Lets say I have a picture I want to show someone, this someone doesn't have a smartphone so no instantly getting e-mails on their phone. If I send them a MMS, they will get the picture on their phone in 1-2 minutes. Replace picture with video and its the same thing. Sure, e-mail is "better" but unless everyone I know carries around a BlackBerry or iPhone, MMS is the only way for them to instantly get pictures.
...Because that is Censorship, something that/. is opposed to. Sure, it might be annoying having to read all these posts, but they get modded troll, offtopic or flamebait quickly enough.
One thing you really need to make sure, is that the teachers know that OSS is better. Far too often I have seen people who look at Linux and think that the school could not afford MS products or Macs, not that Linux is better than MS products. Also, make sure that you aren't losing money by going to OSS. For example, if your school just bought brand new Vista machines and Office 2007 licenses for all of them, you might be out of luck. On the other hand if your school uses P4 or slower CPUs and XP or earlier, Linux might just be the thing it needs.
Sure, it can but as we have seen for every other driver, they won't. What happens when you are at a locked-down corporate computer that you need to transfer a few files to an SD card or USB memory stick, however, because it is a generic cooperate computer, it won't read the EXT3 filesystem on the flash drive, now you go online to download the driver, but it being locked down you can't run the.exe. Drivers are a major problem with Windows.
....And you think that Obama is going to change any of this? Obama is just the same as Bush, both don't have a clue about technology. Sure, Obama knows what every other middle aged person knows about the internet, how to set up and use Facebook and Youtube and to be able to use a BlackBerry but do you think he even knows what a filesystem is? I doubt it.
Err.... No. You see the nice thing with Tom Tom or any other GPS is you buy it for a flat fee anywhere and use it without cost for a very long time (until they either start charging for map updates or the satellites go down). The iPhone you A) Must buy from AT&T B) Must use an extremely expensive plan C) Must keep the plan for ~2 years D) You would primarily use the iPhone as a primary phone. However, for a Tom Tom you simply pay ~$300 and get unlimited use on it without having to use it as a phone (and, despite how much I love using my iPod touch, I could never use an iPhone as a phone, I need the tactile feedback to text without looking), and in the economy, no one wants to pay ~$200 for a phone plus having an expensive locked-in plan.
Sure, indirectly Tom Tom is competing with the iPhone, and whatever other phones have GPS on them, but the normal person isn't going to get an iPhone and certainly they are not going to get it for the GPS.
While the Internet has the potential to help the dying book industry,
What dying book industry? Sure, quality books might be dying and in the economy not many people want to pay ~$16 for something they can get at a library for free, but in the last 10 years, literature, especially children to teen books have been exploding with growth, you only need to look at the Harry Potter craze and now the Twilight craze to understand that.
they risk bad publicity to get the overpayment back
You think MS cares about bad press anymore? In my recent memory... The Zune date bug, the failure of many 360s, DRM schemes in everything, the disaster that was Vista, and the meh responses from the media for any of their new endeavors.
I honestly don't think that MS has any more credibility to ruin.
Oh yes, for anyone other than lawyers thats true. But because we all know lawyers are above the law and know more about the law then we ever could we should just give in to their demands because they know the law!
All criminal law is legislation of morality. The only way for a government to stop being a "moral compass" is to get rid of the whole criminal legal system.
The whole of our legal system should be "If it does not harm anyone else, threaten (as in, make them feel like their lives were in danger, not just jokes), or otherwise affect their rights, it should be legal".
For example, people have a right to own (physical) property for their exclusive use, so therefore stealing should be illegal. People have a right to live, so therefore murder is illegal. Etc.
Sure, that does involve some morality that doing some things to others is bad, and recognizing that people have inherent rights. And there are a few holes for debate, for example, is an unborn baby considered to be a person so abortion should be made illegal because it conflicts with the baby's right to live, or is the unborn baby part of the mother so abortion should be legal, similar to how cutting hair is legal because they are both parts of the body.
On your second part in getting rid of the criminal legal system, I agree to a point. Some things that are today criminally legislated such as drugs, should truly be judged in a civil court, for example, you should be able to claim huge amounts of money because someone who causes an accident when they were high, however, I don't believe that the government has a right to prosecute (and use tax dollars) for someone who is high on drugs in their own home while not violating anyone's rights. Now, some things such as murder are violating so many rights that the government should charge them criminally, but as a whole, the government should stop wasting taxpayer money on victim-less crimes.
One of the whole purposes of governments is to be a moral compass (that does not negate our responsibility to have our own internal moral compasses).
But then there is the issue of who's moral compass should we go by?
Some people believe we should not eat meat, so does that mean we should ban all consumption of meat products?
Some people believe we should not use any swear words, so does that mean that we should make cussing illegal?
Some people believe that cows are sacred, should we forbid the killing of cows?
Some people believe we should not use God in vain, should we forbid the saying of God in any context other than religion?
Some people believe we should not drink any caffeinated beverages, should we ban Pepsi and Coke?
The answer is obvious, if we followed all those moral compasses (which some people believe very strongly about), we erode the rights of those who do not believe that way. If you feel that meat should not be eaten, don't eat meat, no one is making you. If you don't ever want to hear a swear word, don't cuss, listen to music that swears or watch movies with those words in it. If you believe that cows are sacred, then don't mistreat them. Etc.
As long as no one is making you do something you do not believe in (and your beliefs are reasonable like no beliefs that you can kill people or otherwise violate their rights), I see no reason why a government in a free land should make it illegal.
I think it's about offering some protection to minors.
Protecting them from what though? Sure, everyone thinks that all the law does is keep 8 year olds from being raped by creepy 40 year olds, but what it usually ends up doing is harming 19 year olds with 17 year old boyfriends/girlfriends. What the law really needs to ask is was anyone harmed. In this case of pure nudity, the answer is no one gets hurt. If the person was 14, 18, or 78, if they agreed to it, got paid, I don't see what the harm is. Even if creepy 40 year olds obsess over it, in the end no one gets hurt, the model can live their lives how they see fit, the creepy man can enjoy himself and no tax dollars are wasted on this victim-less crime.
Now, if the creepy 40 year old guy was physically harming or threatening the model, then there would be a problem. But really, with porn, no one gets hurt and therefore it should be legal. Do I agree with it? No. But I can choose not to look at it, banning a certain lifestyle or tastes is equivalent to banning religions you disagree with.
By all means, use tax dollars to find down and put in prison those who are physically or mentally harming minors, but when they consented and have the mental capacity to understand what they are doing and the consequences (for most people I would say anywhere from 13-15) I fail to see how a free society could make it illegal.
So anyone from a three year old that's barely learned yes to a 17.5 year old should be able to agree to anything, and then it's legal?
I did not say that there was no mental capacity restriction. For example, the 3 year old would not be in a fit mental condition to make decisions, however an advanced 13 year old would be able to, similarly a mental retarded 25 year old may not be in a fit mental condition.
The problem in our society is the magical age of 16, 18 and 21. What would be illegal to do at 17 and 360 days suddenly becomes legal 5 to 6 days later.
Honestly, who cares? As long as no one is hurt, it should be legal. The government is not our moral compass. As long as it does not negatively impact you or anyone who didn't agree with it (and agreement should not have an age restriction), it should be, by definition, legal.
A company like S3 is insane for prioritizing its development time to a platform with 85% of the desktop market!
But when you make low end products, it is best to develop for the low end market. These days, the low end market is dominated by Linux and XP. With XP having about 75% and Linux about 25%. Now, if it was so difficult for them to write a proper Linux driver, it might make sense, but if they give specs to a kernel developer (even under an NDA so long as the resulting driver was GPL'd) they wouldn't have to do a thing and they would have a high-quality driver for Linux.
Would a business risk ~25% of its customers by not doing something that costs the company $0 along with improving its PR? I don't think most businesses would, and thats why its so sad.
These days, its sad if a hardware manufacturer doesn't support Linux. There are plenty of people literally begging for the specs of hardware so they can write clean, proper and free Linux drivers. If you are going to make low-end hardware as S3 does, you better make sure that Linux compatibility is one of the first things on you list.
They always get top of the line drivers delivered promptly...
What version of Windows have you been using? Most Windows drivers are horrible! They require third-party apps to be run in order to use the hardware, frequently install "quick start" or other memory hog applications to be run always in the background, usually break when going from different Windows versions (and sometimes service packs), have little to no maintenance, are a pain to install, impossible to find without the CD or going to a site that seems suspicious, and more often than not are the cause of all Windows crashes.
Sure, Windows has more third-party drivers than Linux, but Windows drivers are not quality, not at all.
You are kidding right? If Apple wanted to do that they could release OS X PC Hardware Edition and barring any major bugs and driver issues, they could slice MS's marketshare in half. But no, Apple is a luxury computer and device manufacturer, they have been since the day they started selling computers. They don't want to be number one, they want to be number two, but a number two that people have to release drivers for, release programs for, and otherwise tolerate.
If Apple really wanted what you are suggesting, they could start by offering OS X on every PC by selling it. But they aren't going to, why? Because they are a luxury computer manufacturer, not a common one.
Yes, but is that a fault of Macs or the fact that companies don't get that we don't want to see "Made by HP" on every customizable screen from the BIOS to a web browser? That we would rather just press CTRL+P and print rather than opening up a dedicated application?
And if you take a look a the app store, how many apps are completely useless that have made it past Apple's "crapware" screening system? Just about all. How many fart apps are there? Tons. How about worthless "background" apps? How about apps that charge $10 for a public-domain book? How about tech demos? But when you look at the list of rejected apps so many of them are fresh, creative, new and worthwhile. What about the South Park streaming app that was rejected by Apple (and might I add, created by the creators of South Park so copyright issues weren't even an issue), what about the banning of simple things that could compete with Apple's things like alternate media players with more codec support, web browsers using alternate engines, etc.
Sure, its a good idea in principle, but take a look at the app store and you will see that Apple is doing a horrid job in removing crapware, they seem to encourage it.
And they have! Seadragon is an iPhone app used to zoom in on high-resolution gigapixel images like gigipan. And when you start it up it even says "Microsoft Live Labs" (along with a prompt wanting my location.... needless to say I didn't give it that privilege...)
I believe the party you are looking for is the libertarian party. Basically, they are conservative without the "You are different so lets pass legislation to discriminate against you". The only problem with the libertarian party is that its a third-party that the sheep who belong to a union won't vote for it, the sheep who were raised democrat/republican won't vote for it and those who vote on the best ads won't vote for it.
I think that the general trend for most of America is heading towards libertarianism rather than conservatism.
Any security measure other than a (secure) password for computers are not going to provide much security. Fingerprint scanners can be bypassed, physical dongles can be duplicated, and other things are trivial to remove. A secure password with encryption is the only way that you can really make sure a computer is 100% secure. But most people don't need 100% security. There are very few robbers who would steal a laptop then proceed to attempt to remove data on it via fingerprints or other biometrics. So for the average user, it isn't a security risk. Its like saying that locking your door at night isn't good enough because a determined person can break through the glass.
What are you talking about? For everything pre-PS1 it used specialized hardware that the average user couldn't make (such as NES cartridges), for everything post PS1 there have been modchips, flash cartridges, hacks and tricks to make it run user-generated code. The thing is, most game systems are designed to, you guessed it, play games. Gaming is not multi-tasking, it doesn't require much RAM (without the overhead of a desktop OS and such), it only has to have a fast CPU. For example, the PS3 has a very fast CPU, but it only has 256 MB of RAM making average PC tasks nearly unbearable to use, some like the Wii prefer innovation to fancy hardware, the average ~$400 PC is faster than the Nintendo Wii, but the Wii is more innovative, others still use specialized hardware that has obscure drivers that must be hand-coded such as the Nintendo DS.
To put it simply, game consoles, while they do have the primary parts of any modern computer (input, output, memory, storage, etc), they are built primarily for playing games and would make horrible PCs. Sure, claim its all some gigantic conspiracy, but believe it or not, I'm not going to use a computer with 256 MB of RAM as my primary computer, at least not in 2009.
Yes but similarly I would be allowed to switch the wheels for round wheels, (or triangle wheels if I felt like it) but with the DMCA it is equivalent to mandating that all bikes with square wheels cannot be swapped for round wheels.
No. It is a fundamental right of companies to be able to include DRM in software along with everything else they see fit. The problem is it is also a fundamental right for someone to have the right to take it out, to use it however they see fit, to modify it, to change it, to install it on their toasters if they can make the binary run.
There is nothing wrong with software developers using DRM, it however is outragious that us, the consumers cannot change these programs to remove the DRM or make unrestricted files.
The masses. Who thinks that even if we were living under Stalin but still had CNN and lived in the good old US of A that we were the most free country on the face of the planet ever and ever to be in the future. The masses don't care about DRM, in fact, the *AA would rather they not even know it existed. As long as people can point to a country and say those people there are oppressed and we look somewhat different then them, they will think they are free. As long as the media can throw out various human rights violations in China the masses won't think that its happening here.
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Why would you want MMS? You have email.
Lets say I have a picture I want to show someone, this someone doesn't have a smartphone so no instantly getting e-mails on their phone. If I send them a MMS, they will get the picture on their phone in 1-2 minutes. Replace picture with video and its the same thing. Sure, e-mail is "better" but unless everyone I know carries around a BlackBerry or iPhone, MMS is the only way for them to instantly get pictures.
...Because that is Censorship, something that /. is opposed to. Sure, it might be annoying having to read all these posts, but they get modded troll, offtopic or flamebait quickly enough.
One thing you really need to make sure, is that the teachers know that OSS is better. Far too often I have seen people who look at Linux and think that the school could not afford MS products or Macs, not that Linux is better than MS products. Also, make sure that you aren't losing money by going to OSS. For example, if your school just bought brand new Vista machines and Office 2007 licenses for all of them, you might be out of luck. On the other hand if your school uses P4 or slower CPUs and XP or earlier, Linux might just be the thing it needs.
Sure, it can but as we have seen for every other driver, they won't. What happens when you are at a locked-down corporate computer that you need to transfer a few files to an SD card or USB memory stick, however, because it is a generic cooperate computer, it won't read the EXT3 filesystem on the flash drive, now you go online to download the driver, but it being locked down you can't run the .exe. Drivers are a major problem with Windows.
....And you think that Obama is going to change any of this? Obama is just the same as Bush, both don't have a clue about technology. Sure, Obama knows what every other middle aged person knows about the internet, how to set up and use Facebook and Youtube and to be able to use a BlackBerry but do you think he even knows what a filesystem is? I doubt it.
they're going to be competing with Tom Tom.
Err.... No. You see the nice thing with Tom Tom or any other GPS is you buy it for a flat fee anywhere and use it without cost for a very long time (until they either start charging for map updates or the satellites go down). The iPhone you A) Must buy from AT&T B) Must use an extremely expensive plan C) Must keep the plan for ~2 years D) You would primarily use the iPhone as a primary phone. However, for a Tom Tom you simply pay ~$300 and get unlimited use on it without having to use it as a phone (and, despite how much I love using my iPod touch, I could never use an iPhone as a phone, I need the tactile feedback to text without looking), and in the economy, no one wants to pay ~$200 for a phone plus having an expensive locked-in plan.
Sure, indirectly Tom Tom is competing with the iPhone, and whatever other phones have GPS on them, but the normal person isn't going to get an iPhone and certainly they are not going to get it for the GPS.
While the Internet has the potential to help the dying book industry,
What dying book industry? Sure, quality books might be dying and in the economy not many people want to pay ~$16 for something they can get at a library for free, but in the last 10 years, literature, especially children to teen books have been exploding with growth, you only need to look at the Harry Potter craze and now the Twilight craze to understand that.
they risk bad publicity to get the overpayment back
You think MS cares about bad press anymore? In my recent memory... The Zune date bug, the failure of many 360s, DRM schemes in everything, the disaster that was Vista, and the meh responses from the media for any of their new endeavors.
I honestly don't think that MS has any more credibility to ruin.
Oh yes, for anyone other than lawyers thats true. But because we all know lawyers are above the law and know more about the law then we ever could we should just give in to their demands because they know the law!
All criminal law is legislation of morality. The only way for a government to stop being a "moral compass" is to get rid of the whole criminal legal system.
The whole of our legal system should be "If it does not harm anyone else, threaten (as in, make them feel like their lives were in danger, not just jokes), or otherwise affect their rights, it should be legal".
For example, people have a right to own (physical) property for their exclusive use, so therefore stealing should be illegal. People have a right to live, so therefore murder is illegal. Etc.
Sure, that does involve some morality that doing some things to others is bad, and recognizing that people have inherent rights. And there are a few holes for debate, for example, is an unborn baby considered to be a person so abortion should be made illegal because it conflicts with the baby's right to live, or is the unborn baby part of the mother so abortion should be legal, similar to how cutting hair is legal because they are both parts of the body.
On your second part in getting rid of the criminal legal system, I agree to a point. Some things that are today criminally legislated such as drugs, should truly be judged in a civil court, for example, you should be able to claim huge amounts of money because someone who causes an accident when they were high, however, I don't believe that the government has a right to prosecute (and use tax dollars) for someone who is high on drugs in their own home while not violating anyone's rights. Now, some things such as murder are violating so many rights that the government should charge them criminally, but as a whole, the government should stop wasting taxpayer money on victim-less crimes.
One of the whole purposes of governments is to be a moral compass (that does not negate our responsibility to have our own internal moral compasses).
But then there is the issue of who's moral compass should we go by?
Some people believe we should not eat meat, so does that mean we should ban all consumption of meat products?
Some people believe we should not use any swear words, so does that mean that we should make cussing illegal?
Some people believe that cows are sacred, should we forbid the killing of cows?
Some people believe we should not use God in vain, should we forbid the saying of God in any context other than religion?
Some people believe we should not drink any caffeinated beverages, should we ban Pepsi and Coke?
The answer is obvious, if we followed all those moral compasses (which some people believe very strongly about), we erode the rights of those who do not believe that way. If you feel that meat should not be eaten, don't eat meat, no one is making you. If you don't ever want to hear a swear word, don't cuss, listen to music that swears or watch movies with those words in it. If you believe that cows are sacred, then don't mistreat them. Etc.
As long as no one is making you do something you do not believe in (and your beliefs are reasonable like no beliefs that you can kill people or otherwise violate their rights), I see no reason why a government in a free land should make it illegal.
I think it's about offering some protection to minors.
Protecting them from what though? Sure, everyone thinks that all the law does is keep 8 year olds from being raped by creepy 40 year olds, but what it usually ends up doing is harming 19 year olds with 17 year old boyfriends/girlfriends. What the law really needs to ask is was anyone harmed. In this case of pure nudity, the answer is no one gets hurt. If the person was 14, 18, or 78, if they agreed to it, got paid, I don't see what the harm is. Even if creepy 40 year olds obsess over it, in the end no one gets hurt, the model can live their lives how they see fit, the creepy man can enjoy himself and no tax dollars are wasted on this victim-less crime.
Now, if the creepy 40 year old guy was physically harming or threatening the model, then there would be a problem. But really, with porn, no one gets hurt and therefore it should be legal. Do I agree with it? No. But I can choose not to look at it, banning a certain lifestyle or tastes is equivalent to banning religions you disagree with.
By all means, use tax dollars to find down and put in prison those who are physically or mentally harming minors, but when they consented and have the mental capacity to understand what they are doing and the consequences (for most people I would say anywhere from 13-15) I fail to see how a free society could make it illegal.
So anyone from a three year old that's barely learned yes to a 17.5 year old should be able to agree to anything, and then it's legal?
I did not say that there was no mental capacity restriction. For example, the 3 year old would not be in a fit mental condition to make decisions, however an advanced 13 year old would be able to, similarly a mental retarded 25 year old may not be in a fit mental condition.
The problem in our society is the magical age of 16, 18 and 21. What would be illegal to do at 17 and 360 days suddenly becomes legal 5 to 6 days later.
Honestly, who cares? As long as no one is hurt, it should be legal. The government is not our moral compass. As long as it does not negatively impact you or anyone who didn't agree with it (and agreement should not have an age restriction), it should be, by definition, legal.
A company like S3 is insane for prioritizing its development time to a platform with 85% of the desktop market!
But when you make low end products, it is best to develop for the low end market. These days, the low end market is dominated by Linux and XP. With XP having about 75% and Linux about 25%. Now, if it was so difficult for them to write a proper Linux driver, it might make sense, but if they give specs to a kernel developer (even under an NDA so long as the resulting driver was GPL'd) they wouldn't have to do a thing and they would have a high-quality driver for Linux.
Would a business risk ~25% of its customers by not doing something that costs the company $0 along with improving its PR? I don't think most businesses would, and thats why its so sad.
These days, its sad if a hardware manufacturer doesn't support Linux. There are plenty of people literally begging for the specs of hardware so they can write clean, proper and free Linux drivers. If you are going to make low-end hardware as S3 does, you better make sure that Linux compatibility is one of the first things on you list.
They always get top of the line drivers delivered promptly...
What version of Windows have you been using? Most Windows drivers are horrible! They require third-party apps to be run in order to use the hardware, frequently install "quick start" or other memory hog applications to be run always in the background, usually break when going from different Windows versions (and sometimes service packs), have little to no maintenance, are a pain to install, impossible to find without the CD or going to a site that seems suspicious, and more often than not are the cause of all Windows crashes.
Sure, Windows has more third-party drivers than Linux, but Windows drivers are not quality, not at all.
You are kidding right? If Apple wanted to do that they could release OS X PC Hardware Edition and barring any major bugs and driver issues, they could slice MS's marketshare in half. But no, Apple is a luxury computer and device manufacturer, they have been since the day they started selling computers. They don't want to be number one, they want to be number two, but a number two that people have to release drivers for, release programs for, and otherwise tolerate.
If Apple really wanted what you are suggesting, they could start by offering OS X on every PC by selling it. But they aren't going to, why? Because they are a luxury computer manufacturer, not a common one.
Yes, but is that a fault of Macs or the fact that companies don't get that we don't want to see "Made by HP" on every customizable screen from the BIOS to a web browser? That we would rather just press CTRL+P and print rather than opening up a dedicated application?
And if you take a look a the app store, how many apps are completely useless that have made it past Apple's "crapware" screening system? Just about all. How many fart apps are there? Tons. How about worthless "background" apps? How about apps that charge $10 for a public-domain book? How about tech demos? But when you look at the list of rejected apps so many of them are fresh, creative, new and worthwhile. What about the South Park streaming app that was rejected by Apple (and might I add, created by the creators of South Park so copyright issues weren't even an issue), what about the banning of simple things that could compete with Apple's things like alternate media players with more codec support, web browsers using alternate engines, etc.
Sure, its a good idea in principle, but take a look at the app store and you will see that Apple is doing a horrid job in removing crapware, they seem to encourage it.
And they have! Seadragon is an iPhone app used to zoom in on high-resolution gigapixel images like gigipan. And when you start it up it even says "Microsoft Live Labs" (along with a prompt wanting my location.... needless to say I didn't give it that privilege...)
I believe the party you are looking for is the libertarian party. Basically, they are conservative without the "You are different so lets pass legislation to discriminate against you". The only problem with the libertarian party is that its a third-party that the sheep who belong to a union won't vote for it, the sheep who were raised democrat/republican won't vote for it and those who vote on the best ads won't vote for it.
I think that the general trend for most of America is heading towards libertarianism rather than conservatism.
Any security measure other than a (secure) password for computers are not going to provide much security. Fingerprint scanners can be bypassed, physical dongles can be duplicated, and other things are trivial to remove. A secure password with encryption is the only way that you can really make sure a computer is 100% secure. But most people don't need 100% security. There are very few robbers who would steal a laptop then proceed to attempt to remove data on it via fingerprints or other biometrics. So for the average user, it isn't a security risk. Its like saying that locking your door at night isn't good enough because a determined person can break through the glass.
What are you talking about? For everything pre-PS1 it used specialized hardware that the average user couldn't make (such as NES cartridges), for everything post PS1 there have been modchips, flash cartridges, hacks and tricks to make it run user-generated code. The thing is, most game systems are designed to, you guessed it, play games. Gaming is not multi-tasking, it doesn't require much RAM (without the overhead of a desktop OS and such), it only has to have a fast CPU. For example, the PS3 has a very fast CPU, but it only has 256 MB of RAM making average PC tasks nearly unbearable to use, some like the Wii prefer innovation to fancy hardware, the average ~$400 PC is faster than the Nintendo Wii, but the Wii is more innovative, others still use specialized hardware that has obscure drivers that must be hand-coded such as the Nintendo DS.
To put it simply, game consoles, while they do have the primary parts of any modern computer (input, output, memory, storage, etc), they are built primarily for playing games and would make horrible PCs. Sure, claim its all some gigantic conspiracy, but believe it or not, I'm not going to use a computer with 256 MB of RAM as my primary computer, at least not in 2009.
Yes but similarly I would be allowed to switch the wheels for round wheels, (or triangle wheels if I felt like it) but with the DMCA it is equivalent to mandating that all bikes with square wheels cannot be swapped for round wheels.
No. It is a fundamental right of companies to be able to include DRM in software along with everything else they see fit. The problem is it is also a fundamental right for someone to have the right to take it out, to use it however they see fit, to modify it, to change it, to install it on their toasters if they can make the binary run.
There is nothing wrong with software developers using DRM, it however is outragious that us, the consumers cannot change these programs to remove the DRM or make unrestricted files.
The masses. Who thinks that even if we were living under Stalin but still had CNN and lived in the good old US of A that we were the most free country on the face of the planet ever and ever to be in the future. The masses don't care about DRM, in fact, the *AA would rather they not even know it existed. As long as people can point to a country and say those people there are oppressed and we look somewhat different then them, they will think they are free. As long as the media can throw out various human rights violations in China the masses won't think that its happening here.