I am the author mentioned in this article. The only reason my story got picked up by the media is because I first sent a news tip to Techdirt, as I know they like to discuss copyright issues.
I had sent notice to Slashdot when Google initially shutdown my ad account, but there wasn't much of a story at the time. Luckily, someone decided to cross-post the story from Techdirt to Slashdot, which may have helped Google make a decision.
So, all I can say is let as many tech sites know about your problem as you can and publicly shame Google into helping you.
Sony has the altered Midas Touch; everything they touch turns to crap. Sony doesn't have the ability to successfully do anything anymore, at least not since the '80s (and part of the 90s). I'm surprised they never tried to put a lot of stupid DRM into the game.
Couldn't agree with you more. I'm in the Navy and did a tour in Iraq. I fully expect to head back there or to Afghanistan before I get out. Not what I signed up for and not what I want to do. Except for the fact that I greatly enjoyed being in Iraq compared to going out to sea and dealing with Navy mentality, especially the Chiefs. Sad state of affairs.
Each service is jacked up and the military will have its way with you. The best you can hope for is that you get a little something back before you get out, such as a degree.
Personally, though I have 7 years to go, I'm really hoping I can get out on a medical retirement this year. I simply don't want to do it anymore and the retirement benefits aren't looking all that great anymore. I'd rather get a job as a gov. civilian, making 2-3 times as much money for less work and fewer responsibilities.
Plus, you have the option of saying, "No" with minimal, if any, repercussions. You don't realize how powerful that is until it's taken away from you.
My children are homeschooled but I won't try to address every single one of your points. I will, however, make a few comments. (Warning: long post below)
Our kids were in public school until the oldest (Ashley) was in 3rd grade. In 1st grade, she learned a "new math" that WA state decided to test out in select classrooms. When she got to 2nd grade, the state had decided to scrap the "new math" so she had to catch up to what her classmates were doing; most of them had learned the traditional methods and so she was effectively a year behind them.
Her teacher came in early and stayed late to help tutor my daughter; she was fully aware of the situation and worked her ass off to get my daughter caught up.
Being in the Navy, I got orders to Japan. We had heard that DoD school were some of the best available, because the DoD had the money to hire the best teachers.
Ashley's 3rd grade teacher was *not* the best. We told the teacher the situation with our daughter and explained what her previous teacher had been doing with her; though Ashley had made significant progress, she still struggled with arithmetic.
Simply put, the teacher was one of the "babysitters" you hear about so often. She didn't bother to try and help my daughter; the teacher just expected her to be where the rest of the class was. When Ashley couldn't figure out her homework, the teacher would make her stay after class to finish. However, the teacher didn't do any one-on-one with her; my daughter was expected to figure it out on her own.
One day, while waiting for Ashley to come outside, my wife noticed that she seemed to be missing. Nearly 10 minutes after all the other kids had came out, Ashley came out, crying. She said she had been forced to stay after class to finish her homework but she couldn't figure it out. My wife talked to the teacher who explained it was "standard practice" for any child who didn't complete the work in class; she also felt that Ashley was just slow/lazy but had a good grasp of the concepts.
Several days later, Ashley was again late. However, this time my wife went into the school and found her sitting at her desk, crying on her homework papers. The teacher was chilling at her desk, grading papers or some such thing. My wife exploded at her, then went straight to the principal to complain.
It turns out that DoD teachers can make $50k+ a year and have the same limitations to being fired that CA teachers have, if not more because they are federal workers. The teacher had other complaints against her but the school's hands were tied.
Two days later we pulled both our children out and have been homeschooling ever since. We annually spend more than $1200 on curriculum, supplemental books, science kits, etc. We have two computers just for the kids to use. Our children go with us wherever we go, so they get real-life experiences and knowledge constantly, e.g. grocery shopping teaches health and nutrition, addition, economic buying, change counting, etc.
Our kids probably go to more zoos, aquariums, museums, etc. than public school kids go on field trips. Being in the military, we have traveled across the US and are now in Japan for the second time.
Regarding socialization, I personally think it's overrated. When you're in school, who do you hang out with? A select clique of friends. The stoners don't hang with the motorheads, the geeks don't hang with the jocks, and so on. Forced integration, multi-culturalism, and all the other politically correct crap doesn't change the fact that people will naturally gravitate to people they feel most comfortable with.
Plus, there are ways to get socialization without being in school. Churches, YMCA, youth leagues, Boy/Girl Scouts, et al. are all available. Not to mention that the Internet opens up the whole world to finding social contacts.
My children can function in society just fine. But, for the most part, they are sick of the crap that public school children bring to the table.
On the one hand, I agree with you. People should use what they want. Or, like programming languages, use what's best for the purpose(though I guess that doesn't really apply with a general purpose OS).
However, the point of Linux and GNU is that people aren't beholden to a company's proprietary software. The OS and software are Free (libre) and people are empowered, for want of a better term. Not to mention the vast quantity of free (price) software available.
This would stop things like DRM preventing people from using their legally purchased items or locking people into a particular vendor.
There's a reason Linux is becoming so popular in the rest of the world. Granted, it still has to fight the pirated Windows copies but it's moving faster nowadays.
I was waiting at a Navy medical clinic and up pulls an MP. Guess what? Yep, she was driving while talking on a cell phone. And yes, the base does have a "no cell phones while driving" policy. AAMOF, you can't even have an earpiece unit because the potential to interfere with your hearing and responding to an emergency.
I wish I had a camera with me; would have been perfect if I ever get pulled over for it. I doubt you can say it was official business since they have walki-talkies on their person and in the car.
Take a look at what System76 has to offer. All of their systems are pre-configured w/ Ubuntu and have outstanding support. And all of the computer components are guaranteed to work under Linux. Though Ubuntu is installed by default, the company claims that nearly any distro should work (though getting their support for a different distro is unlikely).
Wow, when I first saw the title of your post, I immediately thought of the movie/TV show Alien Nation from the '80s. And then realized that it probably wasn't a bad conclusion to jump to.
Count me as another Sony boycotter. I actually started prior to the rootkit fiasco, when Sony's customer service dept. wouldn't answer my questions about getting Mac or Linux compatibility for MD players. The rootkit issue just convinced me to stay the course.
Though I haven't gone so far as to dump all my Sony products immediately, I do replace them w/ non-Sony products when they die. I don't let my wife buy Sony (though she also hates Sony for personal reasons) and I recommend friends and family away from Sony products. AAMOF, I have a friend that returned a functioning Sony camcorder because the Sony software it came with wouldn't work correctly. You could still pull the mini-DVD from it and use it directly but you couldn't use the USB cable. She felt that it wasn't working as advertised so she demanded a refund.
Sony is slowly losing relevance in today's world. My next game console will be a 360; I refuse to get a PS3 regardless of the price.
Interesting. At the universities I've been to, the campus cops were simply hired goons with minimal training and no law enforcement capabilities, other than what the university could give them. If an incident like this had happened, they would have been required to call the city PD.
I remember watching a documentary about Depeche Mode many years ago. The thing that I remember most was that over $1 million was made just in merchandise at a concert. I don't remember how much was made in actual ticket sales but I figure it's roughly comparable (assuming a T-shirt cost about as much as a concert ticket back then).
I've also read several times that artists prefer live appearances to making CDs because they personally get more money that way. And if you ever read Techdirt, you'll see that giving away the music (an infinite good) makes the finite good (the concert ticket) much more valuable.
If anyone ever gets into a situation like this you should do what they say, and deal with any wrongful issues later... sue if it makes you happy.
My military supervisor said the same thing when our command forced all the military people to attend a funeral; civilians had the option to go but weren't obligated. The problem the military people had was that we were apparently being used as an additional honor guard in addition to the regular honor guard. If we had been asked to go, that was fine. But being forced to go was another matter.
Back on topic, my supervisor said that you essentially can't do anything until after the fact. You can be threatened all you want but until your rights are violated, it's all just talk. After your rights have been violated, then you can start notifying the press, writing your Congress critter, or whatever you feel will give you justice.
In this instance, the guy was being a jackass. He was deliberately provoking Kerry and it's not like Kerry sicced the hounds on him. If the guy was smart, he would have asked one question then came up again and again to ask his other questions.
Were the cops right in tasering him after they dragged him to the floor? I don't think so since he was already effectively subdued. But they are "rent-a-thugs" working as campus cops, not true police officers. I don't know what the requirements are to be a campus cop, but I don't imagine they have the same training as a police academy.
FWIW, I had to write a Python script yesterday after not having programmed at all for almost six months. It only took me 30-40 minutes to hack it out, mostly because I couldn't remember the exact format for a user prompt or where I needed to place my "while" loop to make it work correctly.
Other than that, I could fumble my way through while Python "helped" me out by not requiring any strange coding practices. I just "told" it what I wanted to do and it did it.
The policy of being responsible for your family members actions is still true. It just depends on whether anyone wants to enforce it.
OT, we have a neighbor who's kid has been suspended 4 times for fighting or threatening others at school and his wife called another neighbor (who's German) a "f*cking Nazi c*nt". However, nothing has happened to anyone because the cops convinced everyone not to report anything to the command.
I forgot to mention that Microsoft's EULA explicitly states that there is only a limited warranty and they aren't responsible for problems or errors that develop from using their software, especially in such areas as nuclear engineering, aircraft navigation, etc.
Sounds like MS doesn't have confidence that their products will work in the intended area. Does this mean a new EULA would have to be created just for the military?
Uhm, it's a government entity with all the expected baggage and politics attached. If the VA et al. can let SSNs and other data be stolen or "misplace" laptops, do you really think the military is any better?
About 7 years ago, there was a US Trident submarine in the yards for overhaul and refitting (I don't recall which one offhand, but it was in Bremerton, WA.). One of the Navy's missile technicians was disgruntled (I think he didn't want to go out to sea) so he sabotaged the sub by cutting through several electrical cables. Obviously there was an investigation, but the sub was stuck in the yards for a few more months.
So, security for the military is the same as corporate: you're more vulnerable to attacks by your own people than from an outside source. Running an entire ship/submarine w/ a known "weak" OS is just asking for problems.
Consider this: if the OS being used isn't Windows, that means there is a significant percentage of people who wouldn't be able to screw up the system because they don't know how to use it. Hell, most people wouldn't even be able to login unless they're supposed to be using it. Even if they could login, I doubt very many would be able to find their way around the system; you know how scary the command-line is. From that aspect alone, using *nix is more secure than using Windows.
Not sure what you mean. Python has the Tkinter GUI library built in and has many different GUI frameworks to use, such as wxPython, PyQt, GTK, etc. I believe Ruby has many of these options too, though I've only just started looking at Ruby.
Python and Ruby can be used for stand alone or web apps, and IronPython uses the same.NET framework as VB.NET, so I'd assume the same GUI code could be used with it.
As to the arcane aspect, that's a personal call. I personally feel they are some of the easiest languages to learn, having first learned C, C++, and Java. I'd suggest giving them another try, perhaps IronPython.
If you "want it now", why use VB? Heck, why use any "traditional" language? Python, Ruby, et al. are the so-called hot languages for rapid development. No compiling, flexible use, easy to learn, and inherently cross-platform. And now you can use IronPython if you want.NET compatibility.
How to really piss them off: "Is it produce or meat or in a can or in a jar or frozen...?" It was never stated how long a single question could be. As long as you only have one verb, it's still one question.
The thing people tend to forget is that the only wasted vote is the one not cast. By voting third party, you aren't wasting your vote. You're telling everyone that you don't agree with the status quo and you want something different.
People should realize that, Republican or Democrat, whoever's in power likes to keep things the same (for the most part). The government will get involved in things they shouldn't be (Waco, Ruby Ridge, copyright infringement, etc.), the officials won't make significant campaign reforms because it hurts their pocket book, and so on. Just look at history; the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The military uses SSNs for everything, though official paperwork has the privacy act of 1974 on it. Not that it means much to people anymore; it's mostly there to tell people whether the disclosure of their SSN is voluntary or not. Even if it's voluntary, it goes on to tell you (very often) that non-disclosure could invalidate the document or keep you from receiving benefits.
There was a scandal last year or so about the disbursing clerks on a ship who essentially stole nearly everyone's SSN onboard and used them in identity theft schemes. I don't remember the fallout but they were prosecuted.
I'm really surprised it doesn't happen more often. AAMOF, just a few weeks ago a spreadsheet was inadvertently sent out to the contractors in my command that listed every contractor's SSN; it was supposed to go to only the contractor management but someone accidently added the contractor mail group. I never heard anything come of that incident.
Just out of curiosity, if you don't copy the code directly but use it as a algorithmic template to create your own code, i.e. it gives you the idea you need to make your code work, why not search for non-Free code? Sure, the code itself is copyrighted/patented/whatever, but you're not using the code, just the ideas in it.
What if you charged for pre-compiled binaries and offered the source for free? Then the lazy or non-tech people could pay for ease of use while the tech folks could build from scratch for free. Everyone's happy.
Slashdot Mirror
I am the author mentioned in this article. The only reason my story got picked up by the media is because I first sent a news tip to Techdirt, as I know they like to discuss copyright issues.
I had sent notice to Slashdot when Google initially shutdown my ad account, but there wasn't much of a story at the time. Luckily, someone decided to cross-post the story from Techdirt to Slashdot, which may have helped Google make a decision.
So, all I can say is let as many tech sites know about your problem as you can and publicly shame Google into helping you.
Sony has the altered Midas Touch; everything they touch turns to crap. Sony doesn't have the ability to successfully do anything anymore, at least not since the '80s (and part of the 90s). I'm surprised they never tried to put a lot of stupid DRM into the game.
Couldn't agree with you more. I'm in the Navy and did a tour in Iraq. I fully expect to head back there or to Afghanistan before I get out. Not what I signed up for and not what I want to do. Except for the fact that I greatly enjoyed being in Iraq compared to going out to sea and dealing with Navy mentality, especially the Chiefs. Sad state of affairs.
Each service is jacked up and the military will have its way with you. The best you can hope for is that you get a little something back before you get out, such as a degree.
Personally, though I have 7 years to go, I'm really hoping I can get out on a medical retirement this year. I simply don't want to do it anymore and the retirement benefits aren't looking all that great anymore. I'd rather get a job as a gov. civilian, making 2-3 times as much money for less work and fewer responsibilities.
Plus, you have the option of saying, "No" with minimal, if any, repercussions. You don't realize how powerful that is until it's taken away from you.
My children are homeschooled but I won't try to address every single one of your points. I will, however, make a few comments. (Warning: long post below)
Our kids were in public school until the oldest (Ashley) was in 3rd grade. In 1st grade, she learned a "new math" that WA state decided to test out in select classrooms. When she got to 2nd grade, the state had decided to scrap the "new math" so she had to catch up to what her classmates were doing; most of them had learned the traditional methods and so she was effectively a year behind them.
Her teacher came in early and stayed late to help tutor my daughter; she was fully aware of the situation and worked her ass off to get my daughter caught up.
Being in the Navy, I got orders to Japan. We had heard that DoD school were some of the best available, because the DoD had the money to hire the best teachers.
Ashley's 3rd grade teacher was *not* the best. We told the teacher the situation with our daughter and explained what her previous teacher had been doing with her; though Ashley had made significant progress, she still struggled with arithmetic.
Simply put, the teacher was one of the "babysitters" you hear about so often. She didn't bother to try and help my daughter; the teacher just expected her to be where the rest of the class was. When Ashley couldn't figure out her homework, the teacher would make her stay after class to finish. However, the teacher didn't do any one-on-one with her; my daughter was expected to figure it out on her own.
One day, while waiting for Ashley to come outside, my wife noticed that she seemed to be missing. Nearly 10 minutes after all the other kids had came out, Ashley came out, crying. She said she had been forced to stay after class to finish her homework but she couldn't figure it out. My wife talked to the teacher who explained it was "standard practice" for any child who didn't complete the work in class; she also felt that Ashley was just slow/lazy but had a good grasp of the concepts.
Several days later, Ashley was again late. However, this time my wife went into the school and found her sitting at her desk, crying on her homework papers. The teacher was chilling at her desk, grading papers or some such thing. My wife exploded at her, then went straight to the principal to complain.
It turns out that DoD teachers can make $50k+ a year and have the same limitations to being fired that CA teachers have, if not more because they are federal workers. The teacher had other complaints against her but the school's hands were tied.
Two days later we pulled both our children out and have been homeschooling ever since. We annually spend more than $1200 on curriculum, supplemental books, science kits, etc. We have two computers just for the kids to use. Our children go with us wherever we go, so they get real-life experiences and knowledge constantly, e.g. grocery shopping teaches health and nutrition, addition, economic buying, change counting, etc.
Our kids probably go to more zoos, aquariums, museums, etc. than public school kids go on field trips. Being in the military, we have traveled across the US and are now in Japan for the second time.
Regarding socialization, I personally think it's overrated. When you're in school, who do you hang out with? A select clique of friends. The stoners don't hang with the motorheads, the geeks don't hang with the jocks, and so on. Forced integration, multi-culturalism, and all the other politically correct crap doesn't change the fact that people will naturally gravitate to people they feel most comfortable with.
Plus, there are ways to get socialization without being in school. Churches, YMCA, youth leagues, Boy/Girl Scouts, et al. are all available. Not to mention that the Internet opens up the whole world to finding social contacts.
My children can function in society just fine. But, for the most part, they are sick of the crap that public school children bring to the table.
They don't care about popularity, fa
On the one hand, I agree with you. People should use what they want. Or, like programming languages, use what's best for the purpose(though I guess that doesn't really apply with a general purpose OS).
However, the point of Linux and GNU is that people aren't beholden to a company's proprietary software. The OS and software are Free (libre) and people are empowered, for want of a better term. Not to mention the vast quantity of free (price) software available.
This would stop things like DRM preventing people from using their legally purchased items or locking people into a particular vendor.
There's a reason Linux is becoming so popular in the rest of the world. Granted, it still has to fight the pirated Windows copies but it's moving faster nowadays.
I was waiting at a Navy medical clinic and up pulls an MP. Guess what? Yep, she was driving while talking on a cell phone. And yes, the base does have a "no cell phones while driving" policy. AAMOF, you can't even have an earpiece unit because the potential to interfere with your hearing and responding to an emergency.
I wish I had a camera with me; would have been perfect if I ever get pulled over for it. I doubt you can say it was official business since they have walki-talkies on their person and in the car.
Take a look at what System76 has to offer. All of their systems are pre-configured w/ Ubuntu and have outstanding support. And all of the computer components are guaranteed to work under Linux. Though Ubuntu is installed by default, the company claims that nearly any distro should work (though getting their support for a different distro is unlikely).
I always assumed Leia was talking about her adoptive mother, not her real mother (once it was revealed she was adopted).
Wow, when I first saw the title of your post, I immediately thought of the movie/TV show Alien Nation from the '80s. And then realized that it probably wasn't a bad conclusion to jump to.
Count me as another Sony boycotter. I actually started prior to the rootkit fiasco, when Sony's customer service dept. wouldn't answer my questions about getting Mac or Linux compatibility for MD players. The rootkit issue just convinced me to stay the course.
Though I haven't gone so far as to dump all my Sony products immediately, I do replace them w/ non-Sony products when they die. I don't let my wife buy Sony (though she also hates Sony for personal reasons) and I recommend friends and family away from Sony products. AAMOF, I have a friend that returned a functioning Sony camcorder because the Sony software it came with wouldn't work correctly. You could still pull the mini-DVD from it and use it directly but you couldn't use the USB cable. She felt that it wasn't working as advertised so she demanded a refund.
Sony is slowly losing relevance in today's world. My next game console will be a 360; I refuse to get a PS3 regardless of the price.
Interesting. At the universities I've been to, the campus cops were simply hired goons with minimal training and no law enforcement capabilities, other than what the university could give them. If an incident like this had happened, they would have been required to call the city PD.
I remember watching a documentary about Depeche Mode many years ago. The thing that I remember most was that over $1 million was made just in merchandise at a concert. I don't remember how much was made in actual ticket sales but I figure it's roughly comparable (assuming a T-shirt cost about as much as a concert ticket back then).
I've also read several times that artists prefer live appearances to making CDs because they personally get more money that way. And if you ever read Techdirt, you'll see that giving away the music (an infinite good) makes the finite good (the concert ticket) much more valuable.
My military supervisor said the same thing when our command forced all the military people to attend a funeral; civilians had the option to go but weren't obligated. The problem the military people had was that we were apparently being used as an additional honor guard in addition to the regular honor guard. If we had been asked to go, that was fine. But being forced to go was another matter.
Back on topic, my supervisor said that you essentially can't do anything until after the fact. You can be threatened all you want but until your rights are violated, it's all just talk. After your rights have been violated, then you can start notifying the press, writing your Congress critter, or whatever you feel will give you justice.
In this instance, the guy was being a jackass. He was deliberately provoking Kerry and it's not like Kerry sicced the hounds on him. If the guy was smart, he would have asked one question then came up again and again to ask his other questions.
Were the cops right in tasering him after they dragged him to the floor? I don't think so since he was already effectively subdued. But they are "rent-a-thugs" working as campus cops, not true police officers. I don't know what the requirements are to be a campus cop, but I don't imagine they have the same training as a police academy.
FWIW, I had to write a Python script yesterday after not having programmed at all for almost six months. It only took me 30-40 minutes to hack it out, mostly because I couldn't remember the exact format for a user prompt or where I needed to place my "while" loop to make it work correctly.
Other than that, I could fumble my way through while Python "helped" me out by not requiring any strange coding practices. I just "told" it what I wanted to do and it did it.
The policy of being responsible for your family members actions is still true. It just depends on whether anyone wants to enforce it.
OT, we have a neighbor who's kid has been suspended 4 times for fighting or threatening others at school and his wife called another neighbor (who's German) a "f*cking Nazi c*nt". However, nothing has happened to anyone because the cops convinced everyone not to report anything to the command.
I forgot to mention that Microsoft's EULA explicitly states that there is only a limited warranty and they aren't responsible for problems or errors that develop from using their software, especially in such areas as nuclear engineering, aircraft navigation, etc.
Sounds like MS doesn't have confidence that their products will work in the intended area. Does this mean a new EULA would have to be created just for the military?
Uhm, it's a government entity with all the expected baggage and politics attached. If the VA et al. can let SSNs and other data be stolen or "misplace" laptops, do you really think the military is any better?
About 7 years ago, there was a US Trident submarine in the yards for overhaul and refitting (I don't recall which one offhand, but it was in Bremerton, WA.). One of the Navy's missile technicians was disgruntled (I think he didn't want to go out to sea) so he sabotaged the sub by cutting through several electrical cables. Obviously there was an investigation, but the sub was stuck in the yards for a few more months.
So, security for the military is the same as corporate: you're more vulnerable to attacks by your own people than from an outside source. Running an entire ship/submarine w/ a known "weak" OS is just asking for problems.
Consider this: if the OS being used isn't Windows, that means there is a significant percentage of people who wouldn't be able to screw up the system because they don't know how to use it. Hell, most people wouldn't even be able to login unless they're supposed to be using it. Even if they could login, I doubt very many would be able to find their way around the system; you know how scary the command-line is. From that aspect alone, using *nix is more secure than using Windows.
Not sure what you mean. Python has the Tkinter GUI library built in and has many different GUI frameworks to use, such as wxPython, PyQt, GTK, etc. I believe Ruby has many of these options too, though I've only just started looking at Ruby.
.NET framework as VB.NET, so I'd assume the same GUI code could be used with it.
Python and Ruby can be used for stand alone or web apps, and IronPython uses the same
As to the arcane aspect, that's a personal call. I personally feel they are some of the easiest languages to learn, having first learned C, C++, and Java. I'd suggest giving them another try, perhaps IronPython.
If you "want it now", why use VB? Heck, why use any "traditional" language? Python, Ruby, et al. are the so-called hot languages for rapid development. No compiling, flexible use, easy to learn, and inherently cross-platform. And now you can use IronPython if you want .NET compatibility.
Just a thought.
How to really piss them off: "Is it produce or meat or in a can or in a jar or frozen...?" It was never stated how long a single question could be. As long as you only have one verb, it's still one question.
The thing people tend to forget is that the only wasted vote is the one not cast. By voting third party, you aren't wasting your vote. You're telling everyone that you don't agree with the status quo and you want something different.
People should realize that, Republican or Democrat, whoever's in power likes to keep things the same (for the most part). The government will get involved in things they shouldn't be (Waco, Ruby Ridge, copyright infringement, etc.), the officials won't make significant campaign reforms because it hurts their pocket book, and so on. Just look at history; the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The military uses SSNs for everything, though official paperwork has the privacy act of 1974 on it. Not that it means much to people anymore; it's mostly there to tell people whether the disclosure of their SSN is voluntary or not. Even if it's voluntary, it goes on to tell you (very often) that non-disclosure could invalidate the document or keep you from receiving benefits.
There was a scandal last year or so about the disbursing clerks on a ship who essentially stole nearly everyone's SSN onboard and used them in identity theft schemes. I don't remember the fallout but they were prosecuted.
I'm really surprised it doesn't happen more often. AAMOF, just a few weeks ago a spreadsheet was inadvertently sent out to the contractors in my command that listed every contractor's SSN; it was supposed to go to only the contractor management but someone accidently added the contractor mail group. I never heard anything come of that incident.
Just out of curiosity, if you don't copy the code directly but use it as a algorithmic template to create your own code, i.e. it gives you the idea you need to make your code work, why not search for non-Free code? Sure, the code itself is copyrighted/patented/whatever, but you're not using the code, just the ideas in it.
Funny, the Rocky Horror Picture Show seems to be doing quite well three decades later.
What if you charged for pre-compiled binaries and offered the source for free? Then the lazy or non-tech people could pay for ease of use while the tech folks could build from scratch for free. Everyone's happy.