Yeah, I saw the word "minor" So what? it doesn't change my opinion. Personally, I oppose the death penalty, but I don't think the death penalty has anything at all to do with democracy.
Sounds like you're trying to say your friend got pulled over for failing to pay a traffic ticket, and got caught driving with a suspended license. Well, bucko, driving without a license is a crime in the U.S. Sorry he forgot to renew his, but the duration of the license is clearly printed on it. And, no, failure to send someone a polite notice that license is expiring doesn't mean the U.S. is a police state. it simply means your friend is a bit irresponsible.
As for opposing the war, I know lots of people who oppose it, have been pretty vocal about it, and not one of them have been arrested. Now, people do get arrested for blocking traffic, defacing public property or commiting other crimes. Although they assert that they're doing that to protest the war, war protesters have been arrested for their crimes, not their opinions or their speech.
For the record, I've spent close to ten years living outside the U.S., in Europe, Africa, and the Arab Middle East. Apart from the Middle East -- where the media is almost all state controlled and saturated with government lies and propaganda -- I've found news eveywhere to concentrate on local issues. Why? Because that's their audience! And I've also found that most people are fundamentally ignorant of what the U.S. is really all about.
Again, try to come up with some facts to support your falsehoods.
The Constitution guarantees your right to speak freely. It doesn't guarantee you immunity from peer pressure.
What you consider "public pressure to fall in line" is really just the fact that most people in the U.S. do "support the troops" when they're sent to fight. If you perceive that as pressure, or feel uncomfortable, that's a problem for you, but it isn't "public pressure" to conform.
GWB's "with us or against us" remarks seem fairly tame, especially considering they are targeted at foreign leaders, not domestic voters. If you want to talk about how you might disgree with that, no one is stopping you.
On capital punishment, people and countries can make up their own minds, but opting one way or the other doesn't make anyone morally superior to anyone else. Besides, claims of moral superiority -- as if there's some impartial party keeping score -- are just so much arrogant bigotry.
Gandalf "said"? Gandalf isn't real.
And, yeah. I consider the original poster's assertions to be untrue, i.e. lies. I'm not interested in "rational debate" with anyone who fails to show evidence of rationality, willingness to debate, or complete disregard for truth.
IdleTime, you just exercised your right to free speech in the U.S. by posting on Slashdot.
Free speech is the right to speak freely. It is not the right to have anyone pay attention to you. Perhaps you have these two confused.
Now, as for your assertion that the death penalty and jail terms for failure to pay a traffic ticket means the U.S. is a police state, well... that's just so much naive nonsense. You may disagree about the death penalty, but its existence in the U.S. doesn't make the U.S. a police state, anymore than its existence in European nations made them police states until they outlawed it. But that fact certainly seems to have given some Europeans a severe of case of unwarranted moral supremacy.
The jail time for a traffic ticket seems attributable to a bureaucratic screwup, or flaming and obnoxious self-rightousness on the part of the person who was ticketed. (E.g., taking a ticket to court, swearing at the judge, and denying the court's jurisdiction will probably get you a few days in jail for contempt.)
Since you're apparently a guest in my country, next time you wish to air your lies in public, at least make a bit of an effort to make yourself credible.
Re:WMD hunting-The UN works.
on
Secret Empire
·
· Score: 1
So...Why isn't the UN fighting in the Congo?
The failure of the UN to take any active measures against dictatorships and totalitarian states testifies to its ineptitude. The UN treats thugs as the peers of civilized nations and treats borders and sovereignty with more respect than the rights and freedoms of people trapped behind those borders.
(Cro-Magnon News Agency) -- Shamans and clan activists are questioning the wisdom of allowing widespread use of newly discovered techniques for artificially producing fire.
A Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc meeting, sponsored by Clans United for Ethical Technology, today issued a resolution calling on clan and tribal leaders to block the spread of fire-making techniques to the general population.
"We must insure that making fire remains under the strict control of shamans and our clan leaders," said Clans United chief, Orm Marr-dhuk. "Tests have indicated that fire is dangerous if not handled properly. We fear that its widespread use could result in countless deaths by burning and the loss of many of the forests on which we all depend for shelter and food. Pending new developments, Clans United urges our leaders to decree that fire making will remain the exclusive privilege of the shaman and leadership classes. Perhaps someday, if the common people have developed the skills to use fire without risking life and limb, we can reconsider our recommendation."
When asked about the several flaming tar torches that provided light for the meeting at the Cauvet cave, Chief Orm replied that "We shamans have made the appropriate sacrifices to the goddess. She has given us the secrets of safe fire use. We cannot expect ordinary people to understand these things."
Of course, someone has to pay for it. Preferably stockholders, but government revenue will always be needed for R&D, at a minimum.
I just get really ticked off at Luddite stay-at-homes who want Heaven-on-Earth before they do anything else. The original poster even waved the 'starving children" flag. Children are starving because their governments are corrupt, venal, uncaring, and stupid, not because a few countries spend a little bit of money on space.
What was pointless about migrating out of Africa? Or migration from Asia into the Americas? Or the journies throughtout the Pacific islands? Or the migration of individuals from one counry to the other, for personal reaons? Or the migration of millions to North America from Europe?
Growth and expansion is exactly the point. When the technical means to travel to a new destination become availale, all that's necessary is the political and commerical incentive to go there. That's been the pattern on Earth, and it will be the pattern off Earth.
The only reason I can think of to avoid human expansion beyond Earth is the anti-globablization rhetoric that seems to excite a few people. I dismiss that as a form of not very well disguised racism that prefers to keep billions of "other" people trapped in their poverty and disease ridden, undemocratic failed cultures, rather than enjoying the benefits of democracy and prosperity.
I don't live in China, and must accept your insights. However, I hope the people of China understand that the only legitimate form of government is a freely elected democratic government. Increased economic self-sufficiency, and increasing prosperity are important, but, I hope, will not "buy off" the Chinese people and lull them into complacency about asserting and protecting their individual rights and freedoms.
If you are the subject of a government, rather than a citizen of a democracy, what difference does it make how much money you have or if that government is located in your own capital or in another country's capital?
You, poor sod, don't know what you're talking about.
Sure, people fought for the Communists (and others) to free China. But all they got was Mao and his political descendants. The country China was freed of foreign control, but the Chinese people remained, and remain, unfree. It's a perennial trick of wannabe dictators: Play on the legitimate hatred of the colonial power to foster revolution, but ensure that the foreign tyranny is replaced with internal tyranny. Free the country in order to enslave the people.
Regardless of what your uncle may be doing, this venture is under the auspices of a gov't-owned company. Given that government's track record of abusing and restricting their citizens' rights to access the Internet, it's illogical to assume that this new search engine is intended to provide open and unrestricted Internet access.
And, finally, capitalism is, indeed, based on the ability to individuals to accumulate, invest and spend money as they choose, gaining the rewards and taking the losses. Remember, every economic or political system intended to remedy the "ills" of capitalism has restricted or destroyed individual rights. Your infantile notion that "Capitalism is based on the idea that Money is all important." smells of someone indoctrinated with the notion that everyone else is obligated to support you, even if you contribute absolutely nothing.
You're confusing the political right of a country with the individual rights of individual citizens of that country. The world is full of people living in former colonies who made the same mistake, usually to their chagrin. (What good is living in a "free" country if you can't exercise your rights?)
China -- the sovereign country -- has an established record of blocking and manipulating internet access, including search engines like Google. The government of China does this because it is an illegitimate totalitarian regime that must restrict the rights and freedoms of the Chinese people in order to survive.
It's obvious that the primary purpose of this Chinese search engine is to extend and strenthen the regime's control of the Chinese people, not to provide them a legitimate alternative to Google. Governments have no legitimate right to behave in that fashion.
Please don't be so naive as to presume this has anything to do with capitalism. It doesn't. Capitalism is based on the exercise of individual rights and freedom.
Customers will end up paying for it, just as customers pay for every other piece of health, safety and security legislation related to the goods and services we buy.
The "conduit" is not the problem, but it's part of the problem. If the Pennsylvania AG has a list of sites known to traffic in child porn, and presents it to ISPs, the ISPs can't claim that the gov't is asking them to look at every page before it's served. All they have to do is block traffic to and from specific addresses. If they disagree about the inclusion of some of the sites on the list, they can find lawyers and go to court.
Noise from ISPs that they're trying to protect free speech rights -- especially considering their assertion that they're "carriers" and not content providers -- is just that: self serving revenue-driven noise.
Agree that the law ought to be enforced against the site owners and content providers.
Prepared to withhold judgment on whether or not the Pennsylvania AG should publicize the URLs on that list. Active investigations may be (ought to be) in progress.
Don't really care about the costs and burdens blocking sites places on ISPs. Blocking child porn is more important than the ISP revenue.
>> An ISP cannot possibly apply enough manhours to look at every single requested webpage and approve it...
Pennsylvania is providing a list of URLs. No one is requiring ISPs to review every requested webpage, just as no one requires retailers to examine every page of every magazine.
...we end up with a list of sites that are declared offlimits.
We end up with a list of content providers who are illegally disseminating illegal material. The nature of the medium these content providers use to distribute this illegal material is aboslutely irrelevant. Child porn distributed via hard copy magazines remains illegal when someone scans the photos and posts them on a web site. It would remain just as illegal if the scans were printed and tied to carrier pigeons.
The act of verifying that the site SHOULD be offlimits is intrinsically illegal (public oversight of government MUST be legal in a democracy, even a democratic republic). The act of actually telling anyone what sites are claimed to be illegal is illegal as well.
This statement borders on incoherent, but seems to be asserting that prohibtions on child porn are themselves illegal because enforcing the law entails viewing the illegal material. The absurdity of this notion is readily apparent.
Finally, this isn't about putting sites "offlimits". It is about preventing the illegal distribution of illegal material. A rational ISP ought to be glad to comply with the Pennsylvania action. Any ISP brought up on criminal or civil charges for disseminating child porn would be hard pressed to convincingly demonstrate that they had no reason to suspect that child porn was transiting their network.
>> ISPs are just carriers. They're not supposed to be filtering...
Says who? Seems to me it makes as much sense to compel ISP's to block child porn as it does to go after wholesalers and distributors that knowingly disseminate the stuff.
Communities have long prevented the illegal sale of child porn by blocking retailers from displaying and marketing the stuff. I.e., we don't allow them to carry it. The only effective way to prevent the display and marrketing of child porn via the web is to block access to known sites.
This isn't a free speech issue; it's about stopping criminals. Ordering an ISP to block child porn in no way diminishes that ISP's freedom to engage in legal activity.
Who cares whether it's done in Flash or in plain HTML and javascript? It's the end product that counts. Am I supposed to visit some site just because some coder used one tool versus another?
Someone could crank out sites that look like shiny comic books every 5 minutes. I'd still not look at them.
>>"...if all you use your computer for is browsing the web, sending emails, and you want to play ANY game that comes out.."
For those folks -- representing the vast majority of computer users -- the choice of an OS is essentially irrelevant. Its purpose is to run, use the conventions you expect, and not break. An appropriate analogy is the transmission of your car. Odds are you don't care at all about that transmission. you just want it to work as you expect and not break.
"Boundaries"?? What are you talking about? Children -- minors -- are the legal responsibility of their parents. If a parent can be shown to be negligent regarding a child's behavior, they can be held legally responsible for that behavior.
The Inquirer piece abruptly concludes with an alleged Office Depot memo to suppliers. The Inquirer neither explains the circumstance by which they came into possession of this alleged memo nor does it even bother to asert that the "journalist" whose name bylines the story made an attempt to contact Office Depot to verify it's veracity and authenticity.
So much for journalistic credibility. Slashdot has neither the interest or the ethics to verify facts (hiding behind their "we just post other peoples' stuff" alibi), but I guess we can now add another source to the list of online rubbish vendors.
Children don't have the same rights as adults. Adults are responsible for their kids' behavior. If a parent has reason to believe a child is going somewhere and doing something he/she isn't allowed to go, this phone gizmo makes a lot more sense than tieing a long string on the kid.
Nuts to you. Arguing about whether or not Apple should charge for an OS upgrade is inane. They can give it away or sell it for any price they choose. They can leave the code alone and change the color of the box and put it on the shelves for $500.00. Or they can crank out millions of free CD's and stack 'em up on checkout counters next to all those AOL CD's.
But...so what? It's a business decision for Apple: Will selling the upgrade of giving it away generate more profit?
Customers, as always, can do what they want. Apple doesn't owe them an upgrade, much less a free upgrade.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I saw the word "minor" So what? it doesn't change my opinion. Personally, I oppose the death penalty, but I don't think the death penalty has anything at all to do with democracy.
Sounds like you're trying to say your friend got pulled over for failing to pay a traffic ticket, and got caught driving with a suspended license. Well, bucko, driving without a license is a crime in the U.S. Sorry he forgot to renew his, but the duration of the license is clearly printed on it. And, no, failure to send someone a polite notice that license is expiring doesn't mean the U.S. is a police state. it simply means your friend is a bit irresponsible.
As for opposing the war, I know lots of people who oppose it, have been pretty vocal about it, and not one of them have been arrested. Now, people do get arrested for blocking traffic, defacing public property or commiting other crimes. Although they assert that they're doing that to protest the war, war protesters have been arrested for their crimes, not their opinions or their speech.
For the record, I've spent close to ten years living outside the U.S., in Europe, Africa, and the Arab Middle East. Apart from the Middle East -- where the media is almost all state controlled and saturated with government lies and propaganda -- I've found news eveywhere to concentrate on local issues. Why? Because that's their audience! And I've also found that most people are fundamentally ignorant of what the U.S. is really all about.
Again, try to come up with some facts to support your falsehoods.
The Constitution guarantees your right to speak freely. It doesn't guarantee you immunity from peer pressure.
What you consider "public pressure to fall in line" is really just the fact that most people in the U.S. do "support the troops" when they're sent to fight. If you perceive that as pressure, or feel uncomfortable, that's a problem for you, but it isn't "public pressure" to conform.
GWB's "with us or against us" remarks seem fairly tame, especially considering they are targeted at foreign leaders, not domestic voters. If you want to talk about how you might disgree with that, no one is stopping you.
On capital punishment, people and countries can make up their own minds, but opting one way or the other doesn't make anyone morally superior to anyone else. Besides, claims of moral superiority -- as if there's some impartial party keeping score -- are just so much arrogant bigotry.
Gandalf "said"? Gandalf isn't real.
And, yeah. I consider the original poster's assertions to be untrue, i.e. lies. I'm not interested in "rational debate" with anyone who fails to show evidence of rationality, willingness to debate, or complete disregard for truth.
IdleTime, you just exercised your right to free speech in the U.S. by posting on Slashdot.
Free speech is the right to speak freely. It is not the right to have anyone pay attention to you. Perhaps you have these two confused.
Now, as for your assertion that the death penalty and jail terms for failure to pay a traffic ticket means the U.S. is a police state, well... that's just so much naive nonsense. You may disagree about the death penalty, but its existence in the U.S. doesn't make the U.S. a police state, anymore than its existence in European nations made them police states until they outlawed it. But that fact certainly seems to have given some Europeans a severe of case of unwarranted moral supremacy.
The jail time for a traffic ticket seems attributable to a bureaucratic screwup, or flaming and obnoxious self-rightousness on the part of the person who was ticketed. (E.g., taking a ticket to court, swearing at the judge, and denying the court's jurisdiction will probably get you a few days in jail for contempt.)
Since you're apparently a guest in my country, next time you wish to air your lies in public, at least make a bit of an effort to make yourself credible.
So...Why isn't the UN fighting in the Congo?
The failure of the UN to take any active measures against dictatorships and totalitarian states testifies to its ineptitude. The UN treats thugs as the peers of civilized nations and treats borders and sovereignty with more respect than the rights and freedoms of people trapped behind those borders.
(Cro-Magnon News Agency) -- Shamans and clan activists are questioning the wisdom of allowing widespread use of newly discovered techniques for artificially producing fire.
A Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc meeting, sponsored by Clans United for Ethical Technology, today issued a resolution calling on clan and tribal leaders to block the spread of fire-making techniques to the general population.
"We must insure that making fire remains under the strict control of shamans and our clan leaders," said Clans United chief, Orm Marr-dhuk. "Tests have indicated that fire is dangerous if not handled properly. We fear that its widespread use could result in countless deaths by burning and the loss of many of the forests on which we all depend for shelter and food. Pending new developments, Clans United urges our leaders to decree that fire making will remain the exclusive privilege of the shaman and leadership classes. Perhaps someday, if the common people have developed the skills to use fire without risking life and limb, we can reconsider our recommendation."
When asked about the several flaming tar torches that provided light for the meeting at the Cauvet cave, Chief Orm replied that "We shamans have made the appropriate sacrifices to the goddess. She has given us the secrets of safe fire use. We cannot expect ordinary people to understand these things."
Of course, someone has to pay for it. Preferably stockholders, but government revenue will always be needed for R&D, at a minimum.
I just get really ticked off at Luddite stay-at-homes who want Heaven-on-Earth before they do anything else. The original poster even waved the 'starving children" flag. Children are starving because their governments are corrupt, venal, uncaring, and stupid, not because a few countries spend a little bit of money on space.
What was pointless about migrating out of Africa? Or migration from Asia into the Americas? Or the journies throughtout the Pacific islands? Or the migration of individuals from one counry to the other, for personal reaons? Or the migration of millions to North America from Europe?
Growth and expansion is exactly the point. When the technical means to travel to a new destination become availale, all that's necessary is the political and commerical incentive to go there. That's been the pattern on Earth, and it will be the pattern off Earth.
The only reason I can think of to avoid human expansion beyond Earth is the anti-globablization rhetoric that seems to excite a few people. I dismiss that as a form of not very well disguised racism that prefers to keep billions of "other" people trapped in their poverty and disease ridden, undemocratic failed cultures, rather than enjoying the benefits of democracy and prosperity.
Ok, you can stay home, then. The rest of us have places to go.
"He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else."
Best lines I've heard in a sci-fi show.
I don't live in China, and must accept your insights. However, I hope the people of China understand that the only legitimate form of government is a freely elected democratic government. Increased economic self-sufficiency, and increasing prosperity are important, but, I hope, will not "buy off" the Chinese people and lull them into complacency about asserting and protecting their individual rights and freedoms.
If you are the subject of a government, rather than a citizen of a democracy, what difference does it make how much money you have or if that government is located in your own capital or in another country's capital?
The only way to determine what the Chinese people want is a free election held under the auspices of a democratic govenment in China.
You, poor sod, don't know what you're talking about.
Sure, people fought for the Communists (and others) to free China. But all they got was Mao and his political descendants. The country China was freed of foreign control, but the Chinese people remained, and remain, unfree. It's a perennial trick of wannabe dictators: Play on the legitimate hatred of the colonial power to foster revolution, but ensure that the foreign tyranny is replaced with internal tyranny. Free the country in order to enslave the people.
Regardless of what your uncle may be doing, this venture is under the auspices of a gov't-owned company. Given that government's track record of abusing and restricting their citizens' rights to access the Internet, it's illogical to assume that this new search engine is intended to provide open and unrestricted Internet access.
And, finally, capitalism is, indeed, based on the ability to individuals to accumulate, invest and spend money as they choose, gaining the rewards and taking the losses. Remember, every economic or political system intended to remedy the "ills" of capitalism has restricted or destroyed individual rights. Your infantile notion that "Capitalism is based on the idea that Money is all important." smells of someone indoctrinated with the notion that everyone else is obligated to support you, even if you contribute absolutely nothing.
You're confusing the political right of a country with the individual rights of individual citizens of that country. The world is full of people living in former colonies who made the same mistake, usually to their chagrin. (What good is living in a "free" country if you can't exercise your rights?)
China -- the sovereign country -- has an established record of blocking and manipulating internet access, including search engines like Google. The government of China does this because it is an illegitimate totalitarian regime that must restrict the rights and freedoms of the Chinese people in order to survive.
It's obvious that the primary purpose of this Chinese search engine is to extend and strenthen the regime's control of the Chinese people, not to provide them a legitimate alternative to Google. Governments have no legitimate right to behave in that fashion.
Please don't be so naive as to presume this has anything to do with capitalism. It doesn't. Capitalism is based on the exercise of individual rights and freedom.
Hurting child porn vesus hurting ISP revenue? Hmmm...now that's a tough one.
Customers will end up paying for it, just as customers pay for every other piece of health, safety and security legislation related to the goods and services we buy.
The "conduit" is not the problem, but it's part of the problem. If the Pennsylvania AG has a list of sites known to traffic in child porn, and presents it to ISPs, the ISPs can't claim that the gov't is asking them to look at every page before it's served. All they have to do is block traffic to and from specific addresses. If they disagree about the inclusion of some of the sites on the list, they can find lawyers and go to court.
Noise from ISPs that they're trying to protect free speech rights -- especially considering their assertion that they're "carriers" and not content providers -- is just that: self serving revenue-driven noise.
Agree that the law ought to be enforced against the site owners and content providers.
Prepared to withhold judgment on whether or not the Pennsylvania AG should publicize the URLs on that list. Active investigations may be (ought to be) in progress.
Don't really care about the costs and burdens blocking sites places on ISPs. Blocking child porn is more important than the ISP revenue.
>> An ISP cannot possibly apply enough manhours to look at every single requested webpage and approve it...
...we end up with a list of sites that are declared offlimits.
Pennsylvania is providing a list of URLs. No one is requiring ISPs to review every requested webpage, just as no one requires retailers to examine every page of every magazine.
We end up with a list of content providers who are illegally disseminating illegal material. The nature of the medium these content providers use to distribute this illegal material is aboslutely irrelevant. Child porn distributed via hard copy magazines remains illegal when someone scans the photos and posts them on a web site. It would remain just as illegal if the scans were printed and tied to carrier pigeons.
The act of verifying that the site SHOULD be offlimits is intrinsically illegal (public oversight of government MUST be legal in a democracy, even a democratic republic). The act of actually telling anyone what sites are claimed to be illegal is illegal as well.
This statement borders on incoherent, but seems to be asserting that prohibtions on child porn are themselves illegal because enforcing the law entails viewing the illegal material. The absurdity of this notion is readily apparent.
Finally, this isn't about putting sites "offlimits". It is about preventing the illegal distribution of illegal material. A rational ISP ought to be glad to comply with the Pennsylvania action. Any ISP brought up on criminal or civil charges for disseminating child porn would be hard pressed to convincingly demonstrate that they had no reason to suspect that child porn was transiting their network.
>> ISPs are just carriers. They're not supposed to be filtering...
Says who? Seems to me it makes as much sense to compel ISP's to block child porn as it does to go after wholesalers and distributors that knowingly disseminate the stuff.
Communities have long prevented the illegal sale of child porn by blocking retailers from displaying and marketing the stuff. I.e., we don't allow them to carry it. The only effective way to prevent the display and marrketing of child porn via the web is to block access to known sites.
This isn't a free speech issue; it's about stopping criminals. Ordering an ISP to block child porn in no way diminishes that ISP's freedom to engage in legal activity.
Who cares whether it's done in Flash or in plain HTML and javascript? It's the end product that counts. Am I supposed to visit some site just because some coder used one tool versus another?
Someone could crank out sites that look like shiny comic books every 5 minutes. I'd still not look at them.
It looks like a comic book. Whoopee.
>>"...if all you use your computer for is browsing the web, sending emails, and you want to play ANY game that comes out.."
For those folks -- representing the vast majority of computer users -- the choice of an OS is essentially irrelevant. Its purpose is to run, use the conventions you expect, and not break. An appropriate analogy is the transmission of your car. Odds are you don't care at all about that transmission. you just want it to work as you expect and not break.
You're not a parent, right?
"Boundaries"?? What are you talking about? Children -- minors -- are the legal responsibility of their parents. If a parent can be shown to be negligent regarding a child's behavior, they can be held legally responsible for that behavior.
The Inquirer piece abruptly concludes with an alleged Office Depot memo to suppliers. The Inquirer neither explains the circumstance by which they came into possession of this alleged memo nor does it even bother to asert that the "journalist" whose name bylines the story made an attempt to contact Office Depot to verify it's veracity and authenticity.
So much for journalistic credibility. Slashdot has neither the interest or the ethics to verify facts (hiding behind their "we just post other peoples' stuff" alibi), but I guess we can now add another source to the list of online rubbish vendors.
...is written for 12-year olds?
And why call this a "rights online" issue?
Children don't have the same rights as adults. Adults are responsible for their kids' behavior. If a parent has reason to believe a child is going somewhere and doing something he/she isn't allowed to go, this phone gizmo makes a lot more sense than tieing a long string on the kid.
Nuts to you. Arguing about whether or not Apple should charge for an OS upgrade is inane. They can give it away or sell it for any price they choose. They can leave the code alone and change the color of the box and put it on the shelves for $500.00. Or they can crank out millions of free CD's and stack 'em up on checkout counters next to all those AOL CD's.
But...so what? It's a business decision for Apple: Will selling the upgrade of giving it away generate more profit?
Customers, as always, can do what they want. Apple doesn't owe them an upgrade, much less a free upgrade.