Artists and musicians I know say the central issue isn't always money; it's the right of a creator to control the context of the work. For instance, if someone creates a song or picture, they may wish that it be experienced by an audience only within the context of the website they have also created. If you write and perform a play (or a song) for free, you may not want other theatre companies (musicians) to perform your work w/o permission.
The corrupt politicians will make multiple copies of ID cards and vote in multiple places.
Clearly, multiple votes on a single ID can be detected and invalidated by the central counting facility - all you need is a counter on each voting machine of how many times each ID has voted. (At each machine, you can prevent the second, third, and other attempts; at the central counting facility you can detect and invalidate multiple votes.) Of course, someone could try to invalidate large numbers of opposition voters by making fake multiple votes, but that would throw a lot of suspicion on the process and probably result in a re-vote. Plus, using printed ballot receipts by each person should allow an accurate semi-mechanical recount.
Where would this national hotline go? It's a poor country, nobody cares...
It's been said that the electoral commision cares a lot (as evidenced by the move to electronic voting) and will redo an election at the first hint of problems. So the hotline would go to them. The thing about corruption is that it creates a cycle of apathy, economic stagnation, and more corruption. Doing something active to break the cycle is the only way to solve it.
I share your frustration with poverty, corruption, and the neglect of the West. But India has great potential and a lot going for it already, so do not let despair immobilize you.
Okay, imagine you're a small magazine publisher who wants to put Linux on a CDROM to add value (probably just copying a distribution that's fully GPL'ed). Or a college kid passing out free CDROMs at a university computer club because they just started using Linux. Or somebody with DSL who downloaded a linux distro and puts it on a drive designated for FTP downloads (local mirror for the office due to fast connection). Or a local computer store owner who heard about Linux, tried it, loves it, and now offers support for $100 to their customers on hardware and software. None of these people can be expected to know the source beyond basic configuration, yet they are distributors. So in general, one cannot expect a distributor to check every possible line of code in a product they are distributing, especially since they are assuming in good faith that the product is legal in the first place.
A "major distribution vendor" can be expected to know the source code, but keep in mind that the people involved in this type of work (Linux experts) are probably not the same employees who worked originally on the SCO UNIX pieces which are claimed to be in violation. Companies consist of sometimes hundreds or thousands of employees who have specialized roles and probably work in different geographical offices with little communication. Again, the burden of the crime, if any, is on the original violator. In SCO's case, they likely exercised due diligence as a Linux distributor by selling an adequate package of Linux (which isn't warranted anyway). The concept of due diligence implies a reasonable level of care in performing one's functions, but it is not the job of any entity to verify that they are not being cheated in extremely subtle ways.
Now, if SCO can be proved to have knowingly released their proprietary code under GPL, then certainly that would greatly weaken their case. But you and I don't know the details of the case, the internals of either company, nor the lines of code in question, so let's not jump to conclusions, eh?
You can't reasonably expect every Linux distributor to read the entire kernel source. Unlawfully putting protected code into a GPL product is the illegal action; subsequently redistributing Linux does not mean justify the prior illegal action.
Imagine if I stole a diamond ring from you, and then I cleverly buried it in a treasure chest which I then passed back to you. You sell the chest to someone else without combing through all the jewels; does that mean that you "authorized" my theft after the fact?
So the Caldera bit may be irrelevant. Don't get me wrong, I think it is asinine to try to charge licensing fees to existing Linux users after the fact, and that is probably legally stupid. But the redistribution bit smells like IBM FUD to me. Don't let emotions oversimplify a situation into Good Guy / Bad Guy.
That's sad to hear. I don't think that the type of voting mechanism will improve that type of situation, however --
Hey wait, here's an idea! What about having permanent voting stations throughout the country, and allowing people (with their ID cards) to vote at ANY location for any election that they are eligible to vote in? Then someone from your grandmother's village could travel to another village to vote, away from the power of the local corrupt politician. Of course, police could block village exits / transportation on voting day, but that could be remedied by having a national hotline to anonymously report abuse, dispatching national police (or UN observers) to monitor a polling station.
In general, lots of posters are looking at (a subset of) a law and saying, "well gee, that means I could do this and that!" While that is good critical thinking in general, most of the strange potential effects are curtailed by common sense and other aspects of law. So for instance, while under the DMCA you could attempt to shut down any number of web sites by making frivolous copyright infringement claims, that behavior would be pretty obvious and would be penalized by a court.
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Artists and musicians I know say the central issue isn't always money; it's the right of a creator to control the context of the work. For instance, if someone creates a song or picture, they may wish that it be experienced by an audience only within the context of the website they have also created. If you write and perform a play (or a song) for free, you may not want other theatre companies (musicians) to perform your work w/o permission.
It's been said that the electoral commision cares a lot (as evidenced by the move to electronic voting) and will redo an election at the first hint of problems. So the hotline would go to them. The thing about corruption is that it creates a cycle of apathy, economic stagnation, and more corruption. Doing something active to break the cycle is the only way to solve it.
I share your frustration with poverty, corruption, and the neglect of the West. But India has great potential and a lot going for it already, so do not let despair immobilize you.
A "major distribution vendor" can be expected to know the source code, but keep in mind that the people involved in this type of work (Linux experts) are probably not the same employees who worked originally on the SCO UNIX pieces which are claimed to be in violation. Companies consist of sometimes hundreds or thousands of employees who have specialized roles and probably work in different geographical offices with little communication. Again, the burden of the crime, if any, is on the original violator. In SCO's case, they likely exercised due diligence as a Linux distributor by selling an adequate package of Linux (which isn't warranted anyway). The concept of due diligence implies a reasonable level of care in performing one's functions, but it is not the job of any entity to verify that they are not being cheated in extremely subtle ways.
Now, if SCO can be proved to have knowingly released their proprietary code under GPL, then certainly that would greatly weaken their case. But you and I don't know the details of the case, the internals of either company, nor the lines of code in question, so let's not jump to conclusions, eh?
Imagine if I stole a diamond ring from you, and then I cleverly buried it in a treasure chest which I then passed back to you. You sell the chest to someone else without combing through all the jewels; does that mean that you "authorized" my theft after the fact?
So the Caldera bit may be irrelevant. Don't get me wrong, I think it is asinine to try to charge licensing fees to existing Linux users after the fact, and that is probably legally stupid. But the redistribution bit smells like IBM FUD to me. Don't let emotions oversimplify a situation into Good Guy / Bad Guy.
Hey wait, here's an idea! What about having permanent voting stations throughout the country, and allowing people (with their ID cards) to vote at ANY location for any election that they are eligible to vote in? Then someone from your grandmother's village could travel to another village to vote, away from the power of the local corrupt politician. Of course, police could block village exits / transportation on voting day, but that could be remedied by having a national hotline to anonymously report abuse, dispatching national police (or UN observers) to monitor a polling station.
In general, lots of posters are looking at (a subset of) a law and saying, "well gee, that means I could do this and that!" While that is good critical thinking in general, most of the strange potential effects are curtailed by common sense and other aspects of law. So for instance, while under the DMCA you could attempt to shut down any number of web sites by making frivolous copyright infringement claims, that behavior would be pretty obvious and would be penalized by a court.