On the other hand... consider how much other people like the people who yell at their cell phones. Then try to guess how much they'll love the idea of people having discussion with similar devices. Oh boy.
--
This should be obvious, but if you don't need high FP (no, not first Post) performance, the chip might do well enough. Most servers (web, db) have little use for floating point arithmetics (AFAIK); many applications don't really depend on fast FPU (including spreadsheets as well as word processors), non-3D games. And 3D gfx cards give lessen FP calculation load, even though CPUs still need to do some of the calculations.
It would be kind of interesting to see some estimations on current mix of assembly instructions by category, for "typical set of applications" (defined in some reasonably sane sense). Wouldn't be too surprised if dudes at Intel had used such estimations on deciding to use an outdated FPU, actually.
--
Since when does a sugarpill induce vomiting, nausea, headaches in 0.0001% of patients studied?
An unfortunate thing is, that due to (too?) strict FDA regulations, _all_ side effects, no matter how dubious they appear, have to be included in reports. So, having just one hypocondriac (or however it's spelled) might get your medicine a nice little list of side effects...:-)
I'm sure it is intended to make sure that pharmaceutical companies won't try to sweep valid side effect reports under the carpet, but the downside is the long list of horrible side-effects, yes, even for sugar pills. Kind of like reverse placebo effect?
--
Perhaps we don't agree on the point. Explosives are effective weapons of terror, but they are
instantaneous. Oklahoma bombing for instance. Horrible destruction, but it was over right away.
Now, focus on the fact that anyone you may come into contact with in the following weeks may
give you a lethal infection. The paranoia factor ramps up pretty quickly.
In many ways, then, all depends on what exactly do various terrorist groups want. Most often they are seen as hollywood - created devilworshipping ultra-evil bastards who seek ultimate painful destruction of huge groups of people, and usually also being wickedly intelligent (weird combination isn't it?). If that is accurate portrayal, it is easier to see bio-warfare as a viable means, since its shock value is relatively high (once again, thanks to movies that have made it easier to visualize effects).
As to defense spending; although I personally wouldn't mind not having to pay for US huge defense budget (smaller one would suffice for defensive forces), I'm not here bitching about the overall costs. I do bitch about where to spend that money; and for most purposes it seems there are more worthwhile spending targets. Threat, for me, doesn't seem as legible as it seems for many other./ - readers. And I am trying to figure out what exactly makes threats seem more credible for others... It must have something to do with geekiness, bio-weapons being kind of bleeding edge ultra-cool killing methods. Just like latest whizzbang CPUs, 3d gfx cards and such inspire most people around here.
Iraq used nerve gas against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war of the 80's and they also used it against the
Iraqi Kurds. Maybe that's why Bush the Senior called Saddam "worse than Hitler"?
True enough, and they also used ICBMs (well, whatever you call those obsolete pieces of crap that were barely more advanced than -44 german V-2s...). And at the time there were rumours that those scuds were supposed to contain some chemical or biological warheads. Had they contained them, he could be used as a posterboy for the efforts described in the article...
I knew I shouldn't have mentioned anything about gun laws as people then tend to miss the actual points. I wasn't even saying it causes terrorism, just saying it makes it even more likely that terrorists choose these more traditional weapons. And yes, you are certainly right that nations with strict controls aren't unlikely to face terrorism; especially since terrorists are often foreigners, not citizens of the countries (RAF in Germany being one exception).
As to US having to be concerned... most certainly it has to. But it might be more efficient if it concentrated on actual threats, and so far everything points those are conventional terrorist attacks, not the "new sexy" methods. Or perhaps I am mistaken and terrorists are like geeks and love the bleeding edge weaponry...:-)
There is difference between protecting from real threats, preparing, and fighting strawmen.
About McVeigh... The question is, if he could have, would he have? Bio/chem-warfare are old ideas, something armies have practically abandoned (except for Iraq and perhaps some other rogue nations) as impractical. I'm not so sure terrorists would consider them more practical either. The sarin gas attack is about the only example, and that probably should hint at impracticality... And it had to be carried out in a carefully selected location to make it more likely to succeed (poor ventilation to make sarin levels toxic enough to kill fast... I know, nerve gases are designed to not need big concentrations, but still).
I wasn't implying nukes would be the way to go (or ICBMs), agree with you there. And yes, of the weapons of mass-destruction, chemical ones do seem most applicable (and the only one that has ever been 'succesfully' field-tested in Japan?). And
finally, nerve gases are pretty old stuff (developed on early 20th century and used on 1st world war)... But since 'early adoption', haven't been used by armies, not even by Nazi-Germany.
I still wouldn't think that even chem attacks are as viable as more traditional methods, but at least they are marginally more believable than the 'alternatives' presented. But why use chem weapons? Any Joe Six-pack can shoot a rifle (and assault rifle is easier), it doesn't take a genius to build bombs (much less to detonate). It is still much more effort in all respects to mess with 'more advanced' stuff. And with chemical warfare, the results are not necessarily much more wide-spreading than with explosives.
Exactly. Sometimes it just feels like all the catastrophy movies (or even the good old Bond-movies with evil satellites that send virus pods to earth) have created these images in peoples' minds, images that stick so well as to make these scenarios somehow relevant and compelling. They must have something similar to what urban legends have, something so intriguing and interesting that people forget to objectively think about situation.
One more thing is that another drawback for diseases is the feedback; you can be quite sure your precious little Ebola-infection will reach terrorists home country in few weeks (if not before). And somehow I think not all terrorists are Hollywood variety of wild-eyed raving lunatics that really just aim at highest number of people dead in the most horrible way possible. Oftentimes it seems to be more about publicity (which is of course not to defend terrorism in any way or form).
Finally... if a terrorist group got to choose whether to (a) kill president of USA or (b) kill 100.000 Joe Sixpack americans, which one do you think they'd choose? You can do one of these with firearms, for the other nuclear bomb would be more appropriate (and like you say, the best way for terrorists to get a bomb would be to steal an existing one... perhaps easiest to just get access and enough knowledge to detonate one where it's stored; should be close enough to some decent target, like army camp)
I firmly
belive this scenario is far more compelling and dangerous then rogue nuclear
missiles - check out my review of Living Terrors for more information.
And I firmly believe it's a typical straw man. Nuclear, chemical, biological... Big countries with fat armies can and do develop them; for terrorists good old explosives are much more cost-effective. In this case I'm kind of wondering what kind of (bio-)gas are military (and some political) leaders have been inhaling.
Why on earth would a terrorist group waste their resources on complicated/expensive (nuclear, ballistic missiles), error prone and unreliable (biological) or combination of both (chem) "weapons"?!?!
Biological attacks are (at least on current level) probably the most highly overrated threats of them all, though. It not only includes risky feed-back property of nuclear stuff (you think your disease will stay in enemy territory for long?), and either slow-incubating ineffective (low lethality) aspects (like HIV) or fast and kind of effective disease that quickly runs out of steam (Ebola).
Its only perceived benefit is that "it's scary stuff!", kind of whizz-bang - factor of warfare.
Bit like nerve gases, except less effective, and harder to control. But seems to sell real well.
So, here's the scenario: terrorist groups are delighted to see da Big Nation wastes its resources on fighting straw-men, and at same time plan new ways to stick more good ole TNT up Uncle Sam's ass (usually abroad as it's easier that way).
Adobe only has so much power as the government gives it; take away that
power and Adobe is no more powerful than you or I. Big government is at fault here.
I am kind of puzzled, though; with libertarians wanting to abolish government (whereas I might be more inclined to abolish corporations if I had to choose one of 2...:-) ), who would take the power away? Not the skinny skeleton government libertarians would have for sure?
But was he selling it in US of A? I may be wrong but I thought he was only selling it in Russia. Of course, if it was being sold on web, one might argue you're selling it everywhere?
I know the dangers of DMCA et al, and the desire some huge corporations have to just squash the whole "fair use" notion.
However, the original poster seemed to share a common misconception that the record/movie companies somehow have the responsibility to make it possible (perhaps even easy) to copy their content, provided the content is gained legally (tv broadcast, purchased cd/dvd etc). It would be nice to know if there's _any_ foundation for such beliefs, other than "well if the don't, they should" intuition.
When will unmetered
low-earth satellite coverage get here instead?
Like Iridium? Never would be my guess. If you think cost of cellular data networks is prohibitive, don't even dream of using a swarm of low-orbit satellites. It is kind of intriguing why all those billionaires invest in an obviously flawed idea (Bill Gates et al). Perhaps they just don't know anything about economy?:-)
Thing is, with dozens of expensive relatively short-lived satellites launched dirt expensively, terminal devices that either need to use high energy transmitters and/or satellites having extra sensitive receivers... How could it be cheaper than using earth-based systems? The only (?) good thing is that in the middle of nowhere where it's not economical to build cellular networks, satellites may be your saviour. Unfortunately, 99% of time, cellnet is just fine (and depending on your usage pattern, 10-90% of time fixed line is fine)
If you don't need to move a lot you should use fixed wire stuff (in-house roaming with infra-red or short-distance wireless radio); practically unlimited bandwidth, low cost.
If you need to move more, cellular networks are next in line; it's possible to get reasonable bandwidth, but operating costs are higher no matter what, so end user cost is as well (exception; if there's no ready decent infrastructure for fixed lines wireless might be competitive... like in Africa or some ass-kicked islamic country).
And if you just have to go in the middle of Sahara to browse porn, yeah, use Iridium. I'm sure this is enough to finance the multi-billion project on long-term.
Well, I think that the right you have is "right to do it if you can", not "broadcaster has to make it possible (or east) for you to do it". You have a right to make a photocopies of few pages of a book (for your personal use, "fair use"),
but book publisher doesn't have to pay for your visit to Kinko's. Or publisher could be a blood-hungry corporation and even print the whole book red on black.:-)
(the old LaserBasic manual I had on late 80s was that way, to prevent copying... wonder how big of a problem it was thought to be).
... I heard they were accompanied by Gillette, that also has 'Gillette Contour' shaving stuff (at least they do in Europe)
Re:Let this be a lesson to you...
on
MySQL & Nusphere
·
· Score: 1
Ok I see, I thought you meant the public announcements aimed at developers/users. You are certainly right in letting lawyers do the legal talk, at your 'enemy'.:-)
And it might be professional not to comment on the process while it's going... But then again, I feel OS people are more sensitive to moral/ideological issues behind the fights, and that you may need to issue some non-legalese statements to "your friends" too. I am sure glad I don't have to deal with these kinds of situatuons though.:-)
I hate to sound like a Machead (I'm not one, don't own a Mac, but used it at my previous job), but one of the few 'advanced' things on old MacOS was this kind of link-level integrity. This is because links point to internal id (not filename), and moving files around doesn't change that id. Ditto for volumes (partitions). Although I was really fed up with stability probs when I had to develop
on MacOS, there were some features that were refreshingly useful or neat.
... except when you try to rename a directory to have a backup version of your source code (for example), and all default paths from other applications still point to your old version, not new one. Bit me a few times, when I forgot that unix-like renaming-for-backup doesn't work quite as well on Mac.:-)
And you can't complain that someone is keeping you from doing what you want with the
tools you have, if the activity you want to do is illegal.
Actually, things are not quite that black and white. People are usually heavily opposed to many things that would prevent them from doing illegal things (usually by also preventing a whole slew of legal things as well).
I don't want to start a flamewar so I'll skip USA-and-guns here, but consider these examples:
Driving faster than the speed limit. If you were forced to install system that automatically limits your car's (mc's, whatever) speed to legal values, would you complain? (supposing system didn't prevent any legal speeds...)
Making a copy of a game/application/movie. It may be legal (personal use, backups) or illegal (duplicating to sell the pirated version). Should you be prevented from doing that since it
may actually be illegal action?
Giving a speech in which you commit libel and/or slander (which are illegal but really matter of judgment... decided by courts).
Thing is; you can't be _prevented_ from speaking, but you can certainly be found guilty after the fact. Would it be better if you actually were prevented if it's likely you are to commit such a crime?
My point is; in many cases people have legitimate reason to object systems that are supposed to prevent only (or mostly) illegal activities. Usually it is because legality really can't be decided before the act, but also it's most often much more efficient not to waste energy in trying to completely prevent all abuses beforehand.
In USA one example is INS and tax returns; only small percentage of tax returns are thoroughly checked, since it's assumed most people do not try to cheat, and also because chance of catching cheaters still remains high enough to make the idea less tempting (or at least that's what they hope for...). The alternative would be that each tax-payer would have to arrange a time to meet an investigator from INS, and explain every detail about your incomes and deductions. This would likely prevent most cheating, depending on how much resources INS officials had... But it would most likely be very cost inefficient way, not to mention people would object to this tax-gestapo approach.
Re:Let this be a lesson to you...
on
MySQL & Nusphere
·
· Score: 1
If you ever have a public spat, never speak on behalf of your side of things. Get a lawyer to do it. Right now it looks like childish bickering.
While other things you say are completely true, and sound like a good advice, in Open Source / Free s/w world... well, think again about letting lawyers send your message. It's a slap in your audience's/customers face to have to deal with legalese, carefully hidden double-talk and vague implications. In PR, lawyers should assist, but not lead.
Well, I don't claim to know everything about the subject, but I did check out the article(s)... And, well, it seems that the creators (MySQL inc, or whatever "aktiebolaget" from swedish translates to)
have tried to avoid legal maneuvers. Which is certainly wise, as the opponent is a US-based company.:-/
Now, if you have created a GPL'ed product, and someone:
Creates a statically linked add-on and
charges money for the add-on (plus the base GPL-ed product)
without giving you (customer) the source code, that is,
violating GPL all the way and
misleads on their web-page by implying (not stating, but certainly implying) they are creators
of MySQL (and having the.org domain name is misleading too; they are commercially oriented, not just a do-good organization), and finally
refuses any compromises and ends negotiations by suing creators (MySQL AB apparently only counter-sued)
what should you do? Just turn your other cheek?
I don't like lawsuits, esp. between open source - based companies, but in this case facts seem to be in favour of MySQL AB. It's nice to "just get along", except if you are being taken unfair advantage of, like in this case.
What is really unfortunate, though, is that it doesn't seem far-fetched to wish things had developed differently. Especialy I\if Gemini is as good a product as some say. But still, that doesn't justify assholish actions.
The difference is that if I read NY Times and my neighbour reads Playboy, I only have to pay for my NY Times. I think most people would like it to stay that way
Do you watch all the channels that are available for you on cable/satellite tv (or broadcast)? You are still paying for all the crappy channels you never watch. And the difference between playboy vs. NYT compared is similar to difference between columnist. You can subscribe just one magazine, but not just one columnist. But that's because of level of bundling.
Most important, though, is that if cost to get this mass subscription was significantly less than individual membership, who cares if you just use small part of them? You'll still pay less than for just getting what you want. And as an added bonus, should NYT interest you, not just Playboy, you can start reading articles.
As to universities, well, both students and faculty can be thought of paying for it indirectly. However, I guess that total costs are insignificantly low per person, due to fixed prices.
I'm not claiming it's not a problem that bundling might not fit your needs. But there are also opportunities there (cost, mainly), and it might even spur competition. ISP that has bet "feature set" for you would have a definite edge.
And finally, subscription model would most likely still only be used for minority of sites, and even those that do, would/will probably have a freebie section as well.
This may be off-topic, but what is funny is that one of the original supposed "killer applications" for telephones by mr. Bell et al, was listening to symphonies using telephone. I mean, the idea was that people could listen to real live mysic played by trained symphony orchestras, "broadcasted" by telephone lines.
It now sounds ridiculous, of course, because of the low sound quality and all, but I guess they were both imaginative (innovative? or is that (tm) by BillySoft?) and desperate for marketing stuff, even back then. Similar to how things like "videophones", "speech input", "3d UI", "video-on-demand" and such are being pushed all the time, even though apprarently few
people really want or need them (see Jakob Nielsen's inteview for references on "speech input" and "3d UI", if you think I'm just trolling... he has good reasoning about their problems... they are sexy, but they will only have niches, if even that).
Slashdot Mirror
On the other hand... consider how much other people like the people who yell at their cell phones. Then try to guess how much they'll love the idea of people having discussion with similar devices. Oh boy.
--
It would be kind of interesting to see some estimations on current mix of assembly instructions by category, for "typical set of applications" (defined in some reasonably sane sense). Wouldn't be too surprised if dudes at Intel had used such estimations on deciding to use an outdated FPU, actually.
--
An unfortunate thing is, that due to (too?) strict FDA regulations, _all_ side effects, no matter how dubious they appear, have to be included in reports. So, having just one hypocondriac (or however it's spelled) might get your medicine a nice little list of side effects... :-)
I'm sure it is intended to make sure that pharmaceutical companies won't try to sweep valid side effect reports under the carpet, but the downside is the long list of horrible side-effects, yes, even for sugar pills. Kind of like reverse placebo effect?
--
You'd probably ask for 2 * 1 / 3.14159... tickets then? (pi being base and you wanting less than 1 unit)
--
In many ways, then, all depends on what exactly do various terrorist groups want. Most often they are seen as hollywood - created devilworshipping ultra-evil bastards who seek ultimate painful destruction of huge groups of people, and usually also being wickedly intelligent (weird combination isn't it?). If that is accurate portrayal, it is easier to see bio-warfare as a viable means, since its shock value is relatively high (once again, thanks to movies that have made it easier to visualize effects).
As to defense spending; although I personally wouldn't mind not having to pay for US huge defense budget (smaller one would suffice for defensive forces), I'm not here bitching about the overall costs. I do bitch about where to spend that money; and for most purposes it seems there are more worthwhile spending targets. Threat, for me, doesn't seem as legible as it seems for many other ./ - readers. And I am trying to figure out what exactly makes threats seem more credible for others... It must have something to do with geekiness, bio-weapons being kind of bleeding edge ultra-cool killing methods. Just like latest whizzbang CPUs, 3d gfx cards and such inspire most people around here.
True enough, and they also used ICBMs (well, whatever you call those obsolete pieces of crap that were barely more advanced than -44 german V-2s...). And at the time there were rumours that those scuds were supposed to contain some chemical or biological warheads. Had they contained them, he could be used as a posterboy for the efforts described in the article...
As to US having to be concerned... most certainly it has to. But it might be more efficient if it concentrated on actual threats, and so far everything points those are conventional terrorist attacks, not the "new sexy" methods. Or perhaps I am mistaken and terrorists are like geeks and love the bleeding edge weaponry... :-)
There is difference between protecting from real threats, preparing, and fighting strawmen.
About McVeigh... The question is, if he could have, would he have? Bio/chem-warfare are old ideas, something armies have practically abandoned (except for Iraq and perhaps some other rogue nations) as impractical. I'm not so sure terrorists would consider them more practical either. The sarin gas attack is about the only example, and that probably should hint at impracticality... And it had to be carried out in a carefully selected location to make it more likely to succeed (poor ventilation to make sarin levels toxic enough to kill fast... I know, nerve gases are designed to not need big concentrations, but still).
Read: I tried to think why you are wrong but couldn't think of anything, but I'll flame on anyway.
I still wouldn't think that even chem attacks are as viable as more traditional methods, but at least they are marginally more believable than the 'alternatives' presented. But why use chem weapons? Any Joe Six-pack can shoot a rifle (and assault rifle is easier), it doesn't take a genius to build bombs (much less to detonate). It is still much more effort in all respects to mess with 'more advanced' stuff. And with chemical warfare, the results are not necessarily much more wide-spreading than with explosives.
One more thing is that another drawback for diseases is the feedback; you can be quite sure your precious little Ebola-infection will reach terrorists home country in few weeks (if not before). And somehow I think not all terrorists are Hollywood variety of wild-eyed raving lunatics that really just aim at highest number of people dead in the most horrible way possible. Oftentimes it seems to be more about publicity (which is of course not to defend terrorism in any way or form).
Finally... if a terrorist group got to choose whether to (a) kill president of USA or (b) kill 100.000 Joe Sixpack americans, which one do you think they'd choose? You can do one of these with firearms, for the other nuclear bomb would be more appropriate (and like you say, the best way for terrorists to get a bomb would be to steal an existing one... perhaps easiest to just get access and enough knowledge to detonate one where it's stored; should be close enough to some decent target, like army camp)
And I firmly believe it's a typical straw man. Nuclear, chemical, biological... Big countries with fat armies can and do develop them; for terrorists good old explosives are much more cost-effective. In this case I'm kind of wondering what kind of (bio-)gas are military (and some political) leaders have been inhaling.
Why on earth would a terrorist group waste their resources on complicated/expensive (nuclear, ballistic missiles), error prone and unreliable (biological) or combination of both (chem) "weapons"?!?!
Biological attacks are (at least on current level) probably the most highly overrated threats of them all, though. It not only includes risky feed-back property of nuclear stuff (you think your disease will stay in enemy territory for long?), and either slow-incubating ineffective (low lethality) aspects (like HIV) or fast and kind of effective disease that quickly runs out of steam (Ebola). Its only perceived benefit is that "it's scary stuff!", kind of whizz-bang - factor of warfare. Bit like nerve gases, except less effective, and harder to control. But seems to sell real well.
So, here's the scenario: terrorist groups are delighted to see da Big Nation wastes its resources on fighting straw-men, and at same time plan new ways to stick more good ole TNT up Uncle Sam's ass (usually abroad as it's easier that way).
I am kind of puzzled, though; with libertarians wanting to abolish government (whereas I might be more inclined to abolish corporations if I had to choose one of 2... :-) ), who would take the power away? Not the skinny skeleton government libertarians would have for sure?
But was he selling it in US of A? I may be wrong but I thought he was only selling it in Russia. Of course, if it was being sold on web, one might argue you're selling it everywhere?
However, the original poster seemed to share a common misconception that the record/movie companies somehow have the responsibility to make it possible (perhaps even easy) to copy their content, provided the content is gained legally (tv broadcast, purchased cd/dvd etc). It would be nice to know if there's _any_ foundation for such beliefs, other than "well if the don't, they should" intuition.
Like Iridium? Never would be my guess. If you think cost of cellular data networks is prohibitive, don't even dream of using a swarm of low-orbit satellites. It is kind of intriguing why all those billionaires invest in an obviously flawed idea (Bill Gates et al). Perhaps they just don't know anything about economy? :-)
Thing is, with dozens of expensive relatively short-lived satellites launched dirt expensively, terminal devices that either need to use high energy transmitters and/or satellites having extra sensitive receivers... How could it be cheaper than using earth-based systems? The only (?) good thing is that in the middle of nowhere where it's not economical to build cellular networks, satellites may be your saviour. Unfortunately, 99% of time, cellnet is just fine (and depending on your usage pattern, 10-90% of time fixed line is fine)
If you don't need to move a lot you should use fixed wire stuff (in-house roaming with infra-red or short-distance wireless radio); practically unlimited bandwidth, low cost. If you need to move more, cellular networks are next in line; it's possible to get reasonable bandwidth, but operating costs are higher no matter what, so end user cost is as well (exception; if there's no ready decent infrastructure for fixed lines wireless might be competitive... like in Africa or some ass-kicked islamic country).
And if you just have to go in the middle of Sahara to browse porn, yeah, use Iridium. I'm sure this is enough to finance the multi-billion project on long-term.
Well, I think that the right you have is "right to do it if you can", not "broadcaster has to make it possible (or east) for you to do it". You have a right to make a photocopies of few pages of a book (for your personal use, "fair use"), but book publisher doesn't have to pay for your visit to Kinko's. Or publisher could be a blood-hungry corporation and even print the whole book red on black. :-)
(the old LaserBasic manual I had on late 80s was that way, to prevent copying... wonder how big of a problem it was thought to be).
... I heard they were accompanied by Gillette, that also has 'Gillette Contour' shaving stuff (at least they do in Europe)
Ok I see, I thought you meant the public announcements aimed at developers/users. You are certainly right in letting lawyers do the legal talk, at your 'enemy'. :-)
:-)
And it might be professional not to comment on the process while it's going... But then again, I feel OS people are more sensitive to moral/ideological issues behind the fights, and that you may need to issue some non-legalese statements to "your friends" too. I am sure glad I don't have to deal with these kinds of situatuons though.
Actually, things are not quite that black and white. People are usually heavily opposed to many things that would prevent them from doing illegal things (usually by also preventing a whole slew of legal things as well).
I don't want to start a flamewar so I'll skip USA-and-guns here, but consider these examples:
My point is; in many cases people have legitimate reason to object systems that are supposed to prevent only (or mostly) illegal activities. Usually it is because legality really can't be decided before the act, but also it's most often much more efficient not to waste energy in trying to completely prevent all abuses beforehand. In USA one example is INS and tax returns; only small percentage of tax returns are thoroughly checked, since it's assumed most people do not try to cheat, and also because chance of catching cheaters still remains high enough to make the idea less tempting (or at least that's what they hope for...). The alternative would be that each tax-payer would have to arrange a time to meet an investigator from INS, and explain every detail about your incomes and deductions. This would likely prevent most cheating, depending on how much resources INS officials had... But it would most likely be very cost inefficient way, not to mention people would object to this tax-gestapo approach.
While other things you say are completely true, and sound like a good advice, in Open Source / Free s/w world... well, think again about letting lawyers send your message. It's a slap in your audience's/customers face to have to deal with legalese, carefully hidden double-talk and vague implications. In PR, lawyers should assist, but not lead.
Now, if you have created a GPL'ed product, and someone:
what should you do? Just turn your other cheek? I don't like lawsuits, esp. between open source - based companies, but in this case facts seem to be in favour of MySQL AB. It's nice to "just get along", except if you are being taken unfair advantage of, like in this case.
What is really unfortunate, though, is that it doesn't seem far-fetched to wish things had developed differently. Especialy I\if Gemini is as good a product as some say. But still, that doesn't justify assholish actions.
Do you watch all the channels that are available for you on cable/satellite tv (or broadcast)? You are still paying for all the crappy channels you never watch. And the difference between playboy vs. NYT compared is similar to difference between columnist. You can subscribe just one magazine, but not just one columnist. But that's because of level of bundling.
Most important, though, is that if cost to get this mass subscription was significantly less than individual membership, who cares if you just use small part of them? You'll still pay less than for just getting what you want. And as an added bonus, should NYT interest you, not just Playboy, you can start reading articles.
As to universities, well, both students and faculty can be thought of paying for it indirectly. However, I guess that total costs are insignificantly low per person, due to fixed prices.
I'm not claiming it's not a problem that bundling might not fit your needs. But there are also opportunities there (cost, mainly), and it might even spur competition. ISP that has bet "feature set" for you would have a definite edge.
And finally, subscription model would most likely still only be used for minority of sites, and even those that do, would/will probably have a freebie section as well.
This may be off-topic, but what is funny is that one of the original supposed "killer applications" for telephones by mr. Bell et al, was listening to symphonies using telephone. I mean, the idea was that people could listen to real live mysic played by trained symphony orchestras, "broadcasted" by telephone lines.
It now sounds ridiculous, of course, because of the low sound quality and all, but I guess they were both imaginative (innovative? or is that (tm) by BillySoft?) and desperate for marketing stuff, even back then. Similar to how things like "videophones", "speech input", "3d UI", "video-on-demand" and such are being pushed all the time, even though apprarently few people really want or need them (see Jakob Nielsen's inteview for references on "speech input" and "3d UI", if you think I'm just trolling... he has good reasoning about their problems... they are sexy, but they will only have niches, if even that).