Not sure if anyone has been following the SCO copyright issues lately, but there is new stuff on slashdot today:
here.
Bottom line is that there is a "General Public License" (aka GPL) which many many open source software projects use. To be brief, it says "you can use this software/code, but it must remain open and if you use parts of it in other projects, that also must be open". It guarantees that if you give to the community, your intellectual property remains in the community.
Among the myriad points, the GPL allows a user to make
unlimited copies of the software (as opposed to normal commercial software that always allows consumers the right to make
one backup).. Copyright law pretty much forces commercial software to allow single-copying for backup, but in stating that, SCO is claiming that
any contractual agreement that allows users to make more than one copy [e.g. the GPL]
violates the US copyright law and is thus null and void..