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Probably the most important part is the difference between regulations and laws. Instead of congress passing a law requiring xyz. Congress passes a law giving the executive branch the power to regulate something and a goal. Then the executive branch decides how to reach that goal by requiring xyz. The idea is to give the executive branch more power to make rapid changes in regulations to adjust to current conditions. In truth it's usually an excuse for congress to avoid making the hard decisions, and instead require the executive branch to make them.

"Posting derogatory messages about sensitive subjects on newsgroups and chat rooms to bait users into responding."
Notice how the definition says nothing about whether the message is 'right' or 'wrong'. GoogleGuy was definitely not trying to bait others, and his post had a lot about the inner workings of google that I didn't know about. Perhaps you already knew all that (though I kinda doubt it), perhaps 'informative' is subjective. But 'troll' is not.

As pointed out earlier in this post, when Linus says something about Linux, or Bill Gates about MS, or GoogleGuy or Sergei Brin about Google, it is rational to consider it more informative than if just anybody said it. Even if it contains speculation about the future it is more likely to be fact in future, just because they're saying it. Even if you disagree with them, it behooves you to listen to them because they likely have greater leverage than you do. And mod'ing what they say -1 does everyone a disservice because then nobody will read it, and others who agree with you will not be able to 'know the enemy'.

I know all this is off-topic. But one spreads the word..

Maybe they're saying that mono makes these developers nauseous.

To elaborate on this, the 'precedent' system in which past rulings form a legal ground for deciding future cases is part of common law, which as the link indicates is generally found in English speaking countries.

The rest of Europe, including Norway, basically uses civil law, in which in the end only the written law counts.

To elaborate on this, the 'precedent' system in which past rulings form a legal ground for deciding future cases is part of common law, which as the link indicates is generally found in English speaking countries.

The rest of Europe, including Norway, basically uses civil law, in which in the end only the written law counts.

sorry, thats completely inaccurate

the 7100 was "Sagan" (the 6100 was "Piltdown Man" and the 8100 was "Cold Fusion") [link]

sosumi the system sound was included in system 7, several years before the 7100 was ever created (that shipped with 7.5) [link]

Really? The informer went by the name rouge ? That's pretty funny, and points out the hazards of trying to use a language in which you aren't native just because it sounds/looks cool. Kinda like those people who get random Chinese characters tattooed on them.

True, I was confused about your use of the terms "mechanics" and "material".

Game material is story content. That's what the monopoly junior example was about - it's the monopoly story content, the titles, the text, the character, the branding. That is copyrightable

"Color" like that is easily replaceable while preserving the mechanics.

Game mechanics are patentable.

Unlike copyrights and trademarks, patents expire. How long has the tile crossword game been around?

Using a slashdot user's rule of thumb to identify appropriate grammar is like using Michael Jackson to watch your kids after school.

For one thing, I have checked this rule of thumb against other authorities on the English language. Notably, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law disagree with you, preferring copyrighted (not *copywritten).

As the Chicago Manual of Style, Strunk and White and Fowler's Modern English all clearly agree, the past tense of the verb "to copyright" is "copywritten."

Are those three references online where I can search them and view their full text? I even registered at CMOS's web site, but its searchable index displays only paragraph numbers, not full text. The latest public domain edition of The Elements of Style does not seem to list a section giving the principal parts of "to copyright". I am not in a position to purchase books before I reply to your comment.

The patent [on falling tetramino games] is Russian, and was covered under international patent law.

Even if there is Russian patent, I thought that a patent enforceable in the United States had to have a counterpart with a U.S. patent number, unlike copyrights. For instance, the German patent on MP3 encoding has a U.S. counterpart, namely U.S. Patent 5,579,430. Where does 35 USC state that a United States citizen residing in the United States and operating a web site from the United States can be sued for violating a patent granted in the Soviet Union (and presumably still enforceable in its former republics)? My understanding of the applicable patent treaties is that 1. filing a patent application in one country establishes priority of invention under the Paris Convention, giving an inventor 12 months to file counterpart applications in other countries, and 2. the Patent Cooperation Treaty has standardized the patent application process, letting an inventor file in more than one country with one application.

If you would research this in good faith

Would you please help me come up with appropriate Google keywords?

The US Patent and Trade Office doesn't maintain foreign trademarks.

But it does maintain trademarks registered internationally through the Madrid System, as you allude. "TETRIS" is in fact registered in the States, but Elorg/TTC's competitors can merely change their products' name to get around that.

Scrabble is a dictionary English word. Apparently it's trademarkable regardless. Anyone know what other criteria the USPTO considers?

The Indian government has a comprehensive program to practically make Hindi its national language. Officially, Hindi is its national language, but not all non-Hindi states (like Tamil Nadu) like that.

Anyway, the wikipedia article has almost nothing about language conflicts in India, so here's my supporting evidence:

As drafted, English ceased to exist as an official language (on par with Hindi) in 1965, after which it was intended to continue as an "associate additional official language" until such time that a duly appointed committee can decide on a full-scale transition to Hindi, based on a periodic review. However, due to protests from some states like Tamil Nadu where there is low Hindi penetration, the "twin language" system is still in vogue. Due to rapid industrialization, and a bustling multinational influence in the economy, English continues to be a popular and influential means of communication in the government and day-to-day business, and moves to replace it have effectively been shelved.

"sensitive" is a somewhat-meaningless modifier to "unclassified". the basic levels are:

unclassified
unclassified + sensitive
-----
confidential
secret
top secret

other modifiers exist, including "secret/special compartmentalized information" added on to "top secret" to make TS/SCI, and "special access programs" or SAPs.

read here for more

don't let the nattering neybobs of negativism here at /. get you down

"nattering nabobs of negativism" -- Spiro Agnew

Or did you mean "Non illegitimi /. carborundum?" (No, I don't know any Latin. Someone please correct.)

our comparatively recent development of language, civilization, writing, and forrays into science, transportation, communications technologies ... along with the Drake equation and Kurzweil's Law, (aka "the law of accelerating returns")

it would seem most likely that we'd be holding down the extremely dim, low end of any communication with aliens within our foreseeable future

and any visibility & interaction with us likely would be moderated & non-disruptive so as to not invalidate observations under the Dian Fossey, Jane Goodall theory of LGM ;-) / :-(

"Evolution is bad science, simple fact."

Oh? How so? Could you be specific?

The problem, though, is that the community of crazies will do anything to protect their "religion" and so the truth never really gets out."

There are always people who are so in love with their worldview that they can't accept any sense impressions that contradict it, and will misinterpret their sense impressions as needed so as to keep their worldview intact. This is why Science requires independent confirmation and peer review, so that, when someone's claims are contradicted by evidence, those contradictions are brought to light.

"There are so many fallacies and outright lies in text books about evolution, many of which have been proven wrong as long as a hundred years ago,..."

Please list some of them. If these errors exist, I want them out of our textbooks with even greater fervor than you do.

"... yet the establishment is hesitant to remove them because they have nothing to replace it with."

Which "establishment" are you speaking of?

"One of the best examples of this is Ernst Haekel's drawings of embryos."

You are referring to the idea of embryonic recapitulation theory, and yes, if you have a textbook that claims this theory as credible, then that should be corrected immediately. It is an old idea, and not one accepted by modern evolutionary theorists. Indeed, this is a case of Science finding and correcting its mistakes.

"Kids are told on one page that fossils are dated by the rocks they are found in, and then on the next page that the rocks are dated by the fossils that they're found in - ..."

Do you have a specific textbook in mind? Also, are you saying that you don't think that geological depth, and the strata we find, are a way of determining age?

"... and we wonder why kids today are confused."

Kids have always been confused at one point or another. That's good... it means they're thinking, and asking questions, just as they should be.

As to other lies that have been used to promote evolution at one time or another, we have Java Man, Piltdown Man, Lucy, the beaks of finches, and the colour of moths, and beneficial mutation, which has never been observed."

Sigh. It is becoming clear to me that you aren't objecting to evolutionary theory, but rather to your misunderstandings of evolutionary theory. I strongly suggest you go to this site, and read some of their FAQs. It will go a long way towards correcting your misunderstandings.

"I have no problem with evolutionary theory being taught to my children in school."

Really??? I find th

YOU should learn correct use of the ENGLISH language. Virii is the CORRECT plural form of virus. It is a VERY common misconception that the plural is "viruses", which is AWFUL English.

You are wrong.

To summarise, "virii" isn't the plural of "virus" because "vir" has nothing to do with "virus". Or, even more bluntly, "virii" simply isn't a valid word.

I don't know about "Unixii", but truely, [...]

(The irony here is almost palpable).

[...] it seems like the best way to speak of multiple Unix environments with one word.

Maybe if you want to pretend you know Latin it does, but *correct English speakers* will use the term "unixes".

Look it up, there are quite a few words that use "i" or "ii" at the end to make them plural.

Indeed, there are. But neither "virus" nor "unix" is one of them.

USAGE NOTE Traditionally, many writers have used man and words derived from it to designate any or all of the human race regardless of sex. In fact, this is the oldest use of the word. In Old English the principal sense of man was "a human," and the words wer and wyf (or wæpman and wifman) were used to refer to "a male human" and "a female human" respectively. But in Middle English man displaced wer as the term for "a male human," while wyfman (which evolved into present-day woman) was retained for "a female human." Despite this change, man continued to carry its original sense of "a human" as well, resulting in an asymmetrical arrangement that many criticize as sexist.

I don't think that's the pattern, if there even is one. A search did not reveal a "Mount Chicago", "Mount Detroit" nor a corresponding mountain for many of these Windows codenames. For a while starting with Win95 it seemed like they were going with cities, but that didn't last either.

For example, head over to SueASpammer, and you will see right off the bat he calls for people to

1. set a trap
2. sue

Reading a little further, he implies that people should falsify their identity when OPTING IN TO AN EMAIL LIST, and then later using that as leverage (e.g. say "Who the hell is Joe Blow? My name is John Public). I'd have to look into any applicable law, but in my dictionary, that constitutes fraud.

Number three, if you read Omega's suit, they allege that Mumma did not comply with the provided opt-out procedure, but instead called them and almost immediately started threatening them. Mumma allegedly would not provide his information so that they might comply with his "request" to be removed. Instead, he was belligerent, insulting, and threatening. This may not be illegal, but it is certainly in poor taste and is a mark against him. Lawyers and judges don't want to deal with fanatics, for the most part - they want to deal with reasonable people that have a legitimate claim.

Number four, since Mumma's request for removal was NOT VALID via his own stupid actions, and since he allegedly SIGNED UP for this "spam," via indirect admission at SueASpammer.com procedures, this is not a valid claim under CAN-SPAM. Furthermore, this also invalidates Mumma's claim under Oklahoma law, see 776.5.3 at SpamLaws OK.

I would not at all be surprised to see Omega et al. come out of this not only unscathed, but smelling like a rose.

Hydrides currently achieve volumetric energy densities 50% better than liquid hydrogen (and safer than gasoline). There's no mention of this on the page you've linked -- but then the writer clearly has a pro-gasoline axe to grind.

That's because it's a big fat lie.

Volumetric energy density of liquid hydrogen:
2600 Wh/l
Volumetric energy density of lithium ion batteries:
~250-300 Wh/L
Volumetric energy density of Nickel metal hydride batteries:
100 Wh/L
Volumetric energy density of Lead acid batteries:
150 Wh/L


(Small print: I had to make the assumption that this guy was talking about nimh batteries. If he wasn't, he still doesn't deserve a +5 Insightful because "hydrides" refers to an entire frickin class of chemicals and doesn't even give a clue what you're even doing with them.)

I think there are three factors coming into play, here:

They can make forking sound bad,

Forking actually can be bad for application developers,

Appeal to Hobbesian bias.

First and foremost, forking is an issue that not many people understand, and is therefore subject to demonization in the press. Since the objective of the authors of these FUD pieces is to make people want to not use Linux, they will pick on whatever aspect they can make sound bad. In this article, they never talk about why forking is bad, but they certainly talk about it as if it were a bad thing. And anyone who is paying attention to Linux has to admit that yes, forking is not only likely, but ongoing. This is seen as confirmation of the supposed problem.

That aside, forking does make life a little more difficult for developers of applications which would like to target multiple Linux distributions. Files are located in different places, init scripts are organized differently, different libraries or modules are installed (or not installed), and when some of the same libraries are installed, they are often different versions. Especially for shrink-wrapped software companies, which are accustomed to the relatively monolithic specifications of Windows (despite its own forking) or MacOS or even Solaris systems, these can make targetting the Linux market more difficult.

Also, I think we can blame Thomas Hobbes for infecting the world with his "centralized good, anarchy bad, mmmkay?" meme. Especially among the more highly educated, Hobbesian philosophy is accepted in America and outright embraced in England and other countries whose educational systems have been heavily influenced by England. Even those who have never had formal schooling in Hobbesian philosophy get exposed to Hobbesian bias, (e.g., when a news reporter talks about the "anarchy" in countries where there is social upheaval and widespread random violence, the listener is left with the impression that that is what anarchy (literally, "without center") means, which is right in line with the Hobbesian notion that anarchy inevitably causes social upheavel and violence). So to thinkers of Hobbesian bent, two Linuxes is necessarily, axiomatically, worse than one Linux, because it creates two "centers" for Linux. All things good come from having one strong center, according to Hobbes.

Anyway, just my two cents.

-- TTK, Anarcho-capitalist with biases of his own

Forwards this time!

No, copyright does not cover the "idea" which your song expressed, it covers the exact embodiment of your song. When I convert your song to another embodiment I'm making a derivative work of your embodiment, which is why it is also covered by your copyright.

The copyright isn't about the paper I put ink on or the canvas I painted on or the floppy disk I saved my thesis on then stapled to the submission form. It is about the text in the floppy, the image on the canvas that matters. Your logic is flawed (calling a copy in a different format "derivative work" indeed. The term is applied to works where you add some small value such as a translation or typesetting or performance or additional text or notes, where the original work makes up a basis for the derivative too large to dismiss as fair use or quoting. Ripping your CD to mp3s adds no literary or other artistic merit to the work, it simply copies it to newer, more convenient "paper" with "better" ink) yet the outcome of your thought process is still valid: the song/picture/movie/document is still copyrighted.

Yes, you are responsible for the damage an mp3 does to my equipment.

So if you download an Aerosmith mp3 from kazaa, and your ipod freezes up, you're going to sue Aerosmith? You ignore the fact that beyond my song being present, there is no control over the container with certain CC licenses that allow re-encoding or re-distributing (hell, with "All Rights Reserved" copyright in effect, they still can't crush all illegal copying. Are you going to go to court and insist that you thought the mp3 was an authorized Aerosmith good being given away by Aerosmith for free because copying is illegal so therefore the mp3 must be legal?). If A records a song, B re-encodes it in a malicious format and sends it to you, you can try suing A, but the judge will call you to the bench, slap you, tell you to sue B, and dismiss the case. If you somehow win, A will appeal, and appleals court judges slap harder.

present something as factually correct when it is not you open yourself up to litigation if your claims cause damage.

Yet there are millions of idiots in this world all claiming things that are flagrantly, even intentionally incorrect. Yet aside from claiming incorrect things about someone (ie, libel or slander) I don't see a lot of lawsuits over how Jane told Billy she had a headache that night but was really just turned off by the fact that he ate a garlic sandwitch after dinner. If I have a page reading "On Formally Decidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems" consisting of a thesis that at every turn attempts to disprove Godel's law, with no text beyond the title and the body of the thesis and a CC license at the bottom, with no other statement indicating that in reality, I stapled my Mathematics PhD to my application form and failed to get my Doctorate, can you sue me for that? Even though I make no claims claiming I am a math whiz? Does the CC license matter? What if I marked it "All Rights Reserved"?

A formular for making styrofoam cups is indeed an invention Yes, and I explicitly stated that inventions are separate, as they can blow up and kill people. Shakespeare does not blow up and kill people, no matter how long you cook it. Brittney Spears does not blow up and kill people.
Mona Lisa secretly blows up when noone is looking, the rest of the time she smirks about what she's getting away with. The formula for TNT can be used to blow up and kill people. See the difference? Literary work, musical work, artistic work, invention.

And now we're on rat poison on a playground which has nothing to do with copyright, and even less to do with creative commons licenses for copyrighted works.

without ever really stopping to think that that's not really what "free" means at all.

Then think about this: there at least two mainly known definitions of free: positive freedom and negative freedom.

The GPL follows the first one. Libertarians (i.e.e right wing people) follow the second. That's why you don't understand the mismatch, because there isn't one meaning for freedom.

And as positive > negative, *I* would say that GPL has more freedom than BSD.

without ever really stopping to think that that's not really what "free" means at all.

Then think about this: there at least two mainly known definitions of free: positive freedom and negative freedom.

The GPL follows the first one. Libertarians (i.e.e right wing people) follow the second. That's why you don't understand the mismatch, because there isn't one meaning for freedom.

And as positive > negative, *I* would say that GPL has more freedom than BSD.

1. People will go for good enough over better for convienience and/or price reasons.
2. Fiber to the premises is an attempt at better...yet...
3. The bells are institutions.
4. Institutions are lothe to change and will fight it tooth and nail; institutions, once established, are primarily interested in perpetuating themselves.
5. Current bell company DSL offerings fit this pattern;
   1. They really aren't trying to canabalize what they offer businesses (excessively expensive T1 lines with QOS while much cheaper lines with poor QOS...running over much of the same hardware).
   2. The bells also fight sharing the line with anyone, and do not offer even 1/2 of the same speed connection when DSL is provisioned by some other group.
6. Network speeds are (roughly);
   1. Wired connections;
   2. 56K modem - (5.33 kB/s)
   3. DS1/T1 - 192.5 kB/s
   4. 10BT - 1.25 MB/s
   5. 100BT - 12.5 MB/s
   6. 1000BT - 125 MB/s (half duplex)
   7. 1000BT - 250 MB/s (full duplex)
   8. Fiber - 100-200 MB/s

      Wireless connections;

   9. Bluetooth 1.1 - 125 kB/s
   10. 802.11b - 1.375 MB/s
   11. Bluetooth 2 - 2 to 12 MB/s
   12. 802.11g/a - 6.75 MB/s
   13. 802.16a - 70 MB/s (30 mile range; licenced and unlicenced)

       CO/WAN connections;

   14. OC48 - 306 MB/s (reasonable multi-site corporate use)
   15. OC192 - 1.250 GB/s
7. Look at #12 above: With WiMax (802.16a) hubs scattered around, why bother with a wired (or fiber) distribution system for anything?
8. Tie that in with cheap VOIP "cell" phones...and there will be panic in both the cell and POTS providers.

T1 was fine for many corporations 10 years ago. Many still use T1 lines...while wireless hubs are sprouting up either formally or informally. Driving around right now, it's trivial to get a wireless connection in many areas.

Say you are a co-operative group like Seattle Wireless, and you get some WiMax (or other equipment), why not just disconnect mostly or entirely from POTS and go peer to peer? Maybe you'll be able to offer the service for $10/month...after all, they are doing it now at lower speeds.

If you were a bell executive, what would you do? What would you do to keep your stock from tanking when WiMax (or any other tech) eats your customer base?

Answers.com is violating the license in which some content (particularly photographs) are included in the wikipedia. For instance, the I gave a license to the following image Lemonade to the Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons share alike license. It is used in the article Lemonade.

This image is reproduced in answers.com: lemonade without any mention of the author (me). That is against the license I placed on the image. It is linked from the article Lemonade.

Answers.com is violating the license in which some content (particularly photographs) are included in the wikipedia. For instance, the I gave a license to the following image Lemonade to the Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons share alike license. It is used in the article Lemonade.

This image is reproduced in answers.com: lemonade without any mention of the author (me). That is against the license I placed on the image. It is linked from the article Lemonade.

Answers.com search plugin for Firefox

Nonetheless, I much prefer the definition for juxtapose given by answers.com. Short, concise and to the point. Remember, it's the quality of words that counts, not the quantity.

You'd put a young hen through their tinfoil hat? Would that be frozen or thawed?

Compulsive word-checkers? Hey, that's nice. I must check it out. Now!

If it weren't for OS X and Windows, what interfaces would KDE and GNOME developers strive to imitate?

"window, icon, menu, pointing device"

See Xerox Star (aka Dandelion) GUI.

CC.

If it weren't for OS X and Windows, what interfaces would KDE and GNOME developers strive to imitate?

"window, icon, menu, pointing device"

See Xerox Star (aka Dandelion) GUI.

CC.

oops.... i guess it never occured to me MDs were always using that. i know they have revised the MD format a few times, but as i now see it is ATRAC, ATRAC2, ATRAC3 etc. interesting... thanks!

http://www.answers.com/topic/atrac

...why is Gary Kasparov, an Armenian brought up in Baku, Azerbaijan and originally called Garri Kimovich Wainshteinborn, getting involved in Russian politics?

http://www.answers.com/topic/garry-kasparov

At a time when the prime interest rate is less than 3% and banks pay less than 1% interest, charging 19-24% interest IS EXTORTION

Actually the term for it is usury.

The definition fro me relates to an immoral, rather than illegal, charge of interest on money, as many religions prohibit usury, for the reasons that are becoming increasingly evident in the credit card business.

I wouldn't classify bank loans and mortages as usury, but I certainly would the the credit card, as the practices by the companies, esp. concerning the contracts, as deceptive.

Health insurance is another area that flat out reeks, and is beyond the scope of this thread. Just don't get sick. Because even if you do have health insurance, as you pointed out, it still could be a crushing blow.

It's stunning really, that with a report released that listed 50% of bankruptcies due to people not able to pay their health care bills, congress then passes a bankruptcy bill that ignores completely this statistic. You would think that they would work on reforming health care instead.

Unfortunately, I am not optimistic about changes. You can only hope that the "values voter" realizes the shortcomings in their choices at the polls. Also, there has to be meaningful third party candidates besides republican/democrat for there to be changes.

I also think that if you call yourself a republican, you need to take a hard look at the twin deficits and ask yourself if that is "fiscal conservatism."

So much as music is concerned, I suggest you buy all your music used. The RIAA hates this as they don't see a dime. I'm sure that they would want to do away with this if they could. Buying the music used is a way to enjoy music guilt free.

This is crazy. The strange thing is that Austrilia is a break off of England, so I didn't think that they would allow such a thing to happen.

Stop sarcastically saying "Bush regime." You've never experienced life in a REAL regime or seen what one does.

The definition of regime is "a system of managing government; a form of government." So what is a "REAL" regime?

(PS: There are over a hundred thousand people dead in the last three years because of the current government -- that's pretty impressive, even by tinpot dictator standards...)

It's "mea culpa", not "mia colpa".

Google outsourced to answers.com
http://www.answers.com/google

Sorry, I didn't mean crime as in the usual sense of something that is against the law, just something more along the lines of, say, definition 3 or 4 here as something that is just a wrong.

It would appear from this site that it is about 5,081 (25,000' / 4.92') new VW beetles stacked on top of each other.

That my be what you consider journalism, but it's not what I consider it to be. I believe in the first amendment and that keeping secrets, any secrets, is bad for democracy and the free market. I also think the New York Times would publish it if it was new worthy, even if it was a trade secret. They've done it before.

here's how webster defines these terms:

Main Entry: journal
Pronunciation: 'j&r-n&l
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, service book containing the day hours, from Middle French, from journal, adjective, daily, from Latin diurnalis, from diurnus of the day, from dies day -- more at DEITY
1 a : a record of current transactions; especially : a book of original entry in double-entry bookkeeping b : an account of day-to-day events c : a record of experiences, ideas, or reflections kept regularly for private use d : a record of transactions kept by a deliberative or legislative body e : LOG 3, 4
2 a : a daily newspaper b : a periodical dealing especially with matters of current interest
3 : the part of a rotating shaft, axle, roll, or spindle that turns in a bearing

Main Entry: journalist
Pronunciation: -n&l-ist
Function: noun
1 a : a person engaged in journalism; especially : a writer or editor for a news medium b : a writer who aims at a mass audience
2 : a person who keeps a journal

Main Entry: journalism
Pronunciation: 'j&r-n&l-"i-z&m
Function: noun
1 a : the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media b : the public press c : an academic study concerned with the collection and editing of news or the management of a news medium
2 a : writing designed for publication in a newspaper or magazine b : writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation c : writing designed to appeal to current popular taste or public interest

while a blog could be considered a journal, it appears less so that a blogger could be considered a journalist that practices journalism. interestingly, the definition differs when looking at different english language dictionaries. take for example this one which would seem to exclude most types of blogging without question due to the limits of the media listed...

FYI ;)

Netcraft confirms DNS is dying!

Slashdot trolling phenomena

Why does everyone keep saying this only on Slashdot? At least Google doesn't find anything when I do, "KHTML Apple mangle"

If I look for "KHTML Apple contributions" I at least find this, which specifically says, "We still have not finished merging in the fist batch of patches.

No this is not because of incompitance on ANYONES part, but because of the lack of time and resources. We already broke BC in KJS just to support apples changes because they where that awesome. Its just these things take time. So if you anxious, get out your text editor and lend a hand!"

Searching for "KHTML Apple patches" gets you this, which says, "pple also tends to submit their changes in large patches that incorporate a great number of changes, in some cases leaving code to do with future feature additions barely documented, making it difficult for the KDE developers to sort through and incorporate the changes. However the KDE project has managed to incorporate a number of changes that have added features and improved KHTML's rendering speed."

So Apple isn't exactly making it easy for KHTML folk, but they aren't, as you say, "useless and cannot be put back into the main project." Rather, "the KDE project has managed to incorporate a number of changes that have added features and improved KHTML's rendering speed."

Unless you are a KDE developer? I know I'm not, but I've never heard these allegations except in Slashdot.

The is the first time I've heard anyone say that slander can be true.

What are you talking about?

Nope. That's just what people tell you. Stop listening to people who can only fight strawmen.

The music industry is less than 100 years old. Their need is gone, yet believe it or not music will survive without them.

Or will it? As long as the incumbent music publishers hold copyrights on almost every possible melody, this will still create a chilling effect against production of music outside of the license-pooling in-group called the "music industry".

Just like diamonds are a new facet of love, love predated the need to pay "2 months salary" for a love rock, and love will keep going after the diamond industry.

Damn right. The diamond mining industry has about until the 2020s, when Apollo Diamond's patents on chemical vapor deposition will begin to expire, and competition will drive down the price of diamond to compete with cubic zirconia. However, unlike patents on diamond production, copyrights on popular music don't expire.