Treefinder Revokes Software License For Users In Immigrant-Friendly Nations

dotancohen writes: The author of bioinformatics software Treefinder is revoking the license to his software for researchers working in eight European countries because he says those countries allow too many immigrants to cross their borders, effective 1 October. The author states, "Immigration to my country harms me, it harms my family, it harms my people. Whoever invites or welcomes immigrants to Europe and Germany is my enemy."

Comments

What a dork

[Anonymous Coward]

What a dork

Oh, that's ironic

[PvtVoid]

Racist gene sequencing software.

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[ultranova]

75% of these so-called refugees are military age men.

Thus giving them a particularly pressing reason to escape before one warlord or another drafts them. Or do you perhaps think ISIS/Boko Haram/whatever are staffed entirely with volunteers?

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

The petition to cancel Oktoberfest is a fake created by someone attempting to aggravate tensions against the refugees which gathered far more attention than it deserves.

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[bickerdyke]

[citation needed]

I never heard anything about that Octoberfest story from any serious sources.

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[Twinbee]

Information is not racist in itself. If it turns out that gene research shows that some types of people are more intelligent or more creative than others, so what? Should we censor that? Heck, even people WITHIN a particular culture tend to be more intelligent, faster or stronger than others within that culture. That's not under doubt, but it's how we can act on that information that determines whether it's racist or not.

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[PopeRatzo]

75% of these so-called refugees are military age men.

I'll bet about 75% of Slashdot readers are military age men.

Makes you think.

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Sources, you racist idiot?

There will be crimes and misconduct among refugees for sure. That is a statistical certainty when you have hundreds of thousands of people. But considering the hardships and unimaginable emotional stress that refugees have had to endure, I would say the vast majority of them are remarkably peaceful and calm.

Almost haf of Syrian refugees have high school or university education. Also the vast majority of them are not interested at all in fundamentalist Islam, but are progressive and simply want to lead a free life of opportunity, like the rest of us. That's why they are coming to Europe. If they agreed with fanatics like ISIS they would join them and not walk over to the "enemy".

The problem of morons like you is that for you every muslim is a fanatic, because all you hear in the news are associations of terrorism with Islam. In reality, the majority of muslims are normal people like you and me that want to live and let live. The Islamists are a much bigger threat and pain in the ass to them than they are for us, because they are the ones being killed and driven from their homes.

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[afidel]

No, only 21.8% of the refuges are fighting age men. Try again you racist troll.

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[sunderland56]

Only a complete fucking moron would think that this mass immigration is anything but a future crime and terrorist attack in the making.

Yep, mass immigration - that's what America is founded on. And look how it turned out.

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[UnknowingFool]

And what side is that? There are two main factions but many groups: There is the government of Syria and the opposition. However, the opposition is composed of many groups including ISIL and other terrorist groups. I find it ironic that GOP members complained that Obama hasn't supplied arms to the opposition; they were complaining that Obama didn't arm terrorists.

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[Cederic]

Sources, you racist idiot?

I'm curious, what did the AC say that's racist or that suggests that they are?

Stop throwing around emotionally loaded terms to try and avoid debating real issues.

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[devman]

It also happens to be fake. Generated to stoke tension. The WSJ article you mention does not support your claim, it says nothing about immigrants wanting to cancel Oktoberfest.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://m.snopes.com/ban-oktobe...

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[Aaron B Lingwood]

The second hit is a piece in the Wall Street Journal.

The piece mentions nothing of immigrants, Muslims, or anyone else filing a petition or calling for a ban.
It does mention that Christian Conservatives want to exclude all immigrants from festivities and Bavaria in general.

Having read ALL the first 20 links, it appears that the petition to ban Oktoberfest was submitted by the same Christian Conservatives and that all names and signatures were fraudulent. But I guess since these fraudsters aren't brown, we can now pretend the petition never happened.

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[Hognoxious]

Yep, mass immigration - that's what America is founded on. And look how it turned out.

Pretty bad, I'd say.

But then I am a Cherokee.

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

So it looks like there are more single men than family with children who cross (a part of) the mediterranean sea, travel 1500 to 2000 km across Europe, using different transportation means. I wonder why... Oh, maybe because it's much more easier for them than for someone who has to carry a child with him?

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[Hognoxious]

You do realize that every person born on American soil is JUST as much a native as you are, right?

No they aren't. "Native American" doesn't have the same meaning as adding the individual meanings of "Native" and "American".

In any case, I guess it's too late and we're stuck with you. We should have sent your ancestors back to Poland, Ireland or wherever as soon as the bastards landed.

P.S. How many Syrians do you think we should take?

Re:Oh, that's ironic

[angel'o'sphere]

If you are talking about the author of Treefinder, hew is not German, he is Danish.

And obviously he is an idiot as he claims his job is in danger by Syrian super coders with extraordinary knowledge about plants, genetics and trees in particular.

Who cares

[war4peace]

From TFA it looks like Jobb is a racist asshole and his Treefinder software is outdated and has plenty alternatives.
Looks like a drama queen thing.

Re:Who cares

[JaredOfEuropa]

He might be an asshole, but I'm not surprised to see reactions like these to the immigrant crisis. I see them more and more often around me as well (I am from Europe). And it might get a lot worse, already we're seeing arson and threats of violence against refugee centers.

The reason is simple: the fears and objections of Europe's citizens have been completely ignored. If a refugee center opens up in your neighborhood, you will experience an increase in crime and nuisance. The people in a village with 500 inhabitants fear the influence that a nearby center for 6000 refugees will have on their community. And a sizable portion aren't refugees or even from Syria; they left their own save homes to find a better life, and look for countries with generous welfare packages. In the Netherlands, the refugees already have had a serious impact on housing. Municipalities are obliged to give priority to people with an asylum status, which means they jump to the front of the queue for social housing. The waiting time for a regular family without priority is now 7-8 years I believe, with some larger cities having a waiting list of 14 years.

Some of the fears are unfounded and the objections unreasonable, and the harsh reality may be that we will have no choice but to put these migrants up somehow, somewhere. But the problem is that in the political climate it is impossible to even begin that discussion To ask what the cost of this immigration is, what the impact is, to question the motives of some of the immigrants, to demand that we finally get some sensible and well organized way of dealing with the immigrants instead of pancking at the last minute and putting them up in tents, or to demand that along with a generous welcome for the true refugees comes a program to actively screen and evict people who have no business here and to deter them from coming in the first place. Those questions get you branded as an unfeeling nazi, a racist, or worse. This discussion is carefully avoided by politicians and the media alike. Instead, we hear only the good news: these immigrants bring important skills, they bring wealth instead of costs, they will not alter our society for the worse, they are not terrorists, and they will generate jobs for us too. Meanwhile the actual problems are unacknowledged and thus not addressed.

An increasing number of people are starting to feel the pressure from increased immigration firsthand, and they are completely abandonded by their representatives. Immigration in the face of an emergency doesn't have to be a problem for the locals: when the government organize things well, are open and honest about what is going to happen, do what they can to alleviate any nuisances, and take complaints seriously, then you see the locals putting up with any troubles that remain. If however you ignore valid complaints, and brand any naysayer as sub-human white trash, then desperate people will lash out. In increasingly violent ways. And they will lash out against the refugees as well, which is the last thing they need.

That is my main worry. Not the immigration itself, but the unbelievable way that my government and Europe are handling this, or rather: not handling it.

Re:Who cares

[orzetto]

I worked for a few years at a Max Planck Institute (not the same one as Jobb), and I remember he sent occasionally racist rants to all email recipients in all institutes, in which he lamented that the foreigners were taking his job. The rants were so logically inconsistent they looked like a crossing of Time Cube and the Unabomber Manifesto.

More than racist, which he is, the guy is psychologically unstable; the archetypal mad scientist.

Re:Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

I know it's hard to see your viewpoint from the US (which I assume you're from), but many in Europe do indeed feel that we're being bombarded. Near where I live in the UK and even London, I feel like a stranger in my own country, where whites are nearly a minority. Multi-culturalism has failed, and bringing more immigrants in will not make things better.

I'm scared that these quotas won't stop coming. Instead of the variety in the races, in the long run, we'll only have a single EU race, where the original cultures are lost and where there's no white skin, or black skin anymore (the latter is less likely as they're coming into the EU not vice versa). I also think that some cultures are less advanced than others and that the less advanced ones may dominate over time, and set us all back decades or even centuries. Africa's population is set to quadruple apparently (here's an article and the source), and that would be the final nail in the coffin if we were just as open then.

There is an alternative, and that is to let a billionaire look after them as he's promised to buy them an island and give them the essentials including education. He just needs the governments' permission.

Re:Who cares

[dave420]

The fears and objections have been largely ignored for both those wanting to accept refugees and those not. A refugee centre opened up in my neighbourhood (our city of ~275k has about 6 the last I heard) and nothing happened. Sure, you see a few people walking around, but that's it. No crime wave. No disturbances. You might want to demote your "will" to "might", as clearly it's not a certainty.

Claiming economic migrants just want good benefits is a disgrace, as you are attempting to cast them all as acting in poor faith. Most want to work, just as most people who are born in Europe want to work. Some will want to sponge off and do nothing, just as some Europeans do. Generalising so much about a group of people you clearly don't know much about is pretty much the definition of a xenophobe.

I think it's perfectly suitable to brand someone making horrible, vague statements about foreigners as a xenophobic muppet, as that's what they are.

Re:Who cares

[radja]

The fears have NOT been ignored, rather, the pro-immigration standpoint has been completely ignored in mainstream media. Voicing that opinion leads not only to being called 'naive', or 'traitor', but also to physical threats. The problem is the rise of the extreme right, but that is not a problem that you are allowed to point out in much of europe, including the Netherlands where I live. I had a refugee center in my street. I did not notice a difference when it opened, and did not notice a difference when it closed.

Re:Who cares

[gay358]

It's not only the housing but costs for providing social security is unsustainable with the current flow of asylum seekers. It doesn't take more just few years and even 100 % taxation wouldn't be enough to provide social security for these asylum seekers. Although some of the asylum seekers may be able to find jobs, the traditional levels of employment have been very low for many of these groups (for example, the biggest asylum seeker groups in Finland are Iraqis and Somalis and even during better economic times, they have had about 15 % employment (not unemployment) rate).

And within surprisingly short time, the local population would become minority, unless the social security system collapses before that and the flood of asylum seekers stops. And if history tells something, it quite often means very bad times for the original population (e.g. Palestinians, Indians, Aboriginals etc).

I am afraid that if it this flood is not stopped in one way or another soon, there will chaos or even wars in large parts of Europe.

Re:Who cares

[Sir_Eptishous]

You make some good points, and I'm very surprised your post hasn't been modded down.

In my opinion this migration will be a massive drain on the EU and especially on the countries that support the immigrants. Perhaps countries like Germany and Sweden can afford to house, feed and support these(almost) millions, all while maintaining their current expenditures for citizens and pensioners already there. Time will tell.

However, I can imagine one thing is for sure, the internal security services tasked with maintaining watch over "islamic terrorists", etc; are going to be over burdened with all the new "persons of interest". They already know there are many who have piggy backed onto the mainly Syrian population trying to get into Europe. It really is quite a mess.

Yes, I would imagine the vast majority of immigrants didn't want to leave their homeland and only want a normal life for their families. But at the same time, it would be quite naive to not acknowledge, especially in light of where the migrants originated, that there wouldn't be those whose goal is to cause harm to "The West" or "The Great Satan".

The really interesting thing watching this debacle unfold is how the EU is straining to keep their solidarity in line. Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Greece, Austria, etc; have all gone about managing this differently, which is really to be expected. Europe had no gameplan in place for something of this magnitude and is really unprecedented.

Also, a bit of disclosure, I live in the US, in a neighborhood with a very high percentage of immigrants, from all over the world. I am around lots of people from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America on a daily basis, because I use Public Transit a lot. I actually enjoy the sort of cosmopolitan environment. The US is actually setup fairly well to absorb immigrants from refugee status countries, as opposed to economic refugees(yes, this is a sensitive topic I know).

Re:Who cares

[JaredOfEuropa]

I mentioned this as a fear rather than fact, but yes, there are crime statistics for many neighborhoods where a refugee center was opened. Some neighborhoods experienced a statistically significant increase in crime and reported nuisances that coincided with the opening of the center. In other neighborhoods there was no measurable effect or even a subjective effect: citizens who were at first concerned about the refugee center reported that they did not feel more unsafe once the center had been there for a while. So it is clear that a refugee center has a detrimental effect of safety in some cases, but not all. It is not clear what the mitigating factors are, unfortunately, though overcrowding or having plenty of things to do during the day have some influence.

Re:Who cares

[JaredOfEuropa]

Claiming economic migrants just want good benefits is a disgrace, as you are attempting to cast them all as acting in poor faith.

I am not casting all of them as acting in good faith, only some part of them. By the way, that statement was an example of the fears about migrants, not a statement of fact, though there is a lot of historical data to back up the idea that many of these refugees will not end up working. And immigrants from some countries, arriving under much the same circumstances as others, do much better than those others, so their joblessness is not just a matter of "white man keeping us down". And some of them do not make much of a secret of the fact that they have no intention of working (I have met such people personally, by the way). Not a reason to think they are all like that, not a reason to turn all of them away, but it is a reason to be more selective about who we allow to stay, and to be more honest about what all this is expected to cost us in the long run, so that we can base our opinion and our policies on fact instead of either fears or an overly rosy picture.

Re:Who cares

[kqs]

He might be an asshole, but I'm not surprised to see reactions like these to the immigrant crisis. I see them more and more often around me as well (I am from Europe). And it might get a lot worse, already we're seeing arson and threats of violence against refugee centers.

The reason is simple: the fears and objections of Europe's citizens have been completely ignored.

Because clearly, if you feel the government isn't listening to you, arson and violence is a valid response.

I'm a big fan of civil disobedience when you feel your rights are being trampled, but in that case you should protest against the government, preferably by voting but if that fails then protests, work stoppages, etc seem a valid thing. Violence against immigrants don't show patriotism, it shows small-minded fear and hatred.

Here in the US we also have a "yooge" anti-immigrant movement. As far as I can tell, most people wish the US had closed its borders the day after *their* immigrant ancestors arrived here.

Re:Who cares

[JaredOfEuropa]

Which newspapers or news channels do you get your news from? Any time you hear the anti-immigrant viewpoint, it's from some raving clueless idiot, or from Wilders (the two are not mutually exclusive categories). Any time you hear an opinion that is posited as a "balanced", "thoughtful", "realistic" or "reasonable" one by an "expert" or "intellectual", it is one of pro-immigration.

By the way, you are right about the rise of the extreme right. As I said, ignoring the real and imagined complaints and objections about immigrants does not suppress the growth of extremism, it fuels it. And it is extremely worrying.

Re:Who cares

[GameboyRMH]

Interesting. I'd like to mod you up, but instead I'll add that this is another argument against DRM'ed software: It could be administered by a racist asshole who will revoke your license because your country's government did something he didn't like.

Re:Who cares

[meta-monkey]

He's not defending arsonists and violent people, he's stating the fact that people will do it when they're not heard.

You know this is true. This is how people explain riots in Baltimore. A group of people feels powerless, and eventually something boils over and they lash out. Whether this group of people is not heard about their objection to millions of unasked for new neighbors or police brutality, the result is the same.

The answer is not to suppress or ignore these people, but to address their fears and concerns. But just scorn them as racists or xenophobes and dismiss them, and eventually, yes, the more incensed and morally questionable members of that camp will do bad things.

Hmmm ...

[gstoddart]

So basically he's a batshit crazy idiot who is ranting publicly and acting like a whiny bitch?

Congratulations, Gangolf Judd ... you're an idiot, and a moron.

Although the change in the license may be a nuisance for some researchers, the program is far from irreplaceable, several scientists tell ScienceInsider. Treefinder had not been updated for several years and it was mostly used by researchers who had grown used to it, they say.

And largely irrelevant, from reading this.

Strimmer says. It is not clear whether Jobb still has a job. (His website says that he âoecannot work as a scientist, because my traditional views and values conflict with that eliteâ(TM)s doctrine.â)

Everything about this article suggests some raving idiot sitting in the dark lamenting how the world won't adhere to his bullshit beliefs.

Whatever, and nothing of value was lost.

Re:Hmmm ...

[emj]

Which probably means he has a low user ID number on /.

It's not that low.. :-(

Re:Hmmm ...

[bluefoxlucid]

Basically he's still under the same mistaken ideals about economics as the Founding Fathers.

Re:Hmmm ...

[TheSunborn]

Nope. To quote from his statement:

"Immigration unnecessarily defers the collapse of capitalism, its final crisis,"

So he sounds more like a communist or anarchist.

Re:Hmmm ...

[gstoddart]

Why not try to analyze whether his statements have some merit, rather than just fuel the culture of outrage?

Because I don't give a fuck about some guy who wrote a piece of software, and his personal manifesto. I don't need to validate his position, or evaluate it for merit -- that's not my problem.

See, I'm not committing a logical fallacy, since I'm not refuting his points ... I am dismissing him out of hand as an irrelevant, whiny little twat who wants to take his ball and go home. He's more than welcome to do that. He can do it for any stupid reason he chooses.

And the rest of the world is free to dismiss him as a crackpot and not give a damn about his crazy rantings.

The reality is, he isn't withholding anything nobody can't live without, and while he's free to do as he chooses with his software ... everyone else is free to not give a fuck.

We certainly don't need to acknowledge, validate, or give credibility to his temper tantrum. That's his damned problem.

If someone said tomorrow I can't use a piece of software because I'm not a Christian, I'm also going to conclude that person is a moron and an asshole, and be equally dismissive of them. But I'm not going to coddle or validate his feelings because he needs to act like a moron and an asshole.

The edge of reality

[AndyKron]

Somebody has fallen off the edge of reality.

Who gives a shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Movement within the EU is legal for those with an EU passport. How about addressing the Islam extremists that cause 90% of these cowards to run like little girls to alternative nations? Yes, that's right. It's not families leaving shit-hole arab and African countries, it's the very men that would be defending it had they been born in Europe or the US.

Re:Who gives a shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the West had not destabilized the whole regionfor political ends, we would not be in this mess.

Re:Who gives a shit?

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

But of course! Before the West got involved in the Middle East, it was a peaceful paradise, where unicorns grazed under rainbows, and peoples of all different religions lived together in blissful harmony! It's not like these people ever occupied large parts of Europe, oppressed non-Muslims, or abducted millions of Europeans into slavery, oh no, nothing like that ever happened!

Re:Who gives a shit?

[rickb928]

Islam relies upon the revelation received by Muhammed around 610 and 632. Islam can be considered established around 622, when Muhammed emigrated to Medina, where he was accepted and his teachings adopted.

From then on, Islam has conducted a continuous campaign of political, social, and military dominance, with the stated goal of total dominance and control worldwide.

You doubt this? Read the Qu'ran, or any respected commentary on it.

Re:Who gives a shit?

[Sarten-X]

We might not be in this mess now, and it might not be with these belligerents, but we would still be in much the same mess, as it dates back to the dawn of recorded history. Any "stability" is simply a nice political way of saying "we're resting between rounds".

The short version is that the nice relatively-fertile land we now call the "Middle East" was a convenient destination for refugees and conquerors from the kingdoms to the north, east, and west. As each group settled, they called the area their home, and ignored the claims of anyone who already happened to live there, who in turn were often exiled or subjugated.

Three thousand years later, the settlers are now distinct cultures, and their tales of settling and exile have turned into legends of a traditional homeland, often mixed with religious justification. As a result, any time an opportunity arises, a traditionalist can easily stir up support for reclaiming the land for his people. Other folks like to call his cause "extremist" to trivialize his intent, and we also like to point to an arbitrary moment in history when his group wasn't in control, downplaying his claim to the area. Do note that I'm not talking about any particular group or ethnicity... their histories are all pretty much the same.

The only time there hasn't been some kind of uprising is when there was a ruler oppressive enough to keep all such rebellions under control. That tactic really started in the area with the Assyrians, until they grew too complacent, and a rebellion erupted with foreign assistance. More recently, the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein played the role for various areas, with similar ends.

There are only two ways that I see to have lasting peace in the area. One option is to nuke the entire area completely, with fallout, denying it to everyone. The tales of exiled peoples will get worse, but nobody will really want to go home for a few thousand decades. The more reasonable option is to keep working toward "political ends", supporting whatever group says they won't try to kill their neighbors. Perhaps in a few thousand more years, the distinct cultures will merge together enough that they no longer care about conquests predating the alphabet.

Re:Who gives a shit?

[ComputerGeek01]

Now many immigrants are accused of not assimilating, but these are setting up councils of their own who try to act as an independent government within the boarders of the USA. A Somalia, JR. of sorts that "the losers" decide to set up in a different location.

I ask you, how can we welcome something like?

What are you stoned? We as Americans have ALWAYS welcomed this kind of behavior, hell a fair argument could be made that we actually endorse it. Why don't you read up on the history of the Five Points, Chinatown or Little Italy in New York city. Try taking a tour around the different neighborhoods in cities like Chicago, Cleveland and Philadelphia; then try saying with a straight face that no immigrant population has ever done exactly what you are describing.

Sorry to ruin your mastibitory end of the world fantasy but this country weathered the Italian and the Jewish mass immigrations, who by the way came over for exactly the same reason, just fine. A few half starved Somalis aren't going to send the US into some Mob-Rule-Anarchist state no matter how much whining they do.

Re:Who gives a shit?

[Applehu Akbar]

"If the West had not propped up tyrants for economic ends, we would not be in this mess."

No, the present mess began when we deposed the secular tyrants.

Re:Who gives a shit?

[Applehu Akbar]

"But Christianity had a 500 year head start on Islam'

Yes, Christianity was this bad once. Today we call that time the Dark Ages.

Now we see what copyright run amok hath wrought!

[mrchaotica]

Granted, chances are the guy doesn't actually have the right to cancel people's purchases like this. However, the fact that it's halfway-reasonable for him to think he has that right is yet another illustration of how ridiculously overreaching copyright has become.

Again and again, we're seeing a thing that is (a) a government-granted monopoly, not a right, (b) only supposed to be temporary, and (c) not designed for the benefit of the author, but rather for the benefit of society, perverted to the point where people think it trumps actual property rights!

This guy's attitude is fucking sick and disgusting, and that's before I even take the bigotry into account!

Everybody has to believe in something

[rmdingler]

I harbor a bit of empathy for anyone willing to put personal beliefs on the line for principle.

Too few people nowadays (and politicians en masse) are willing to speak from a core belief set for fear of {horrors} offending someone!

Even ridiculous courage is refreshing these days.

Re:Everybody has to believe in something

[squiggleslash]

Nobody objects to Davis having beliefs. It's her attempt to use a government position to impose them on others that's the problem.

That said, in response to the GP, an asshole is an asshole. You don't become less of one simply because really you are one. I mean, that doesn't even make sense. It's like the opposite of a truism.

Barking up the wrong tree?

[Sneeka2]

Problem: Immigrants are destroying my life!
Solution: Prevent people in some countries from using some niche software very few people care about, least of all politicians, "big corporate" or said immigrants.

Pure genius!

quoting the man

[fche]

"I have not yet been rewarded for my work.
I think we need a completely different political system.
Nobody should depend on employers and landlords.
Nobody should be profitable for someone rich.
Nobody should have to pay rent, have to migrate.
Most of all, we must limit private property.
We must expropriate the rich.
Free land for all!"

Re:Kudos

[bunratty]

Damn straight, just ask any Native American!

Re:Mainstream media is covering up the crisis

[Anonymous Coward]

Why isn't Saudi Arabia helping? They have a tent city with 100,000 air conditioned empty tents normally used by pilgrims:
http://www.infowars.com/saudi-arabia-has-100000-empty-air-conditioned-tents-that-can-house-3-million-people-yet-has-taken-zero-refugees/

Instead they've offered to build 200 mosques in Germany:
https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/260080/saudi-arabia-offers-build-200-mosques-syrians-daniel-greenfield

Blindness

[nitehawk214]

He can't see the forest despite the treefinder.

Re:Is that even possible?

[RDW]

I'm not sure that's possible. Can you revoke a licence of an old program? You can change the licence for a new version, sure, but when I buy (or download) a program, the licence that comes with it *at that time* is the licence I have to adhere to I would think.

From the manual:

"By default, TREEFINDER displays a license notice every time the program is launched.
Clicking the I-agree-button all the time might get on one's nerves after a while, so here is the
trick how to switch it off: using a text editor to create a file containing the words 'I promise
that I will always respect the current license conditions.' and save it in your 'Treefinder'
directory as 'i_agree' (without a file extension!). You will never see the license notice again."

and:

"This license agreement is valid until the next software release. Afterwards, the license of the
latest TREEFINDER version applies."

So it looks like he was already a control freak back in 2011, and was attempting to reserve the right to impose retrospectively whatever licence he felt like issuing in the future. I suspect this wouldn't stand up to serious legal scrutiny, but it was already a big red flag before he went off the rails completely.

Re:Good

[The Rizz]

The truth of Islam, is that it is never happy being the little church down the road, it must be the church, the state, and the law.

So, basically the same same as Christianity, then?

Re:Mainstream media is covering up the crisis

[Anonymous Coward]

The part about Sweden is a theoretical possibility, in that somebody managed to dig up an old law, and not even about homes.

The German one is about a woman who rented an apartment in a building, and the land lord has decided to stop renting out apartments, and sell the whole building. She has been given over half a years notice, apparently more than German law requires.

The headline is just right wing extremist propaganda.

Re:Good

[gurps_npc]

The same is (or at the very least was) true for Roman Catholicism (Rome), Mormonism (Utah), and to a lesser extent the far majority of Christian churches.

The major innovation that the Christians created (and Islam copied) is the idea of "you must belong to us". Christianity used "if you don't you go to hell" - a concept unheard of before then, while Islam came up with "and you can't quit us afterwards".

Up until then, Judaism, Hinduism, and the rest of the world's religions were "If you want to join us, you have to prove yourself worthy".

So don't go complaining about Islam being expansionist, when they just copied the Christians.

The guy is desparate - mainstream media are biased

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy is simply desperate to get some attention.

I live in the EU and the mainstream media are totally biased pro-immigrant. Comments on the immigrant issues are usually turned offed, polls are not published, articles are 100% immigrant-friendly.

If you do not follow this pattern - you are racist , xenophob etc.

However if you talk to people - people are 80% anti-immigrant.

We do believe we should help the poor people but the help should go to camps in LIban, Turkey, Jordania, to women and children who are there, not to young fit guys coming here. We should also increase military help to stabilize situation in Syria.

The number of immigrants coming is way over the assimilation ability of Germany and other popular countries.

You go dude

[BlueCoder]

Immigration is an important economic issue. It's lowers wages. It's a way to balance economic forces but if unchecked it gives businesses an unfair pool of low wages employees. If you don't respect parts of your country for it's economic impact on your then I don't see anything wrong with what your doing as a "statement of protest". You have the unalienable right to express your dissatisfaction. But being realistic it just won't have an economic impact.

Licences

[ledow]

And this is why I like freedom in my licences as a consumer.

Sorry, pull this and lose my custom.

But I certainly will never give you a way to pull this on me retroactively or on a product I currently have and rely on.

The door swings both ways - you can't impose your political beliefs on me, and I can't stop you selling the software in your homeland either (unless you're doing something illegal there, etc.).

How racism?

[SuperKendall]

Nationalism, yes.

But wanting to stop the flow if illegal immigrants is not racism, because you don't care what color they are - just that people should immigrate legally, so that they can come in at a rate that they can mesh well with existing society.

That is merely realizing that a national identity has value, and is worth protecting...

Mind you, I disagree with how they are trying to protect against immigration - what if some of the people they have blocked are supporters of their cause? Perhaps instead they should demand public statements on websites of the companies denouncing illegal immigration.

Re:How racism?

[dave420]

He didn't mention anything about them being legal or illegal, just that "migrants are bad" for Germany, even though every single study on the issue shows quite the opposite. So yeah, he's a nationalist, xenophobic, ignorant muppet who would rather put hundreds of thousands of people in dangerous circumstances before looking past his own nose.

Re:How racism?

[Falconhell]

National identity is the kind of thing that stuffs the world up.
I can't understand those that feel proud of a geographical area they happen to live in, especially when they simultaneously destroy the environment that makes any place great to be.
The concept of patriotism is in my opinion, absurd.

Re:How racism?

[SuperKendall]

I can't understand those that feel proud of a geographical area they happen to live in

Really? That's quite sad you grew up in some kind of dictatorship shithole; but that's not true of everyone.

I'm pretty proud of free speech, the ability for women to drive and vote (or even voting in general), and that people can marry whoever they like.

All of those things are going to go away with a large enough migration from a people who support none of them.

The future belongs to the people who show up, the future doesn't care who that it but you might even if you don't realize it yet.

Re:How racism?

[thoromyr]

And, interestingly enough, nationalism is a recent invention. We are taught that there are distinct countries and the implication is that this has always been the case. If nothing else, people are either told or simply assume that before nations there were tribes and that tribalism preceded nationalism. But it isn't true.

There is a related problem, that of language. We like to pretend that languages are distinct and have clear boundaries. Someone speaks English, or German or Spanish or... But this notion of language is fairly modern and isn't even true. This is tacitly acknowledged by adding labels to indicate region, recognizing that American English is not the same as British English. Nor is the English spoken in India the same as either of those. Egyptian Arabic is a mix of Arabic and British English with some older Egyptian vocabulary thrown in.

Being a dead language, Latin was fairly defined as a language circa 800 AD, but the people inhabiting what we now call France did not refer to themselves as French, German or in fact any national or tribal identity. The term "the Franks" is more modern than anything else. Historically membership in a tribe was a hand wavy group identification, not about ethnicity or heredity. If you asked a Frank about his identity as a Frank you would have confused him. If you asked him what language he spoke it would similarly have confused him.

Linguists have labels for dead "languages" but the truth is there is no hard definition for what such a language was or who spoke it. If you started on the west coast and traveled east the spoken language would shift from place to place with generally increasing differences. The closest you get is a sort of civic identity where someone felt attachment to the city of his birth, but it is reading too much into it to regard it as a precursor to nationalism.

When King Harald set out to unite Norway there was no strict geographical boundary. People who lived in what we now call Norway didn't identify themselves as "Norwegians". They lived in familial groups, households, and identified with their relatives though certainly not in a tribal sense. Individuals who didn't like King Harald's requirement for land ownership left, mostly for Iceland, where family continued to be the most significant group identity and there was certainly no national identity.

No, nationalism was consciously invented as a tool to rally the mass of people behind a political figure or organization. Nationalism, and its sister patriotism, are tools to control a population. It is nationalism that encourages xenophobia. Despite a popular modern conception that primitive peoples were distrustful of outsiders, by and large what we have observed is the opposite. At least, those groups that survived with a primitive lifestyle to more modern times have failed to be adequately suspicious of foreign intruders.

It is modern nationalism, not primitive tribalism, that leads to xenophobia.

Re:How racism?

[Rastafario]

How this got modded 5 insightful is beyond me. I've lived in cosmopolitan societies for a long time, one thing I've noticed that all races tend to stick together, the more of one kind in one place tends to let other kinds know in many ways they are not welcome. Disagree? Prove me wrong. Those that are tolerant like that naive person I am replying to are in a minority. Unless you think that your gene-pool and culture should disappear, the struggle of your ancestors to go in wane, support unchecked immigration, because that is precisely what is going to happen, and it won't take all that long either. Mark my words.

he probably deals a lot with end users

[Thud457]

huh, a software developer that's a unstable nutbag. There's something you don't see every day.

Trouble is what happens to those who stay

[DarkOx]

As unfair as it might be I think the response to the crisis is wrong. We should NOT welcome the refugees and asylum seekers. By and large these people are the educated people of quality with some wealth in that region that are leaving. If anything it might be self serving to allow them to come to the US or enter the EU.

If Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan etc are ever to be anything other than squalid hell holes its the very people who are leaving that would otherwise have the cause (families) and capability (education + money) to make those places better. While denying them entry in Europe and the US might be sentencing them to a life time of struggle or death letting immigrate dooms the places they come from to being dominated by the Islamic extremist loonies.

If we ever want to see those places settle down, and see it be possible for people to have a normal life there the only approach might be to make getting out more hopeless than taking back their countries from the crazies.

But it is legal

[tepples]

just that people should immigrate legally, so that they can come in at a rate that they can mesh well with existing society.

Say the body responsible for setting a nation's immigration policy has decided to admit refugees on the basis that emergency evacuation from a war zone outweighs the difficulty of "mesh[ing] well with existing society". In that case, they are immigrating legally.

Re:Ok, who wrote the tools

[mrchaotica]

First, it is of course an owners right to limit distribution.

BULLSHIT!

The copyright holder only has limited permission (not a right) from the government to limit distribution only for so long as that arrangement is in the public interest. The government is free to revoke that permission (i.e., cause the work to enter the Public Domain) at any time. The only people with actual property rights to be considered are the people who bought copies.

Re:The guy is desparate - mainstream media are bia

[mrchaotica]

Assimilation is racist and culturalist. Who is to say that Western culture is better than non-Western culture, and force it on immigrants?

The immigrants themselves did, by (literally!) voting with their feet. After all, they could have headed in any direction -- the Caucasus countries, Iran (and points east), the Arabian peninsula, Africa -- but they picked Europe.

There's little ethical difference between immigrants trying to import their culture and imperialists trying to export theirs. If you think the latter is wrong, then you should logically think the former is wrong too. The right of the newcomers not to have the existing culture forced upon them is trumped by the right of the existing people's right not to have their culture supplanted by the newcomers.

That said, I'm not at all convinced that (a) there are too many refugees to be assimilated or (b) that "but they might not assimilate" is a valid reason for refusing to accept refugees in the first place.

Re:Western media not sharing the whole story

[Whorhay]

Crime is crime, the numbers might go up with large influxes of people. But they will still likely stay at historically very low rates. We hear a lot more about crime today than in times past simply because we live in a more connected world and so are exposed to sensational news from all corners of the world. Crime rates have a lot of room to grow again before they impact the average person noticeably.

I never presumed that having more open borders and immigration policy would lead to less people immigrating, why would you even imagine that? Immigration is good, I would be very happy to see a lot more immigration in the USA. If you open the borders and hand out green cards to all interested parties then you've eliminate the largest motivation for illegally crossing the border, and hence being an illegal alien. I've never heard of an immigrant that wanted to be here illegally rather than legally, being illegal is simply the most practical option for most of them.

Illegal aliens hurt job prospects for unskilled natives because they have little to no recourse when offered wages below the legal requirements. By legalizing immigration those workers can demand they be paid the legal minimum, and so you actually hand the advantage back to the native because they already speak the language. The applicable communities also benefit since those workers can be paid above the table and have taxes collected. Since there will be a larger pool of laborers to draw from obviously jobs could get a littler harder to find. That said, most of the jobs that have been created since the 2008 economic mess have been in the unskilled labor bracket.

I've never smoked, drank, sniffed, snorted, or consumed in any fashion anything that is legally prohibited in the USA. I've also never consumed alcoholic beverages or tobacco products. I've never experimented with anything that has ended up eventually being banned or restricted. I do so for my own personal beliefs, those same beliefs though demand that I not tell others what they can or can't consume so long as it doesn't victimize another. Alcohol prohibition failed and was eventually repealed, and the war on drugs is similarly a losing proposition and simply a waste of resources and human potential. I only brought it up because aside from illegal immigration drug smuggling is probably the biggest driver of illegal border crossings.