the number of bugs discovered in any piece of software is directly proportional to the amount of testing you perform on that software. From this, it follows that you can keep testing forever and at best only asymptotically approach bug-free code.
Direct proportionality doesn't asymptotically approach anything. Maybe you want a decaying exponential (for number of bugs remaining) or something.
The majority of the time, when used as a verb, Affect is right, and when used as a noun, Effect is right. The fact that the guy is trying to effect change in this matter is a good thing.
Well, yes. Except that the guy's sig has it the other way around.
Normally the SL client is updated every two weeks, and at least once a month with MAJOR changes. That is a hell of a lot of work to keep up with for anyone wanting to provide an alternate client.
Well, is there any plugin/hook architecture? If they're serious about this, there had better be.
Presumably LL are relying on "their network" being the best, so people continue to pay them for something they can now do for less money elsewhere. Bit like AOL and Compuserve assuming that their internal networks would always be worth more than Internet access.
Or perhaps they're relying on patents. If they have appropriate ones, they could shut down any OS alternative service providers.
No, because it's multilicensed under v2, v3, and any future versions. This is possible because the distribution requirements aren't actually contradictory; you can comply with all of them at once, as follows.
When creating derivative works, you can choose to license your changes under any number of those licenses. If you license under the GPLv2, you can't add extra requirements . . . but you can give extra options. For instance, you can't say "Anyone can use this under the terms of the GPLv2 for noncommercial use only", because that's an extra restriction. But you could say "Anyone can use this under the terms of the GPLv2, or they can use it under the terms of the GPLv3", since that's no more restrictive (you can still use it under plain GPLv2, you just have extra options).
But if you multilicense as above, I don't have to release my changes under all the licenses. You said I could use it under the GPLv2, so I could choose to do that and GPLv2 my changes. But you also said I could use it under the GPLv3, so I could do that and GPLv3 my changes. If I do the latter, the GPLv2 is irrelevant -- I'm not using it, so its restrictions don't apply to me.
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Direct proportionality doesn't asymptotically approach anything. Maybe you want a decaying exponential (for number of bugs remaining) or something.
Yes, yes, I'm an anal-retentive math major.
Well, yes. Except that the guy's sig has it the other way around.
Well, is there any plugin/hook architecture? If they're serious about this, there had better be.
Or perhaps they're relying on patents. If they have appropriate ones, they could shut down any OS alternative service providers.
Now that you mention it, Wikipedia has an article that includes at least one example of this phenomenon.
No, because it's multilicensed under v2, v3, and any future versions. This is possible because the distribution requirements aren't actually contradictory; you can comply with all of them at once, as follows.
When creating derivative works, you can choose to license your changes under any number of those licenses. If you license under the GPLv2, you can't add extra requirements . . . but you can give extra options. For instance, you can't say "Anyone can use this under the terms of the GPLv2 for noncommercial use only", because that's an extra restriction. But you could say "Anyone can use this under the terms of the GPLv2, or they can use it under the terms of the GPLv3", since that's no more restrictive (you can still use it under plain GPLv2, you just have extra options).
But if you multilicense as above, I don't have to release my changes under all the licenses. You said I could use it under the GPLv2, so I could choose to do that and GPLv2 my changes. But you also said I could use it under the GPLv3, so I could do that and GPLv3 my changes. If I do the latter, the GPLv2 is irrelevant -- I'm not using it, so its restrictions don't apply to me.
Standards must specify things "to the pixel"? Gee, it would be nice if CSS did that.