For your arguments: if you can't see what the seed market has become, missed the big picture and the danger of patenting life, destroying markets, enslaving farmers, and risking destroying ecosystems with experiments or productions, big lobbies and so on, then never mind. Keep your eyes closed, and think about GMO as if it was sci-fi if you want, but please don't tell me about the selective breeding: that's a totally different thing.
Now for the words you are throwing at me: I believe you don't know me at all, and don't even have the smallest idea of the extensiveness or absence of knowledge I have on GMO (that's for "ignorant"), or even what I think of myself (that's for my self considering). Nothing in my post gives such clue. The way I see it: you just can't stand someone with a different opinion, and find useful to spit "foolish" words on me. Not very useful, I believe.
Genetically Modified means that you take a plant, and manipulate/change/modify its genes (in fact, we either remove or add one gene, most of the time, using some vector to transport the gene). It seems simple, but you don't seem to get it. Or is it that you think that 1000 years ago, we had the technology to manipulate genes? Or maybe you think (wrongly) that what we call selection is gene manipulation? It's none of what you wrote!
keep it separate and distant from actual crops to prevent genetic transfer
It has been proven that one of the vectors of cross-crop genes are insects and bees. How are you going to protect a crop from them?
what does "Monsanto being evil money-grabbing bastards" have to do with foods not being safe
Isn't it obvious? Isn't eating food full of herbicide a concern for you? Monsanto itself isn't producing or selling food, only seeds and chemical which you use to do that. But what you do with it is bad food, full of poison (remember: the goal is to kill plants).
Well tried, but no. Bananas are not genetically modified. They are clones. Not like Doly the sheep, it's a natural process for plants: you take a bit of a banana tree (let's say, maybe a branch, I'm not a banana specialist, so I can't tell which bit...), plant it somewhere else, and there you go, you got another banana tree growing. The fact banana trees are very weak, is because of that reason: they are all clones from the same plants. So they are all sensitive to the same diseases and parasites, which find always the same target and can multiply very fast.
And yes, there are some banana fruits that can reproduce on their own, but they are very small, and are full of seeds. But you see, it's been decades (centuries?) that we don't eat bananas with seeds, because we don't like it, because they are not adapted for transport, and all sorts of other (silly?) reasons. This might change though, because after lots and lots of clones, our "modern" bananas have lost taste, compared to the reproducing ones which are really sweet.
You wrote RTFM/WTF/FUD? Well, at least do it smartly...
It seems you didn't hear about the story of that farmer, who unwillingly, had his field infected with GMO, because others around were using it (but not him). Then, enormously-wealthy Monsanto sued the poor farmer for using GMOs without buying the copyright they have on the patented seeds.
Another issue. In France, they don't produce GMO corn, or things stuffed with round-up, because you see, they care a bit for their health, and very strangely, believe that eating herbicide sprayed-so-much veggies might be harmful. But then, producers on the other side of the ocean use (and abuse) of round-up-ready Monsanto seeds, and of course, have better productivity, which leads to cheaper corn. Guess what! French can't compete with Americans, and of course, US thinks it's a WTO violation to ban GMO imports.
Now, on the supermarket, sure, nobody is forcing anyone to buy GMO products. But the issue is that we don't know what is made with GMO products. So even if we have that freedom, we can't exercise it. There was once some trials to put stickers on food that contained GMO, but the lobbies are too powerful, and it didn't work.
There are other examples like that. Hundreds of them. You think people have freedom of not using GMO in their crops? Think again, freedom not what big-seed company wants, and that's not what is happening in many places.
Now, let's take freedom and market appart. Do you think that, for food, the only think that counts is money? Isn't there is something called health that we should care about?
It's a sad day for the freedom of scientific research.
Well, considering what has already happened with the round-up ready stuff and all this Monsanto crap, it might be a sad day for scientific research, but it's a good day for the freedom of eating natural veggies. Thanks, but no thanks, we don't want your GMO anymore, we saw what it does. If you want to do research, feel free to do it IN THE LABS, but absolutely NOT IN THE WILD.
In Debian, if you release some documentation using the FDL, and if don't specify that it has no back-cover or invariant part, we'll consider it non-free (eg: it wont go in Debian main, wont be allowed to be put on the CDs, etc.). Yet, the FSF doesn't recognize how bad this license is, and continues to push for this broken one. This is really pure stupidity. People are going to release documentation under this license, thinking that it will render the documentation free, when in fact, it's going to do the exact opposite thing. Why can't the FSF learn and correct this huge mistake? I don't get it...
Choosing an another system may cause you to restrict your freedom on where the device runs on. GNU is incompatible with iOS app store for example.
You are mistaking between 2 different notion: freedom and possibilities. Using a GNU application will certainly add some freedom, but I may not have the possibility to use it. The later has absolutely nothing to do with freedom.
Microsoft is all about making money. FOSS developers have a large slew of reasons to release FOSS. Not all of them are good and right.
We don't care what the other FOSS developers intention are, what counts is what type of license they use. It shall not be possible for a given FOSS application to restrict my freedom, even after the application is released. If the developer is not doing a good job, someone else must be able to take over his work, and release a new version, forked from the original work. You may want to have a look to the DFSG for example, which explains this very well: DFSG.
How do you know you are not being spied with other systems as well? Systems like Skype need some infrastructure. So if there is a central repository of data for routing then it could be modified to tee the data to someone else. Heck they can just pipe off the ISPs and send some of that traffic the other way.
I know I'm not being spied on, because I use state of the art encryption, either SRTP/ZRTP for the transport and TLS for SIP, or simple TLS when I use mumble. The ISP can just pipe my data if they like, they will still not be able to spy on me.
Citation Needed. If MS can make money off of skype for linux they will put more coders on the job. Oddly enough software developers can work on multiple platforms and languages.
I specifically pointed out the bug tracker system of Skype because it's there. Feel free, search in it, and you'll find it out. I've done my homework, please do yours before replying to someone.
Because not too many people use Skype on Linux... Sorry... Linux is a Server OS not a desktop OS. If it crashes perhaps because Linux is open source you can make a patch to work around those issues.
Well, I've been using Debian as my main Desktop system since 2004. My wife, her father, mother and sister are also using Debian or Ubuntu as their operating system. Oddly enough, for all of them, it was more easy and safer to use Ubuntu. I didn't have to reinstall the OS (it just worked), and as they didn't know Windows much, they didn't complain, and were very happy about it. Why are you saying Linux isn't for Desktop? Are you frustrated?
As for the crashes of Linux, no, we do not have the source code of Skype, so we can't fix it. Are you saying that suddenly, they released an open source version? Gosh, this should make the headlines of Slashdot!
Perhaps it is purple from Pidgins fault not skype.
It's not. We don't know the way Skype works, because it's a closed technology. Unless you are really good with reverse engineering, it's going to be very hard to understand Skype protocol. So yes, it's the fault of Skype if Pidgin can't connect to the Skype network.
So it didn't happen in 2 days so it will never happen. Boo-Hoo
Yearh, 2 days, right... In your post, you can reduce the YEARS of waiting from the Linux community into 2 days, but it wont change the real facts.
So they also didn't say they are going to remove it either.
Did you read the article which is on top the very page you are reading right now?
Linux audio support is bad and it crashes often... Heck Linux Copy and paste support is bad too.
Did you care reading my post? I wrote that Skype audio support was bad, not the audio in Linux, which works very well. And copy pas
If Microsoft wanted just the audio tech part of Skype, they would have simply buy it. Why? Because the audio part of Skype hasn't been made inhouse, but BOUGHT on the software market, and included in the product. Echo cancelation and codecs aren't Skype's work.
Maybe because:
- We care about our freedom in general, Skype shouldn't be the exception
- We don't trust Microsoft
- We do trust the US government AND the Chinese to spy on us using the Skype network. There's already a "special" Chinese version with the "feature" to have big brother listening. Who know's what the "normal" version does.
- Skype on Linux is crap, there's no 64 bits version (no, the package they pretend to be 64 bits isn't 64 bits at all, it's a 32 bits version with some lib32 dependencies). Moreover, it crashes, and you have to use loads of tricks to have everything working, like starting it with "env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype", otherwise it simply doesn't work. Even Adobe Flash has a real 64 bits version. Skype is the only software on my OS which is like that, and even if so many people asked for a real build for 64 bits, they've been ignoring all requests.
- The one and only one Linux developer for Skype has already proven, through the BTS and others, that he isn't competent to do the job. Do you think this is going to change with MS on board? That they will hire better coders? That's a big bet.
- Skype is the only instant messaging app that doesn't integrate well with multi-network libs like purple from Pidgin.
- Skype said they would at some point provide a "libskype" so that we could implement our own GUI, but it's not happening
- No announcement has been made by MS about the future of Skype for Mac or Linux
- Skype audio support is bad, it crashes often.
- Skype is the only absolutely needed piece of software for which we don't have source for, if you don't account flash as well (but flash has (buggy) compatible alternatives which you can deal with, Skype doesn't)
- Did I mention that Skype crashes often in Linux?:)
And also, please avoid to call FOSS supporters "knee jerk" in this site, as there's a good chance that others wont like it and will mod you out (I don't get why this hasn't happen already by the way). Anyway, the issues with Skype aren't new, and have absolutely nothing to do with the fact it's now a MS product.
Now, I don't get why the OP went through. We all have been knowing for a long time how bad the situation is, and how much we need some alternatives. Something open, with encryption at all levels, multi-platform, and decentralized. I'm sure it will happen, but I'm also sure this wont be tomorrow.
You should rephrase: are Americans scared to face the reality, which is most people on earth think they are the evil? Look in the last 60 years, and see who's fought the most wars, corrupted so many regimes, and the entire world economy, and you have the big picture. When I was a kid, the USA imperialism was even one of the topic I had to discuss to graduate from high school.
DISCLAIMER: I make a distinction between governments and populations.
It simply sux. It's slow, written in Java, crashes often, and has no core libs written by upstream authors (they just use purple lib like "everyone else", and so many other libs). More over, it's not a peer to peer (eg: without *any* server in the middle) kind of client like Skype is. Jitsi might "look" good, but it is crap when you really start to use it.
As for other alternatives, there's many that wont support ZRTP. People got to realize that listening to a SIP call is really trivial using wireshark (it would reconstruct the RTP stream so easily). ZRTP isn't easy to implement, as it has to be done from library to GUI all the way (so you can check the auth string on the GUI).
Also, let's be realistic: RTP / ZRTP sux. Forget about morons that are saying SIP doesn't do NAT (it does through STUN very easily), or that sound is poor (it in fact depends on the codec), but what sux here, is the transport protocol, and the fact that we always have to have a server in the middle, and all sorts of mess for things that should be damned easy, like chat and file transfer. Yes, there's simple, XMPP, etc, but it really doesn't work well, unless we're all using the same client, which never happens. Some will use Ekiga, some Linux Phone, some Jitsi. And at the end, they do not work well together, unfortunately.
How can someone be so damned silly enough to think there's no use for it... Man, a FULL x86 EMULATOR written in Javascript! Possibilities are endless. The point isn't just to run Linux, but anything that is written in C, and that you want to run in your browser. ANYTHING. Running Linux is just a proof of concept.
Bellard wrote FF-Mpeg, Qemu, and now this. I have no words to express my admiration for his talent.
Combine "use only Chinese data centers" with "we decide what can go online in China" (ICP license and such) and you got a really bad cocktail for a new kind of unseen censorship in China... But frankly, is that better than the "internet kill switch" of the Obama administration, or the domain names taken away from Internet (even hosted abroad) by USA? I'm not sure what's the worst of the 2.
The fact that Chinese labor is cheap has to do with monetary policy. It's working well, because the government in China well understood it a long time ago. In USA, you have a private-owned central bank, which the only goal is to please the shareholders and wall-street (when the People's bank of China reports directly to the central party). That makes a huge difference, and this has nothing to do with non-patriotic American companies.
Tsss... Americans... You guys always think that without you, earth would stop turning, rain stop falling, etc. What makes you think that it is US that made China the next superpower is a mystery to me, just like what the rest I just stated.
Openstack is slowly becoming THE cloud project for IaaS. Now, NASA is clearly involved in the project, and has written some part of the code, and obviously, will continue. Does this mean that if a company in China decides to contribute, NASA will have to stop any work on Openstack? Or does this concern only space, and open source projects are not included in the ban?
If you provide a service to the public, whether or not you charge directly for that service, you are taking on certain moral (and in some cases legal) obligations. One of the foremost of those obligations is not to pull the rug out from under people's feet.
It's with that thinking that people register dangerously to sites like Facebook. It's this misunderstanding that leads to disaster like loosing personal content. If someone provides you a hosting service for free, which means he is not bound by a contract to you nor by the obligation to fulfill that contract against the money you gave him, then that person owns you absolutely nothing. Read Facebook terms of services. More or less, they have the rights to do absolutely whatever they are pleased with the things you upload to their site. Yes, THEIR site, not yours, not ours. Sure, it's morally wrong, but it's also economically right, which is the very point that you miss: these free services aren't there to help, they are around to make money. That's what the OP didn't understand, and still don't get. That's what a lot of people don't get with Facebook as well: they will continue to be evil, because that's the only way they have to make money.
No, it's not sad. Why? Because people are stupid to use someone else's website, and think it's their own. At most, you could say that what's morally wrong is to exploit people's stupidity. But that's about it, and frankly, that's the principle of so many business. And that isn't illegal (remember? Free, no contact, no obligation...).
I always wonder if people who say "if you're not taking someone's money you don't owe them anything" apply that principle to their daily lives. Do you refuse to send birthday cards to your family unless they pay you to do it? Do you tell your friend, "sure, I'll give you a ride to the store in an hour," and then, when he calls two hours later asking where you are, laugh at him and tell him how stupid he was to think you'd help him out for free? Do you turn the other way when you see a little kid about to wander out into traffic, because hey, it's not like the little brat's going to pay you to pull him out of the way of an oncoming car? How far are you willing to go in service to this vile principle in which you claim to believe?
Your examples are quite silly, because I know my family and friends, and I like to send them birthday cards, or give them a ride, because I love them, and I'd save a kid because I do care for saving one random kid's life. But in the case of a free service on the internet, you don't know the owner. Or maybe you are a friend of M. Marc Z.? So, to take your example, no, I will not send a birthday card to a random person that I don't know. Yes, I might laugh at a person that I don't know who thinks that I will give a ride for free. If it was a taxi, he must accept the ride (not rights to say no when I get in, at least in most countries), and he must drive me to destination against the money I'm giving him. If I'm helping a friend, I have the rights to invent whatever excuse, like I'm sick, busy with work, or whatever (it's not nice, I wouldn't do it, but I can if I want to). Yes, I will help a little kid so that he wont be smashed by a car in the traffic because I care to save a life. Correct, this has absolutely nothing to do with money.
But what all that has to do with a random free service provider? Oh, maybe you really think that this random free service provider does it exactly because... he cares to help you, because he wants to be nice? Come on, don't make yourself such a fool...
How can this be "sadly"? So you want that someone who doesn't PAY A DIME for a service GIVEN FOR FREE, to get granted higher rights than the person owning the domain name and infrastructure? Come on, on what world are you living?
That guy and his wife just got what they paid for, and the only person they have to blame is themselves for being greedy, or trusting enough someone they don't know, and give out personal content. Would you give your personal diary to a random person on the street? Same issue here.
Hosting a blog on your own website doesn't cost much, I'm sure you could find such a shared hosting service for less than 20USD / year.
Slashdot Mirror
For your arguments: if you can't see what the seed market has become, missed the big picture and the danger of patenting life, destroying markets, enslaving farmers, and risking destroying ecosystems with experiments or productions, big lobbies and so on, then never mind. Keep your eyes closed, and think about GMO as if it was sci-fi if you want, but please don't tell me about the selective breeding: that's a totally different thing.
Now for the words you are throwing at me: I believe you don't know me at all, and don't even have the smallest idea of the extensiveness or absence of knowledge I have on GMO (that's for "ignorant"), or even what I think of myself (that's for my self considering). Nothing in my post gives such clue. The way I see it: you just can't stand someone with a different opinion, and find useful to spit "foolish" words on me. Not very useful, I believe.
If they really are superior foods, then people will naturally pick them. That is how the free market works.
WRONG! If they really are superior money makers, then people will naturally pick them. Market is in the favor of money, not good products.
Genetically Modified means that you take a plant, and manipulate/change/modify its genes (in fact, we either remove or add one gene, most of the time, using some vector to transport the gene). It seems simple, but you don't seem to get it. Or is it that you think that 1000 years ago, we had the technology to manipulate genes? Or maybe you think (wrongly) that what we call selection is gene manipulation? It's none of what you wrote!
keep it separate and distant from actual crops to prevent genetic transfer
It has been proven that one of the vectors of cross-crop genes are insects and bees. How are you going to protect a crop from them?
what does "Monsanto being evil money-grabbing bastards" have to do with foods not being safe
Isn't it obvious? Isn't eating food full of herbicide a concern for you? Monsanto itself isn't producing or selling food, only seeds and chemical which you use to do that. But what you do with it is bad food, full of poison (remember: the goal is to kill plants).
Well tried, but no. Bananas are not genetically modified. They are clones. Not like Doly the sheep, it's a natural process for plants: you take a bit of a banana tree (let's say, maybe a branch, I'm not a banana specialist, so I can't tell which bit...), plant it somewhere else, and there you go, you got another banana tree growing. The fact banana trees are very weak, is because of that reason: they are all clones from the same plants. So they are all sensitive to the same diseases and parasites, which find always the same target and can multiply very fast.
And yes, there are some banana fruits that can reproduce on their own, but they are very small, and are full of seeds. But you see, it's been decades (centuries?) that we don't eat bananas with seeds, because we don't like it, because they are not adapted for transport, and all sorts of other (silly?) reasons. This might change though, because after lots and lots of clones, our "modern" bananas have lost taste, compared to the reproducing ones which are really sweet.
You wrote RTFM/WTF/FUD? Well, at least do it smartly...
It seems you didn't hear about the story of that farmer, who unwillingly, had his field infected with GMO, because others around were using it (but not him). Then, enormously-wealthy Monsanto sued the poor farmer for using GMOs without buying the copyright they have on the patented seeds.
Another issue. In France, they don't produce GMO corn, or things stuffed with round-up, because you see, they care a bit for their health, and very strangely, believe that eating herbicide sprayed-so-much veggies might be harmful. But then, producers on the other side of the ocean use (and abuse) of round-up-ready Monsanto seeds, and of course, have better productivity, which leads to cheaper corn. Guess what! French can't compete with Americans, and of course, US thinks it's a WTO violation to ban GMO imports.
Now, on the supermarket, sure, nobody is forcing anyone to buy GMO products. But the issue is that we don't know what is made with GMO products. So even if we have that freedom, we can't exercise it. There was once some trials to put stickers on food that contained GMO, but the lobbies are too powerful, and it didn't work.
There are other examples like that. Hundreds of them. You think people have freedom of not using GMO in their crops? Think again, freedom not what big-seed company wants, and that's not what is happening in many places.
Now, let's take freedom and market appart. Do you think that, for food, the only think that counts is money? Isn't there is something called health that we should care about?
It's a sad day for the freedom of scientific research.
Well, considering what has already happened with the round-up ready stuff and all this Monsanto crap, it might be a sad day for scientific research, but it's a good day for the freedom of eating natural veggies. Thanks, but no thanks, we don't want your GMO anymore, we saw what it does. If you want to do research, feel free to do it IN THE LABS, but absolutely NOT IN THE WILD.
In Debian, if you release some documentation using the FDL, and if don't specify that it has no back-cover or invariant part, we'll consider it non-free (eg: it wont go in Debian main, wont be allowed to be put on the CDs, etc.). Yet, the FSF doesn't recognize how bad this license is, and continues to push for this broken one. This is really pure stupidity. People are going to release documentation under this license, thinking that it will render the documentation free, when in fact, it's going to do the exact opposite thing. Why can't the FSF learn and correct this huge mistake? I don't get it...
If the Vs get to know that map, they will locate us, and we're done!
Choosing an another system may cause you to restrict your freedom on where the device runs on. GNU is incompatible with iOS app store for example.
You are mistaking between 2 different notion: freedom and possibilities. Using a GNU application will certainly add some freedom, but I may not have the possibility to use it. The later has absolutely nothing to do with freedom.
Microsoft is all about making money. FOSS developers have a large slew of reasons to release FOSS. Not all of them are good and right.
We don't care what the other FOSS developers intention are, what counts is what type of license they use. It shall not be possible for a given FOSS application to restrict my freedom, even after the application is released. If the developer is not doing a good job, someone else must be able to take over his work, and release a new version, forked from the original work. You may want to have a look to the DFSG for example, which explains this very well: DFSG.
How do you know you are not being spied with other systems as well? Systems like Skype need some infrastructure. So if there is a central repository of data for routing then it could be modified to tee the data to someone else. Heck they can just pipe off the ISPs and send some of that traffic the other way.
I know I'm not being spied on, because I use state of the art encryption, either SRTP/ZRTP for the transport and TLS for SIP, or simple TLS when I use mumble. The ISP can just pipe my data if they like, they will still not be able to spy on me.
Citation Needed. If MS can make money off of skype for linux they will put more coders on the job. Oddly enough software developers can work on multiple platforms and languages.
I specifically pointed out the bug tracker system of Skype because it's there. Feel free, search in it, and you'll find it out. I've done my homework, please do yours before replying to someone.
Because not too many people use Skype on Linux... Sorry... Linux is a Server OS not a desktop OS. If it crashes perhaps because Linux is open source you can make a patch to work around those issues.
Well, I've been using Debian as my main Desktop system since 2004. My wife, her father, mother and sister are also using Debian or Ubuntu as their operating system. Oddly enough, for all of them, it was more easy and safer to use Ubuntu. I didn't have to reinstall the OS (it just worked), and as they didn't know Windows much, they didn't complain, and were very happy about it. Why are you saying Linux isn't for Desktop? Are you frustrated?
As for the crashes of Linux, no, we do not have the source code of Skype, so we can't fix it. Are you saying that suddenly, they released an open source version? Gosh, this should make the headlines of Slashdot!
Perhaps it is purple from Pidgins fault not skype.
It's not. We don't know the way Skype works, because it's a closed technology. Unless you are really good with reverse engineering, it's going to be very hard to understand Skype protocol. So yes, it's the fault of Skype if Pidgin can't connect to the Skype network.
So it didn't happen in 2 days so it will never happen. Boo-Hoo
Yearh, 2 days, right... In your post, you can reduce the YEARS of waiting from the Linux community into 2 days, but it wont change the real facts.
So they also didn't say they are going to remove it either.
Did you read the article which is on top the very page you are reading right now?
Linux audio support is bad and it crashes often... Heck Linux Copy and paste support is bad too.
Did you care reading my post? I wrote that Skype audio support was bad, not the audio in Linux, which works very well. And copy pas
And guess what's going to happen to the Skype support in my Nokia n900 ... Even you, forgot about it.
If Microsoft wanted just the audio tech part of Skype, they would have simply buy it. Why? Because the audio part of Skype hasn't been made inhouse, but BOUGHT on the software market, and included in the product. Echo cancelation and codecs aren't Skype's work.
Maybe because: :)
- We care about our freedom in general, Skype shouldn't be the exception
- We don't trust Microsoft
- We do trust the US government AND the Chinese to spy on us using the Skype network. There's already a "special" Chinese version with the "feature" to have big brother listening. Who know's what the "normal" version does.
- Skype on Linux is crap, there's no 64 bits version (no, the package they pretend to be 64 bits isn't 64 bits at all, it's a 32 bits version with some lib32 dependencies). Moreover, it crashes, and you have to use loads of tricks to have everything working, like starting it with "env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib32/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype", otherwise it simply doesn't work. Even Adobe Flash has a real 64 bits version. Skype is the only software on my OS which is like that, and even if so many people asked for a real build for 64 bits, they've been ignoring all requests.
- The one and only one Linux developer for Skype has already proven, through the BTS and others, that he isn't competent to do the job. Do you think this is going to change with MS on board? That they will hire better coders? That's a big bet.
- Skype is the only instant messaging app that doesn't integrate well with multi-network libs like purple from Pidgin.
- Skype said they would at some point provide a "libskype" so that we could implement our own GUI, but it's not happening
- No announcement has been made by MS about the future of Skype for Mac or Linux
- Skype audio support is bad, it crashes often.
- Skype is the only absolutely needed piece of software for which we don't have source for, if you don't account flash as well (but flash has (buggy) compatible alternatives which you can deal with, Skype doesn't)
- Did I mention that Skype crashes often in Linux?
And also, please avoid to call FOSS supporters "knee jerk" in this site, as there's a good chance that others wont like it and will mod you out (I don't get why this hasn't happen already by the way). Anyway, the issues with Skype aren't new, and have absolutely nothing to do with the fact it's now a MS product.
Now, I don't get why the OP went through. We all have been knowing for a long time how bad the situation is, and how much we need some alternatives. Something open, with encryption at all levels, multi-platform, and decentralized. I'm sure it will happen, but I'm also sure this wont be tomorrow.
You should rephrase: are Americans scared to face the reality, which is most people on earth think they are the evil? Look in the last 60 years, and see who's fought the most wars, corrupted so many regimes, and the entire world economy, and you have the big picture. When I was a kid, the USA imperialism was even one of the topic I had to discuss to graduate from high school.
DISCLAIMER: I make a distinction between governments and populations.
No!
Which doesn't work if using NAT on both sides, if I'm not mistaking, right?
It simply sux. It's slow, written in Java, crashes often, and has no core libs written by upstream authors (they just use purple lib like "everyone else", and so many other libs). More over, it's not a peer to peer (eg: without *any* server in the middle) kind of client like Skype is. Jitsi might "look" good, but it is crap when you really start to use it.
As for other alternatives, there's many that wont support ZRTP. People got to realize that listening to a SIP call is really trivial using wireshark (it would reconstruct the RTP stream so easily). ZRTP isn't easy to implement, as it has to be done from library to GUI all the way (so you can check the auth string on the GUI).
Also, let's be realistic: RTP / ZRTP sux. Forget about morons that are saying SIP doesn't do NAT (it does through STUN very easily), or that sound is poor (it in fact depends on the codec), but what sux here, is the transport protocol, and the fact that we always have to have a server in the middle, and all sorts of mess for things that should be damned easy, like chat and file transfer. Yes, there's simple, XMPP, etc, but it really doesn't work well, unless we're all using the same client, which never happens. Some will use Ekiga, some Linux Phone, some Jitsi. And at the end, they do not work well together, unfortunately.
How can someone be so damned silly enough to think there's no use for it... Man, a FULL x86 EMULATOR written in Javascript! Possibilities are endless. The point isn't just to run Linux, but anything that is written in C, and that you want to run in your browser. ANYTHING. Running Linux is just a proof of concept.
Bellard wrote FF-Mpeg, Qemu, and now this. I have no words to express my admiration for his talent.
Combine "use only Chinese data centers" with "we decide what can go online in China" (ICP license and such) and you got a really bad cocktail for a new kind of unseen censorship in China... But frankly, is that better than the "internet kill switch" of the Obama administration, or the domain names taken away from Internet (even hosted abroad) by USA? I'm not sure what's the worst of the 2.
The fact that Chinese labor is cheap has to do with monetary policy. It's working well, because the government in China well understood it a long time ago. In USA, you have a private-owned central bank, which the only goal is to please the shareholders and wall-street (when the People's bank of China reports directly to the central party). That makes a huge difference, and this has nothing to do with non-patriotic American companies.
The US already made china the next superpower.
Tsss... Americans... You guys always think that without you, earth would stop turning, rain stop falling, etc. What makes you think that it is US that made China the next superpower is a mystery to me, just like what the rest I just stated.
Openstack is slowly becoming THE cloud project for IaaS. Now, NASA is clearly involved in the project, and has written some part of the code, and obviously, will continue. Does this mean that if a company in China decides to contribute, NASA will have to stop any work on Openstack? Or does this concern only space, and open source projects are not included in the ban?
If you provide a service to the public, whether or not you charge directly for that service, you are taking on certain moral (and in some cases legal) obligations. One of the foremost of those obligations is not to pull the rug out from under people's feet.
It's with that thinking that people register dangerously to sites like Facebook. It's this misunderstanding that leads to disaster like loosing personal content. If someone provides you a hosting service for free, which means he is not bound by a contract to you nor by the obligation to fulfill that contract against the money you gave him, then that person owns you absolutely nothing. Read Facebook terms of services. More or less, they have the rights to do absolutely whatever they are pleased with the things you upload to their site. Yes, THEIR site, not yours, not ours. Sure, it's morally wrong, but it's also economically right, which is the very point that you miss: these free services aren't there to help, they are around to make money. That's what the OP didn't understand, and still don't get. That's what a lot of people don't get with Facebook as well: they will continue to be evil, because that's the only way they have to make money.
No, it's not sad. Why? Because people are stupid to use someone else's website, and think it's their own. At most, you could say that what's morally wrong is to exploit people's stupidity. But that's about it, and frankly, that's the principle of so many business. And that isn't illegal (remember? Free, no contact, no obligation...).
I always wonder if people who say "if you're not taking someone's money you don't owe them anything" apply that principle to their daily lives. Do you refuse to send birthday cards to your family unless they pay you to do it? Do you tell your friend, "sure, I'll give you a ride to the store in an hour," and then, when he calls two hours later asking where you are, laugh at him and tell him how stupid he was to think you'd help him out for free? Do you turn the other way when you see a little kid about to wander out into traffic, because hey, it's not like the little brat's going to pay you to pull him out of the way of an oncoming car? How far are you willing to go in service to this vile principle in which you claim to believe?
Your examples are quite silly, because I know my family and friends, and I like to send them birthday cards, or give them a ride, because I love them, and I'd save a kid because I do care for saving one random kid's life. But in the case of a free service on the internet, you don't know the owner. Or maybe you are a friend of M. Marc Z.? So, to take your example, no, I will not send a birthday card to a random person that I don't know. Yes, I might laugh at a person that I don't know who thinks that I will give a ride for free. If it was a taxi, he must accept the ride (not rights to say no when I get in, at least in most countries), and he must drive me to destination against the money I'm giving him. If I'm helping a friend, I have the rights to invent whatever excuse, like I'm sick, busy with work, or whatever (it's not nice, I wouldn't do it, but I can if I want to). Yes, I will help a little kid so that he wont be smashed by a car in the traffic because I care to save a life. Correct, this has absolutely nothing to do with money.
... he cares to help you, because he wants to be nice? Come on, don't make yourself such a fool...
But what all that has to do with a random free service provider? Oh, maybe you really think that this random free service provider does it exactly because
The number of Facebook users proves you wrong.
sadly, the website owner is the one that rules :-/
How can this be "sadly"? So you want that someone who doesn't PAY A DIME for a service GIVEN FOR FREE, to get granted higher rights than the person owning the domain name and infrastructure? Come on, on what world are you living?
That guy and his wife just got what they paid for, and the only person they have to blame is themselves for being greedy, or trusting enough someone they don't know, and give out personal content. Would you give your personal diary to a random person on the street? Same issue here.
Hosting a blog on your own website doesn't cost much, I'm sure you could find such a shared hosting service for less than 20USD / year.