems like a bad bet, considering that IBM and many other companies that have a large interest in Linux would probably be happy to contribute to a Linux legal fund.
Then again, maybe SCO just expects that the penalties for their copyright violation will come long after the executives have sold off their stock.
That is crap.
IBM is the only one responsible for IBM's actions. IBM is the only one with a contract with SCO. No one can "waive" responsibility onto Linux users.
"...or force Linux users to pay damages as well, depending on the wording of the licensing agreements in the distros being used."
Linux users are not party to the contract between IBM and SCO, so nothing in that contract can compell Linux users to do anything.
The most the courts can do to Linux is force them to remove code IF (and I just can't see how it could, but if) SCO does in fact own the rights to code submitted to Linux by IBM. Linux will live on no matter what and SCO can't touch users or developers.
Since a contract is being formed between PeopleSoft and their customers, (and I mean an honest to goodness contract, not some click-through agreement) it seems like there is no way for Oracle to avoid the obligation IF it were to buy PeopleSoft.
IANAL, but I can't see anything illegal or non-binding about it. It is just an extreme guarantee.
"If it's in fact true that there is no real user consent to the gator-driven pop-ups, then I'd tend to think that the owners of websites defaced by the popups have a reasonable claim for damages."
I don't see how these two things are related. WhenU isn't touching UHaul's server so they are not defacing it. UHaul doesn't have any rights to the user's computer and how they display the website. They cannot stop you from using a pop-up blocker or resizing the text, or loading only the text, or replacing some images with others of your choosing.
OTOH, if WhenU and Gator are being deceptive when they get consent from the user, then the user might have some recourse, but UHaul is SOL.
"Do you really trust IBM to look out for your interests? They're not into Linux for the goodness of it."
You are correct that IBM is not helping develop Linux just out of the kindness of their heart. Here is why they do it: IBM is a hardware company and hardware sells better if software is cheap/gratis/libre. Microsoft made much of it's money because cheap Intel hardware helped to sell it. Now Microsoft's share of a new computer has grown and grown as a percentage of the system coast, so IBM and other hardware vendors want to get rid of the Microsoft Tax with the expectation that lower system costs will increase the sales of hardware.
I agree with you though that you can only expect IBM to watch after its own interests, and sometimes those coincide with our interests.
Okay, Mr. Paranoid, here's a data point then: I am on a state no call list, and have been for 5 or 6 years now. I get called 3 or 4 times a year by two charities who pick up donations curbside because I have told them "You can call me next time you have a truck in the neighborhood." I get maybe one charity cold-call per year, and they don't call back when I tell them I'm not interested. Charities don't get a high-enough success rate on cold-calling to make it pay, so they just don't do it much. I get probably one survey call per month, or less. My wife gets several automated phone messages from politicians in the 3 or 4 days before each election, so a couple calls per night for about one week worth out of 104. I'm registered Green, so I don't get political party phone calls.
Bottom Line: IT WORKS and it is cheaper than commercial solutions. You're not giving them any information they don't already have. There is no downside.
That is okay, I buy things with cash so they don't get my phone number.
If it really is something that I want to register and give a phone number on, then they only get one call out of it, because they are still required by law to not call you if you request it. So you just remove their permission the first time they call.
They will be shooting themselves in the foot if they give you an incentive NOT to register the product.
My state list was $6 per year, rather than $4 per month, and it works. The Federal list is free.
The bummer I have experience with the caller-ID system like the one you are using is that the digital phone system here at work does dot provide caller-ID data on outgoing calls, so my Mom, who uses caller-ID, doesn't answer the phone when I call her from work, since I look like a telemarketer.
If the federal list works, you won't have to check caller-ID, you can just answer the phone.
You think SCO wants to have the GPL challanged? But if the GPL is invalid, then SCO has no permission from the hundreds of copyright holders of Linux to distribute it. I cannot imagine any way for SCO to avoid charges of willfull copyright infringement from any of the many authors of Linux.
And I think companies like Disney and the **AA's have paid for really very strict legislation against copyright infringment, which means that people like Linus have all the teeth here.
You are correct that the SCO vs. IBM breach of contract suit is not going to test the GPL. However the counter-suit that the hundreds of Linux copyright holders can file against SCO for willfull copyright violation (they continue to distribute copyrighted Linux while claiming closed ownership of some of the content) seems like a pretty strong demonstration of how the GPL protects Linux (and Linus) IANAL, but I think the courts take willfull copyright violation pretty seriously.
IANAL, but I don't see anything damaging in Linus' statement. As a coder, he needs to stay "clean" and not see anyone else's proprietary copyrighted code or code patents, so that what he writes in undeniabley his own. I think a judge is going to clearly understand the good reason for willfull ignorance. I think and hope a judge will see it is reasonable for Linus to expect contributors to only contribute their own code. The burden is on the contributor not to violate the laws. I think the judge will see the peer-review process Linus has in place as a reasonable effort to keep the code clean, and the communities willingness to remove any unclean code when notified by the patent or copyright holder as a good-faith effort.
Copyright law used to be this way, before the DMCA, and Linus' statement may have been made pre-DMCA since no date is provided in the article. Back then, it was legal to print anything that you had a reasonable belief was public domain. And if it turned out later that someone still owned the copyright, it wasn't a crime, you just had to stop printing it or license it/get permission after you found out.