Re: Re[2]: [OT] Linux and GTE

[tom jeeves foneybone com]

On Tue, 28 Sep 1999, Jim Morris wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> 
> Hello Jack,
> 
> Tuesday, September 28, 1999, 5:45:23 AM, you wrote:

If I might make a comment here.  There is a well known legal action
against the phone Companies some years ago.  They used to try to control
how many phones you had on your system by monitoring the current used to
ring your phone.  If you paid for one phone, you could not have two.  They
got sued, finely, and that came to an end.  They CANNOT control what you
do with your phone service.  They own it up to your wall, and the law
controls what you can put on the wire, of course, but how you use that
service is up to you.  You pay for it.

This smells an lot like the same thing.  You pay for the service, and what
you do with it is up to you.  That is, what OS or equipment you have
behind the wall.  Yes, they have a right to control what you put on the
wire - for example, if you are running a commercial load and paying for a
non-commercial, but if your running Linux and they say you can't and cut
you off, just drag that old (early 60's, I believe) case out and send it
to them.  If that fails, write (or have a layer write) a nice letter and
look into legal compensation for you hastle.

> Anyway, he proceeded with the install, but told me that if I *ever*
> call in to Bellsouth.net's tech support, I must tell them I am using
> NT Workstation. And he further said that I was subject to having my
> ADSL turned off if they though I was running Linux or NT Server.  Off

My two bits...

================================================
Red Hat Linux!   Where I really went today!
Please send personal replies to:
                         thos scn org