So that normal mortals can understand this cobbled-together snobby elitist English, I've translated it from newspeak to English. It is unfortunate that politicians writing these laws do not see the need to make them understandable to those who need to obey them.
Devices covered under this bill are devices intended to:
Obtain a telecommunications service without paying for it.
Conceal the existence, origin, or destination of any telecommunications service.
Do anything with a telecommunications service without the consent of the service provider.
Hijack a subscriber's telecom access device without his/her consent.
A fraudulent or deceptive scheme, pretense, method, or conspiracy, or any device or other means; e.g.:
Using a fraudulent identification.
The use of a telecom access device to violate this section by a non-subscriber to exchange anything of value to the subscriber to allow that unlawful use of the telecommunications access device.
What the bill criminalizes:
The assembly, development, manufacturing, possession, delivering, offer of delivery, or advertisement of the aforementioned devices.
The modification of a device to make it an aforementioned device.
The delivery, offer of delivery, or advertisement of plans, instructions, or materials for the manufacture, assembly, or development of the aforementioned devices.
Criminal penalties for violating this bill:
Up to 4 years of imprisonment.
A fine of up to $2,000.
Both 1 & 2.
The violator must forfeit the device and receive no compensation.
The violator must pay restitution.
Important notes:
Violation of this bill is a felony.
Each aforementioned device constitutes a separate violation. In other words, a person may be sentenced an additional 4 years and $2,000 for each aforementioned device (s)he owns.
This bill does not affect amateur services licensed by the FCC.
Definitions:
Telecommunications (service provider) -- any service lawfully provided for compensation to facilitate the origination, transmission, retransmission, emission, or reception of intelligible information over a telecommunications system
Telecommunications access device -- basically, anything which can access, utilize, manipulate, etc a telecom system.
Telecommunications system -- any system, network, or facility owned or operated by a telecommunications service provider
Those are all defined in section 219a of Michigan's Penal Code. I went to Michican's home-page, and searched for 219a. Unfortunately, only the proposed wording of the bill was offered, and the final bill's language was not. So I had to go to LexisNexis. What a scam to privitive public information.
So, this bill covers internet services, telephone services, TV-services, satellite services, an so on and so forth. Since it covers retransmission, it would criminalize the use of WiFi, creating an anti-social community (as RMS says), where helping your neighbor is frowned upon. Even though you are presumably paying for 24-7 full-time use of your broadband, you aren't permitted to use it 24-7 if that means letting other people access your system and use it. Furthermore, you could get up to 4 years in jail for this. Child molesters sometimes don't get 4 years in jail. Additionally, each subsequent violation (e.g., device owned) would get you an additional 4 years if the judge decided that you were to serve the sentences consecutively. This may also criminalize such things as TiVo, since they effectively re-transmit (time-shifting) programmed scheduling to the user at a later time, removing commercials, and do not have the TSP's approval.
Believe what? That the FSF will honor their agreements with corporations who give donations? Yes. They are an honorable organization, unlike the gutter-trash at M$. Believe what? That FS / OSS produce uesful software that businesses benefit from...well, wake up buddy and look around. I can start out with GCC, Apache, GNU/Linux in general, SQL, BSD, Mach, and so-on and so-forth. Why don't you FUDing M$ trolls actually try getting up to speed before making fools out of yourselves?
How can windows DRM mess with direct output on your soundcard? That's a function of the sound-card and the sound-card drivers, not windows or media player. for example, ppl w/ SBLive get a program (Record, I think) w/c has direct output. Btw, the new copy-protected CD's they're talking about would work on computers; if not, can use direct output from portable CD-player.
If that fails, just wipe your crappy winblows software and install GNU/Linux and use it to get direct-sound output.
You want to copy their music? Play it in CD-ROM on computer (or in portable CD player), plug into output sound, tell recorder to directly record digital output. Encode. Share.
Fine, the law is on my side. In this particular case, the law is right, and you are wrong. You are completely ignorant of trends towards fixation or elimination in the free market, and obviously unaware that free markets are not good at keeping themselves free markets. By your reasoning, we'd never be able to call any company a monopoly.
I suggest you RTFA -- read the fucking article. The FSF is offering several things for the donations:
FSF's Corporate Patrons can display the Patronage logo on their materials and website, will be listed on FSF's Corporate Patronage website (http://patron.fsf.org/), will receive two free hours of consulting from FSF's GPL Compliance Lab, and will receive two complimentary passes to FSF-sponsored seminars.
Furthermore, in case you're totally clueless, corporations fund these sort of things partially for good press, and partially because the result of their funding is software that they can use for free.
For most users, what choice? MS comes pre-installed on computers, GNU/Linux doesn't. Most people are too stupid to even install MS windows.
Furthermore, MS has done everything to make it difficult for people to switch from Windows to other OS'; a prime example is their.doc format.
MS is a monopoly. The courts have found that, so anything you say to the contrary is pure bullshit. The courts have also found that MS abused its monopoly status and used anti-competitive tactics (e.g., blackballing OEMs to not offer other OS' pre-installed).
I'm not questioning the right of people to choose Windows. I'm saying that most people don't have that choice, since they can't install alternate OS', and no major OEMs offer alternate OS' pre-installed. I'm saying that there is a catch-22 here, where alternate OS' (e.g., BeOS, not so much GNU/Linux anymore) need to have alot of applications and hardware-support to become popular, but to be popular, they need to have alot of applications and hardware-support. This is inherently unfair to competitors and consumers.
What you are arguing is that -- despite MS' monopoly on market-share an OEM-support -- consumers have a choice, and competitors have a chance. This is bullshit, and you need only go so far as BeOS to see that. The BeOS was in every respect a superior OS to Windows, but it never took off, because it wasn't pre-installed by OEMs. This was not an OS that was hard to install. I installed it easily myself on my own computer. Because of MS' monopoly, no applications of any significance were ported over to BeOS, as no-one wanted to take the chance.
Now, somehow, GNU/Linux has managed to overcome this software/hardware-support problem, probably because of it's FS / OSS nature, and because it has had the support of major companies like IBM. For every need the home-user needs, there is an application in GNU/Linux to fit it, and almost all hardware is supported (in fact, much hardware, like PPC and SGI MIPS, is supported in GNU/Linux which isn't supported in Windows).
This, however, still does not overcome to pre-installation problem. Another catch-22. Firstly, MS' anti-competitive tactics have blackballed many OEMs into manditoraly selling only Windows PCs. That aside, for an OEM to want to go to the trouble of offering alternate OS' pre-installed and supporting them, those OS' have to be popular. For OS' to become popular in the consumer-market, they need to be pre-installed.
Until there's a Free (libre) financial manager available for GNU/Linux, I won't be using one.
I am not an idiot. I know how to manage an account. For my needs, there's nothing I can do in Quickbooks/etc that I can't do with a spreadsheet program.
Back when Rockefeller controlled 95% of the US' oil, no-one was under any obligation to do business with him either. They could have travelled miles and miles to find that other 5% that actually offered competitive prices, or they could have chosen not to use oil at all. Lawmakers rightfully decided that this was wrong and anti-capitalistic -- capitalism requires fierce competition, and it requires that consumers have a reasonable option to choose among competitors.
All of the major OEMs are under these anti-competitive contracts with MS. They can't install alternate OS', can't uninstall MS, can't rearrange the desktop, and so on and so forth. MS has also used its dominance in the OS market as leverage to obtain dominance in other markets. The US courts rightfully ruled that this was an abuse of MS' monopoly power and anti-competitive behaviour. In other words, you are wrong.
Btw, people do *not* have the option to return MS OS' after buying from an OEM, and they did not have the option to read the EULA prior to purchase. This constitutes fraud.
Firstly, Apple has no monopoly in any respect. Their market share on desktop computing doesn't even compare to MS'. Secondly, few people use Macs, so there's few people to complain. Thirdly, among those that do use Macs, even those people that prefer a *nix environment are appeased by OSX.
Walmart is not a major computer-OEM. Now, they sell computers with Lindows on them, but these are low-end machines. Major OEMs have not sold computers for the home user with GNU/Linux on them, though this may now change, despite MS stomping their feet. Getting charged an extra hundred dollars for an OS you don't want and can't send in for a rebate is, according to you, an annoyance? No, bullshit, that is fraudulent, especailly since consumers cannot read the EULA's before buying the OS & computer (actually, one individual is suing over this very issue). Call it whatever you want, but people are getting charged extra money as tribute to MS for crap-ware products that they don't use.
Somewhat free-enterprises. Free enterprises do not naturally stay free enterprises. Various regulations are needed to ensure that they do. MS violated most of those regulations as a monopoly -- blackballing OEMs to not pre-install other OS', using their dominance in the OS market as leverage to obtain dominance in the web-browser and office markets, and so on and so forth. Lets not forget, there's the MS tax which anyone buyinga pre-made computer must pay, and MS does not offer rebates for those who don't want Windows. Oh yea, their anti-competitive contracts with OEMs prevent OEMs from changing the desktop layout and so on and so forth. All this is unfair to competing companies or entities, and harms the consumer. The courts have agreed with my point, so you don't have a lega to stand on. The free market breaks down when some companies obtain a monopoly in certain portions of the market, just as Newton's laws of physics break down in various cases.
Gee, working with corporations for a common goal, as opposed to calling them the evil capitalist schwein of the world, sort of indicates to me that they aren't communists.
What BS MS charges? MS has been convicted of illegally using their monopoly, of anti-competitive behaviour, and was only slapped on the wrist, continuing to do the same thing that they always have done. They have proven that it is foolish to trust them and wise to distrust them. Btw, nothing in the GPL or LGPL prevents one from making money off of his or her software. It simply calls for different business models than the MSolithic model. Nothing in the GPL says you have to put your binaries or source online free for download. You can charge whatever you want for your software, so long as you include a written guarantee to produce the source-code at the cost-of-shipment. There are also other ways to make money off of software, such as the service model, or being paid by collaborations of organizations to produce a certain functionality. Btw, most serious studies (one's not funded by MS) of the TCO of GNU/Linux v. MS Windows, conclude that -- all things considered -- GNU/Linux has a lower TCO, thus is better software.
There are two definitions for what is "better software". (1) All things considered, it allows you to get the job done faster; (2) All things considered, it has a lower TCO.
What's offensive is the labeling of this view by conservatives as something to be ashamed of, as if it were naziism, or stalinism (a very different thing from communism). I myself and Libertarian, but here in the US, people are free to believe whatever political philosophy they desire.
This is a good thing. The FSF is getting corporations involved in free (libre) software. Goes to counteract all those nay-sayers who say "RMS and the FSF are communists!" No, they're not communists. Not even close. In fact, RMS and the FSF have repeatedly scolded licenses which are "like the GPL" but prevent corporations from using them on those terms.
Remember, you still have to prove in a civil court that some guy was sending you SPAM. Try mission impossible. The real way to deal with SPAM is to filter out all e-mail from individuals that you don't know.
This is a bunch of hogwash. This guy sounds more like a MS rep than a security-focus programmer. Because RAM and CPU is so cheap now and so powerful, it doesn't matter if we write crappy bloated code? That's such bullshit. Consider that writing crappy bloated slow code in fact reduces system stability, by adding to CPU and RAM strain. Just as a security breach can result in data-loss, so can a system or program crash.
And, if this author not know, not everyone is buying the latest 2GHz CPUs. For most people's needs, a 100MHz PC is still fine and dandy -- that is, unless fuckwits like him and the genius' at MS continue to make ever-more bloated and slow code.
And why is RAM-usage so important, even with typical PC's having 256MB of RAM? Well, apparently this guy is still stuck in the good old one-program-at-a-time days. People run many programs concurrently -- the more resources each one takes up, the less happy the user is, because that means everything is slower overall, and may even mean the system has to switch over to virtual memory.
And why is it that we always get complacent jackasses like this always assuming that speed, memory-usage, stability, and security are always inversely related to one-another? They aren't. For the most part, writing smaller faster code isn't necessarily going to make the program less secure, nor is writing more secure stable code going to make it perform worse. There a *few* specific cases where there are trade-offs: in those cases, it's up to the programmer to decide what's best based on his target audience. If he's targetting home-users, a little bit of security can be sacraficed for increased performance. If he's targetting business users, a little bit of performance can be sacraficed for security. Stability is always a priority.
Alas, I'm sick of hearing "this programming language (C) is faster than that one (Perl), and assembly is faster than them all". Programming languages aren't "fast". Assembly allows a programmer to produce very highly optimized, fast, code. However, poor assembly will run much worse than C compiled with GCC. Comparing C to other languages, C programs tend to be faster because C allows for more direct control and compilers have had more time to be optimized. I doubt other languages will ever catch up to C in that regard, but a crappily written C program will still be beaten by a well-written Perl programmer (personally, I suggest Objective-C, because it provides OO with only a few additions to C).
(1) Copyright infringement is not a crime, and it certainly isn't stealing (to steal, you have to deprive the original owner of his/her property). Get your fucking facts straight. (2) I don't have to justify or rationalize what I'm doing -- I don't feel any guilt, nor should I, as the industry isn't losing any money; (3) There are serious practical and ethical problems with the current IP-scheme, and if you think there arne't, you're an idiot; (4) There are serious ethical problems with the idea that information can be owned in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
Devices covered under this bill are devices intended to:
- Obtain a telecommunications service without paying for it.
- Conceal the existence, origin, or destination of any telecommunications service.
- Do anything with a telecommunications service without the consent of the service provider.
- Hijack a subscriber's telecom access device without his/her consent.
- Counterfeit telecommunications (e.g., cable descramblers).
- A fraudulent or deceptive scheme, pretense, method, or conspiracy, or any device or other means; e.g.:
- Using a fraudulent identification.
- The use of a telecom access device to violate this section by a non-subscriber to exchange anything of value to the subscriber to allow that unlawful use of the telecommunications access device.
What the bill criminalizes:- The assembly, development, manufacturing, possession, delivering, offer of delivery, or advertisement of the aforementioned devices.
- The modification of a device to make it an aforementioned device.
- The delivery, offer of delivery, or advertisement of plans, instructions, or materials for the manufacture, assembly, or development of the aforementioned devices.
Criminal penalties for violating this bill:- Up to 4 years of imprisonment.
- A fine of up to $2,000.
- Both 1 & 2.
- The violator must forfeit the device and receive no compensation.
- The violator must pay restitution.
Important notes:- Violation of this bill is a felony.
- Each aforementioned device constitutes a separate violation. In other words, a person may be sentenced an additional 4 years and $2,000 for each aforementioned device (s)he owns.
- This bill does not affect amateur services licensed by the FCC.
Definitions:- Telecommunications (service provider) -- any service lawfully provided for compensation to facilitate the origination, transmission, retransmission, emission, or reception of intelligible information over a telecommunications system
- Telecommunications access device -- basically, anything which can access, utilize, manipulate, etc a telecom system.
- Telecommunications system -- any system, network, or facility owned or operated by a telecommunications service provider
Those are all defined in section 219a of Michigan's Penal Code. I went to Michican's home-page, and searched for 219a. Unfortunately, only the proposed wording of the bill was offered, and the final bill's language was not. So I had to go to LexisNexis. What a scam to privitive public information. So, this bill covers internet services, telephone services, TV-services, satellite services, an so on and so forth. Since it covers retransmission, it would criminalize the use of WiFi, creating an anti-social community (as RMS says), where helping your neighbor is frowned upon. Even though you are presumably paying for 24-7 full-time use of your broadband, you aren't permitted to use it 24-7 if that means letting other people access your system and use it. Furthermore, you could get up to 4 years in jail for this. Child molesters sometimes don't get 4 years in jail. Additionally, each subsequent violation (e.g., device owned) would get you an additional 4 years if the judge decided that you were to serve the sentences consecutively. This may also criminalize such things as TiVo, since they effectively re-transmit (time-shifting) programmed scheduling to the user at a later time, removing commercials, and do not have the TSP's approval.Like I said, good reason not to use windows. MS will conspire to shut down your freedom. You won't see any GNU/Linux distributions doing that.
Believe what? That the FSF will honor their agreements with corporations who give donations? Yes. They are an honorable organization, unlike the gutter-trash at M$. Believe what? That FS / OSS produce uesful software that businesses benefit from...well, wake up buddy and look around. I can start out with GCC, Apache, GNU/Linux in general, SQL, BSD, Mach, and so-on and so-forth. Why don't you FUDing M$ trolls actually try getting up to speed before making fools out of yourselves?
a good reason to never upgrade beyond win98SE/ME/2k if your not already at XP.
How can windows DRM mess with direct output on your soundcard? That's a function of the sound-card and the sound-card drivers, not windows or media player. for example, ppl w/ SBLive get a program (Record, I think) w/c has direct output. Btw, the new copy-protected CD's they're talking about would work on computers; if not, can use direct output from portable CD-player.
If that fails, just wipe your crappy winblows software and install GNU/Linux and use it to get direct-sound output.
You want to copy their music? Play it in CD-ROM on computer (or in portable CD player), plug into output sound, tell recorder to directly record digital output. Encode. Share.
Fine, the law is on my side. In this particular case, the law is right, and you are wrong. You are completely ignorant of trends towards fixation or elimination in the free market, and obviously unaware that free markets are not good at keeping themselves free markets. By your reasoning, we'd never be able to call any company a monopoly.
I suggest you RTFA -- read the fucking article. The FSF is offering several things for the donations:
FSF's Corporate Patrons can display the Patronage logo on their materials and website, will be listed on FSF's Corporate Patronage website (http://patron.fsf.org/), will receive two free hours of consulting from FSF's GPL Compliance Lab, and will receive two complimentary passes to FSF-sponsored seminars.
Furthermore, in case you're totally clueless, corporations fund these sort of things partially for good press, and partially because the result of their funding is software that they can use for free.
For most users, what choice? MS comes pre-installed on computers, GNU/Linux doesn't. Most people are too stupid to even install MS windows.
.doc format.
Furthermore, MS has done everything to make it difficult for people to switch from Windows to other OS'; a prime example is their
MS is a monopoly. The courts have found that, so anything you say to the contrary is pure bullshit. The courts have also found that MS abused its monopoly status and used anti-competitive tactics (e.g., blackballing OEMs to not offer other OS' pre-installed).
I'm not questioning the right of people to choose Windows. I'm saying that most people don't have that choice, since they can't install alternate OS', and no major OEMs offer alternate OS' pre-installed. I'm saying that there is a catch-22 here, where alternate OS' (e.g., BeOS, not so much GNU/Linux anymore) need to have alot of applications and hardware-support to become popular, but to be popular, they need to have alot of applications and hardware-support. This is inherently unfair to competitors and consumers.
What you are arguing is that -- despite MS' monopoly on market-share an OEM-support -- consumers have a choice, and competitors have a chance. This is bullshit, and you need only go so far as BeOS to see that. The BeOS was in every respect a superior OS to Windows, but it never took off, because it wasn't pre-installed by OEMs. This was not an OS that was hard to install. I installed it easily myself on my own computer. Because of MS' monopoly, no applications of any significance were ported over to BeOS, as no-one wanted to take the chance.
Now, somehow, GNU/Linux has managed to overcome this software/hardware-support problem, probably because of it's FS / OSS nature, and because it has had the support of major companies like IBM. For every need the home-user needs, there is an application in GNU/Linux to fit it, and almost all hardware is supported (in fact, much hardware, like PPC and SGI MIPS, is supported in GNU/Linux which isn't supported in Windows).
This, however, still does not overcome to pre-installation problem. Another catch-22. Firstly, MS' anti-competitive tactics have blackballed many OEMs into manditoraly selling only Windows PCs. That aside, for an OEM to want to go to the trouble of offering alternate OS' pre-installed and supporting them, those OS' have to be popular. For OS' to become popular in the consumer-market, they need to be pre-installed.
Until there's a Free (libre) financial manager available for GNU/Linux, I won't be using one.
I am not an idiot. I know how to manage an account. For my needs, there's nothing I can do in Quickbooks/etc that I can't do with a spreadsheet program.
People have the right not to use a product if it doesn't meet their terms. It's called freedom.
Easy to learn != Easy to use (n/t)
Back when Rockefeller controlled 95% of the US' oil, no-one was under any obligation to do business with him either. They could have travelled miles and miles to find that other 5% that actually offered competitive prices, or they could have chosen not to use oil at all. Lawmakers rightfully decided that this was wrong and anti-capitalistic -- capitalism requires fierce competition, and it requires that consumers have a reasonable option to choose among competitors.
All of the major OEMs are under these anti-competitive contracts with MS. They can't install alternate OS', can't uninstall MS, can't rearrange the desktop, and so on and so forth. MS has also used its dominance in the OS market as leverage to obtain dominance in other markets. The US courts rightfully ruled that this was an abuse of MS' monopoly power and anti-competitive behaviour. In other words, you are wrong.
Btw, people do *not* have the option to return MS OS' after buying from an OEM, and they did not have the option to read the EULA prior to purchase. This constitutes fraud.
Firstly, Apple has no monopoly in any respect. Their market share on desktop computing doesn't even compare to MS'. Secondly, few people use Macs, so there's few people to complain. Thirdly, among those that do use Macs, even those people that prefer a *nix environment are appeased by OSX.
Walmart is not a major computer-OEM. Now, they sell computers with Lindows on them, but these are low-end machines. Major OEMs have not sold computers for the home user with GNU/Linux on them, though this may now change, despite MS stomping their feet. Getting charged an extra hundred dollars for an OS you don't want and can't send in for a rebate is, according to you, an annoyance? No, bullshit, that is fraudulent, especailly since consumers cannot read the EULA's before buying the OS & computer (actually, one individual is suing over this very issue). Call it whatever you want, but people are getting charged extra money as tribute to MS for crap-ware products that they don't use.
Somewhat free-enterprises. Free enterprises do not naturally stay free enterprises. Various regulations are needed to ensure that they do. MS violated most of those regulations as a monopoly -- blackballing OEMs to not pre-install other OS', using their dominance in the OS market as leverage to obtain dominance in the web-browser and office markets, and so on and so forth. Lets not forget, there's the MS tax which anyone buyinga pre-made computer must pay, and MS does not offer rebates for those who don't want Windows. Oh yea, their anti-competitive contracts with OEMs prevent OEMs from changing the desktop layout and so on and so forth. All this is unfair to competing companies or entities, and harms the consumer. The courts have agreed with my point, so you don't have a lega to stand on. The free market breaks down when some companies obtain a monopoly in certain portions of the market, just as Newton's laws of physics break down in various cases.
Gee, working with corporations for a common goal, as opposed to calling them the evil capitalist schwein of the world, sort of indicates to me that they aren't communists.
What BS MS charges? MS has been convicted of illegally using their monopoly, of anti-competitive behaviour, and was only slapped on the wrist, continuing to do the same thing that they always have done. They have proven that it is foolish to trust them and wise to distrust them. Btw, nothing in the GPL or LGPL prevents one from making money off of his or her software. It simply calls for different business models than the MSolithic model. Nothing in the GPL says you have to put your binaries or source online free for download. You can charge whatever you want for your software, so long as you include a written guarantee to produce the source-code at the cost-of-shipment. There are also other ways to make money off of software, such as the service model, or being paid by collaborations of organizations to produce a certain functionality. Btw, most serious studies (one's not funded by MS) of the TCO of GNU/Linux v. MS Windows, conclude that -- all things considered -- GNU/Linux has a lower TCO, thus is better software.
There are two definitions for what is "better software". (1) All things considered, it allows you to get the job done faster; (2) All things considered, it has a lower TCO.
What's offensive is the labeling of this view by conservatives as something to be ashamed of, as if it were naziism, or stalinism (a very different thing from communism). I myself and Libertarian, but here in the US, people are free to believe whatever political philosophy they desire.
This is a good thing. The FSF is getting corporations involved in free (libre) software. Goes to counteract all those nay-sayers who say "RMS and the FSF are communists!" No, they're not communists. Not even close. In fact, RMS and the FSF have repeatedly scolded licenses which are "like the GPL" but prevent corporations from using them on those terms.
Remember, you still have to prove in a civil court that some guy was sending you SPAM. Try mission impossible. The real way to deal with SPAM is to filter out all e-mail from individuals that you don't know.
This is just part of their plan to force people make costly upgrades.
how not, it's the same thing? the same as playing several diff things over a PA, xcept it allows users to choose what they want.
This is a bunch of hogwash. This guy sounds more like a MS rep than a security-focus programmer. Because RAM and CPU is so cheap now and so powerful, it doesn't matter if we write crappy bloated code? That's such bullshit. Consider that writing crappy bloated slow code in fact reduces system stability, by adding to CPU and RAM strain. Just as a security breach can result in data-loss, so can a system or program crash.
And, if this author not know, not everyone is buying the latest 2GHz CPUs. For most people's needs, a 100MHz PC is still fine and dandy -- that is, unless fuckwits like him and the genius' at MS continue to make ever-more bloated and slow code.
And why is RAM-usage so important, even with typical PC's having 256MB of RAM? Well, apparently this guy is still stuck in the good old one-program-at-a-time days. People run many programs concurrently -- the more resources each one takes up, the less happy the user is, because that means everything is slower overall, and may even mean the system has to switch over to virtual memory.
And why is it that we always get complacent jackasses like this always assuming that speed, memory-usage, stability, and security are always inversely related to one-another? They aren't. For the most part, writing smaller faster code isn't necessarily going to make the program less secure, nor is writing more secure stable code going to make it perform worse. There a *few* specific cases where there are trade-offs: in those cases, it's up to the programmer to decide what's best based on his target audience. If he's targetting home-users, a little bit of security can be sacraficed for increased performance. If he's targetting business users, a little bit of performance can be sacraficed for security. Stability is always a priority.
Alas, I'm sick of hearing "this programming language (C) is faster than that one (Perl), and assembly is faster than them all". Programming languages aren't "fast". Assembly allows a programmer to produce very highly optimized, fast, code. However, poor assembly will run much worse than C compiled with GCC. Comparing C to other languages, C programs tend to be faster because C allows for more direct control and compilers have had more time to be optimized. I doubt other languages will ever catch up to C in that regard, but a crappily written C program will still be beaten by a well-written Perl programmer (personally, I suggest Objective-C, because it provides OO with only a few additions to C).
(1) Copyright infringement is not a crime, and it certainly isn't stealing (to steal, you have to deprive the original owner of his/her property). Get your fucking facts straight. (2) I don't have to justify or rationalize what I'm doing -- I don't feel any guilt, nor should I, as the industry isn't losing any money; (3) There are serious practical and ethical problems with the current IP-scheme, and if you think there arne't, you're an idiot; (4) There are serious ethical problems with the idea that information can be owned in the first place.