The breakup of AT&T was only effective for long distance - and look how cheap that is now, if you shop around. Unfortunately, that breakup left intact lots of smaller monopolies, who still have captive customers with no real choice. As far as territory wars - I have never seen a single shread of evidence that any ILEC ever competed with another ILEC in the same area - try getting service from Verizon while living in an SBC area, or vice versa (*wired* service, that is, I understand competition is thriving in the wireless market)
The only way real competition (where companies have to actually do their best to keep customers) for local wired phone service would ever flourish would be exactly what Australia us doing - seperate the monopoly telco from the wires in the ground and heavily regulate the organization that has the wires, forcing them to be fair to all comers, allowing the wires to be used by any provider of service without letting the monopoly company gouge them (if they let them use it at all)
If you truly are a consumer of phone service (and not a shill for an incumbent) then you truly dont understand whats holding back better service and prices.
Nonetheless, he says the exercise upset some cadets, who felt it exploited their inclination to follow an order from a colonel, no questions asked. He says the new edict is, "Ask questions first, then execute.
The exercise email may well have exploited some inclination of the receiver to follow instructions from someone in authority - but SO DO REAL PHISH EMAILS! - thats the whole point - that anyone can pretend to be some person in authority in an email - You think the captian of some nuke sub is going to get an email claiming to be from the President telling him to launch and is just going to beleive it without validating it? Heck no!
Re:Email is mostly broken
on
Ending Spam
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· Score: 1
Another big difference is that the companies that pay to mail paper advertisements subsidize the costs for the post office to enable you to send letters for 39 cents. The spammers on the other hand add huge amounts of bandwidth usage to ISP and backbones bills without paying for any of it, forcing them to increase the amounts they charge for service.
Ads sent by paper mail reduce your costs to send normal paper mail.
Ads sent by email *increase* your costs for Internet (email) service. (And this is true wether or not you have filter software that hides the undesirable messages from you - it still cost time, bandwidth, diskspace to transmit and store)
For filling out forms, I've always made several copies of the form, printed an alignment pattern on one, and then just use that to determine the vertical and horizontal positions to put text into the blanks on the form.
This has nothing to do with copyright, it has to do with privacy and security (eg passwords, bank info, etc). Copyrighted information isnt normally kept secret. You are beating the wrong dead horse.
Personally, I like the idea of no longer being bound to the company that owns the coax wire-network in your geographic area. For instance, I live in a Charter area, I have one choice for cable, charter. Now, if there were one or more providers willing to provide their distribution via IP, without requiring me to get my broadband from them (for instance, if I could sign up for Comcast to watch their channels over an existing broadband connection, even though they cant offer physical hookup in my area, that would be great.)
Its all about choice.
Re:It's funny that the GPL itself isn't GPL.
on
Drafting GPL3
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· Score: 1
Ah. I see your confusion. No, RMS beleives no such thing. The author of a particular piece of code can choose to license it any way they want, wether they want to license it via the GPL or otherwise.
The GPL is *entirely* about the author of code being able to decide what protections they want for it. It seems those choosing the GPL want to share their code with the public, want others to be able to benefit from it, and want to prevent their code from becoming part of someone else's proprietary program. If instead they want to choose to keep it proprietary, then they can keep the source to themselves, and instead license just a binary version. Of it they want some other cobinations of protection, they can choose some other license, or write their own.
If the GPL's terms are synonymous with their desires, then they can choose the GPL. If that is not they case, they can choose otherwise.
No one is forced to GPL license their own code. Now if they modify *someone elses* code, or incorporate that code into their own, and that someone else has only licensed the code in question under the GPL, then that is where they are bound by the GPL, and this is the choice of the author of *that* code, that *choose* to license it under the GPL, becuase thats what they *wanted*. But don't pretend anyone is *forcing anyone* to GPL their own code.
Think you get a better deal from MS, or other proprietary software vendors? Think again - in most cases you (unless perhaps you are a very large corp with lots of $$) dont even get to *see* their code, and I've never heard of a case where you get to copy their code into your program, and then distribute (free or otherwise) the result - no, if somehow you managed to do that you'd be sued into oblivion.
Re:It's funny that the GPL itself isn't GPL.
on
Drafting GPL3
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· Score: 1
I personally understand why people shouldnt be able to make modifications to the GPL. It has to do with the ability of someone to say "This software is GPL-licensed", and for the listener to know *exactly* what that means, without having to worry that the person means a different license than they think it is. However, I don't think I am the right person to answer. I think you should ask RMS that directly. I'm sure he will be able to give a clear, concisely worded answer that explains exactly why.
That said, there is nothing saying you can't write your own license, containing any terms you want - I dont even see any reason why you couldnt model it after the GPL, or even use some of the same or similar terms. As long as you dont call it the "Gnu General Public License", or anything similar to 'GPL'.
The point of the FSF, and the GPL/LGPL/GFDL are to ensure that information and software cannot be locked up and made proprietary, without affording any users the ability to study it, copy it, perhaps make enchancements. Nothing about the GPL not being itself GPL-licensed really prevents you from doing that.
Once again, I would defer in all my answers to RMS himself. If you really do seriously want an answer to that question (as opposed to just wanting to creating FUD, or finding an excuse to be opposed to the GPL) I really do encourage you to send your question to him directly.
Re:It's funny that the GPL itself isn't GPL.
on
Drafting GPL3
·
· Score: 1
The GPL is a software license.
The GPL isnt software, it is e.a license.
It would not be meaningful to license a license document under a *software* licens
Re:Stallman = Socialist
on
Drafting GPL3
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· Score: 1
Typical confusion between 'free' and 'Free'. The Free Software Movement doesnt expect or demand that anyone give things away for free. It only desires that software not take away user's Freedoms.
Re:the code of conduct for free software distribut
on
Drafting GPL3
·
· Score: 1
The goal of he GPL is not to encourage wide adoption - it is to ensure that at all times, all code derived from free software remains free.
As a side effect, this often ends up encouraging wide adoption anyway, unless something proprietary has already become a defacto 'standard', since everyone who is not able, or does not wish to, pay to license that which is nonfree, assuming the GPL licensed work is of sufficient quality, will adopt the GPL work, hopefuly arriving at a situation where proprietary vendors are either excluded, or where they must use the GPL work in order to be competitive/compatible. One case where something proprietary can become the defacto standard is like what happened with MP3 - the authors/owners didnt bother enforcing their license for a while, and everyone assumed it was free (as in beer).
Certainly, mod me as a troll. My point stands, and just because you disagree with it doesnt change the fact that a story about 'yet another' Windows virus/exploit/trojan/whatever are met entirely with a 'ho hum, what else is new' from anyone with even the slightest bit of a clue. It is not news, it is not interesting, and quite frankly it isnt 'stuff that matters'. (At least not until it reaches the threshold where even people who are *not* clued realize that using Windows is a stupid idea)
BTW, eBay specifically allows sellers to offer non-widding bidders 'second chance' offers, as long as the contact is made thru eBay itself, *and* I'm fairly certain that you can set a preference in eBay indicating that you dont want to receive those. If they emailed you directly, then it wasnt through eBay, and I'd wonder how they got your email address, unless you had asked them questions about the item beforehand or something.
My point was, that that vast majority of spam has forged/fake sender addresses, and that there is nowhere to 'bounce' it to, and that anyone that made it a habit of doing so, was contributing to the problem by sending that spam to innocent third parties.
"Bounced" ? "Bounced" it to where? To the innocent third party's email and/or invalid email address was forged in the "From" header? Spammers dont get 'bounce' messages, as they dont provide any valid email address that one could be sent to. (This is assuming you mean normal spam, as opposed to whats known as mainsleaze)
You cant 'bounce' spam after its been received. The only way to reject spam is with a 5xx after the RCPT TO. If you dont know what RCPT TO is, you have no way of controlling it.
This article, and all articles on the same topic, can all be summarized by 'You rtypical consumer Windows system is utter swiss cheese, and is and will become more utterly vulnerable to variius exploitative 'software' which will take over the machine and use it for any number of nefarious purposes. If you are stupid enough to still think you *have* to be using Windows, at least have the sense to ensure that no Windows machine is ever connected directly to the Internet (only thru a *seperate* physical firewall/router *device* which performs NAT and does not permit connections initiated inbound from the Internet to even reach the Windows machine's NIC - software firewalls arent, dont, and cant), and that you immediately deinstall/deactivate MSIE and MSOE, and substitute less swiss-cheesy applications if you need the corresponding function. If you persist in using Windows on a directly connected Internet machine, then anyone who isnt a complete moron will label you as one'..
There. No further articles concerning Windows trojans/viruses/exploits are required. If attention is called to some new "news" regarding this, just refer to this summary.
Its also funny how/, often includes some sort of explanation of terms that most people know, but on this term, that I've never even heard of, they seem to have forgotten.
WTF is 'RAW' ? I know what raw meat is. I know what a 'raw deal' might be. But neither of those seem likely in the context of this story.
"Preserving a collection" - If an item in the collection is irreplacable (say 200 year old out of print books), then I doubt they would be allowed to be checked out under this system or would have a 'checkout' value of 'infinite'). But for books still 'inprint', which could be replaced, by purchasing a new copy for some known amount (perhaps pad for the possibility of the price going up), it makes sense.
The library does *NOT* have an interest (especially a governmental one, since libraries arent the government) in knowing *who* has a particular item, *except* for the need to ensure that it will be returned or that it can be replaced. The *only* reason libraries (currently) need your ID is so that they can track you down if you dont return items, to demand the return of the items, or if they were lost/damaged/etc, that you (!) pay the replacement cost. Having a cash deposit system where the required deposit would be the amount determined by the library that would be required to replace the item, would give the library the same protection, becuase they'd already *have* the replacement cost, they wouldnt need to worry about who you were or take the time or expense to track you down. Perhaps some sort of time limit on returns would go along with that, and after that time you'd be out your deposit (and be considered to have bought the item), and the library would buy a new one. For an illustration, look at the way college bookstores work - only they give you only a small fraction of what you pay when you bring it back - usually becuase you have the book for quite a bit longer than most libraries allow checkouts for, the books are subject to much ear (hiliting, etc), and becuase they are in it for the money. (Libraries are in it for the 'civic good' or whatever you want to consider it, and only collect fees/fines to cover their costs)
Note, the story author isnt talking about forcing this on libraries, he is talking about making it *available* to those libraries that might want to implement it, thereby allowing the privilege anonymous checkouts to their patronage who might be concerned about it (wether you feel thats a legitimate concern or not). Read the byline - he is a librarian himself.
If libraries implement this (and I suspect at least some will), then someone desiring to remain anonymous will not be required to forfeit the privilege of checking out books from those libraries.
The libraries arent demanding to know who is borrowing their items. They only want to ensure they get them back (or with this scenario, that their cost to replace them would be covered if they didnt get them back)
Librarians dont like that the government is forcing them to provide access to the identity information that they have typically collected *only* to protect the safe return of their books, and this person is offering this idea to libraries that might choose to implement it.
If a library didnt want to use this idea, no one would force them to. However I think the goals of the author will appeal to libraries and librarians.
As far as your right to demand identity, sure, you have that right. But if you were holding a garage sale, and were selling a used pair of pants for $2, would you refuse to accept cash and only accept credit cards or checks, so you can know the buyers identity?
The point here is that all the library wants is a form of collateral on the items being borrowed, and that an (anonmyous) cash deposit might be a suitable way of doing that, rather than the current/only method of requring that every borrower proove their identity.
"Like a gift card, a phone card, or indeed a $20 bill, an anonymous library card represents value that vanishes if the card is lost or damaged. This is a risk that library users take for granted in these other situations, and so they should readily understand it."
But why even have the card? Why would you need to pre-deposit money - why not merely collect the rented items replacement cost at the time of checkout, and then upon its safe and intact return, refund it again? With phone cards you prepay for two reasons, one, you are getting a 'bulk discount' by purchasing a large amount at once, as well as a 'loyalty' discount becuase you arent going to payphones and picking a different carrier each time. Since payphones only accept coins, the convenience here is not having to carry coins, or to have to look for somewhere to get change if you need to make a call. With giftcards, the person paying the money is not the same as the person spending the money. The reasons are that a giftcard is (slightly) less tacky than giving cash, if you use a one-store-card then you may get a 'loyalty' discount as well, since the gift amount can only be spent at that store, and if you use a 'credit card' type of gift card (Visa, M/C, etc), then the person can also use it online or for a phone order (where using cash would be problematic)
For a library, none of these concerns is really present. The library could easily accept cash, the deposit can easily be made *at* the time of checkout, the same person providing the cash is the one checking out the item. And you can't check out a physical library item over the net or a phone call.
By avoiding the card, you avoid creating this 'additional' bearer item to worry about losing. You only have to worry about being careful to hang onto your cash, which is a pretty well ingrained instinct with most folk.
Because *many* servers are bought (or even built) and then the OS installed later. While (legal) windows installs could be counted reasonable accurately, due to the requirement that the OS/license be purchased; many Linux, FreeBSD, and other F/OSS OS installations can't really be accounted for.
If the ones that *are* accounted for purportedly equal (as far as market share, how many copies of a linux 'server' distribution can you buy for what it costs to buy one Windows license?) then what might that say about the overall ratio?
But for it to catch on and not utterly suck, it will need to be re-implented in a programming platform that doesnt suck (eg, something other than Java. And no, Visual Basic doesnt count)
Slashdot Mirror
The breakup of AT&T was only effective for long distance - and look how cheap that is now, if you shop around. Unfortunately, that breakup left intact lots of smaller monopolies, who still have captive customers with no real choice. As far as territory wars - I have never seen a single shread of evidence that any ILEC ever competed with another ILEC in the same area - try getting service from Verizon while living in an SBC area, or vice versa (*wired* service, that is, I understand competition is thriving in the wireless market)
p aration.html
The only way real competition (where companies have to actually do their best to keep customers) for local wired phone service would ever flourish would be exactly what Australia us doing - seperate the monopoly telco from the wires in the ground and heavily regulate the organization that has the wires, forcing them to be fair to all comers, allowing the wires to be used by any provider of service without letting the monopoly company gouge them (if they let them use it at all)
http://isp-planet.com/politics/2002/structural_se
If you truly are a consumer of phone service (and not a shill for an incumbent) then you truly dont understand whats holding back better service and prices.
The exercise email may well have exploited some inclination of the receiver to follow instructions from someone in authority - but SO DO REAL PHISH EMAILS! - thats the whole point - that anyone can pretend to be some person in authority in an email - You think the captian of some nuke sub is going to get an email claiming to be from the President telling him to launch and is just going to beleive it without validating it? Heck no!
Another big difference is that the companies that pay to mail paper advertisements subsidize the costs for the post office to enable you to send letters for 39 cents. The spammers on the other hand add huge amounts of bandwidth usage to ISP and backbones bills without paying for any of it, forcing them to increase the amounts they charge for service.
Ads sent by paper mail reduce your costs to send normal paper mail.
Ads sent by email *increase* your costs for Internet (email) service. (And this is true wether or not you have filter software that hides the undesirable messages from you - it still cost time, bandwidth, diskspace to transmit and store)
For filling out forms, I've always made several copies of the form, printed an alignment pattern on one, and then just use that to determine the vertical and horizontal positions to put text into the blanks on the form.
Yes, but that tool runs only on Microsoft platforms - useless for 'the rest of us'.
And as noted elsewhere, the 'HTML' produced by Microsoft programs is bloated and nonstandard, and looks like crap in pretty much anything except MSIE
I think you may be looking for this:
e 205.htm
http://www.resurgence.org/resurgence/issues/quinc
This has nothing to do with copyright, it has to do with privacy and security (eg passwords, bank info, etc). Copyrighted information isnt normally kept secret. You are beating the wrong dead horse.
Personally, I like the idea of no longer being bound to the company that owns the coax wire-network in your geographic area. For instance, I live in a Charter area, I have one choice for cable, charter. Now, if there were one or more providers willing to provide their distribution via IP, without requiring me to get my broadband from them (for instance, if I could sign up for Comcast to watch their channels over an existing broadband connection, even though they cant offer physical hookup in my area, that would be great.)
Its all about choice.
Ah. I see your confusion. No, RMS beleives no such thing. The author of a particular piece of code can choose to license it any way they want, wether they want to license it via the GPL or otherwise.
The GPL is *entirely* about the author of code being able to decide what protections they want for it. It seems those choosing the GPL want to share their code with the public, want others to be able to benefit from it, and want to prevent their code from becoming part of someone else's proprietary program. If instead they want to choose to keep it proprietary, then they can keep the source to themselves, and instead license just a binary version. Of it they want some other cobinations of protection, they can choose some other license, or write their own.
If the GPL's terms are synonymous with their desires, then they can choose the GPL. If that is not they case, they can choose otherwise.
No one is forced to GPL license their own code. Now if they modify *someone elses* code, or incorporate that code into their own, and that someone else has only licensed the code in question under the GPL, then that is where they are bound by the GPL, and this is the choice of the author of *that* code, that *choose* to license it under the GPL, becuase thats what they *wanted*. But don't pretend anyone is *forcing anyone* to GPL their own code.
Think you get a better deal from MS, or other proprietary software vendors? Think again - in most cases you (unless perhaps you are a very large corp with lots of $$) dont even get to *see* their code, and I've never heard of a case where you get to copy their code into your program, and then distribute (free or otherwise) the result - no, if somehow you managed to do that you'd be sued into oblivion.
I personally understand why people shouldnt be able to make modifications to the GPL. It has to do with the ability of someone to say "This software is GPL-licensed", and for the listener to know *exactly* what that means, without having to worry that the person means a different license than they think it is. However, I don't think I am the right person to answer. I think you should ask RMS that directly. I'm sure he will be able to give a clear, concisely worded answer that explains exactly why.
That said, there is nothing saying you can't write your own license, containing any terms you want - I dont even see any reason why you couldnt model it after the GPL, or even use some of the same or similar terms. As long as you dont call it the "Gnu General Public License", or anything similar to 'GPL'.
The point of the FSF, and the GPL/LGPL/GFDL are to ensure that information and software cannot be locked up and made proprietary, without affording any users the ability to study it, copy it, perhaps make enchancements. Nothing about the GPL not being itself GPL-licensed really prevents you from doing that.
Once again, I would defer in all my answers to RMS himself. If you really do seriously want an answer to that question (as opposed to just wanting to creating FUD, or finding an excuse to be opposed to the GPL) I really do encourage you to send your question to him directly.
The GPL is a software license.
The GPL isnt software, it is e.a license.
It would not be meaningful to license a license document under a *software* licens
Typical confusion between 'free' and 'Free'. The Free Software Movement doesnt expect or demand that anyone give things away for free. It only desires that software not take away user's Freedoms.
The goal of he GPL is not to encourage wide adoption - it is to ensure that at all times, all code derived from free software remains free.
As a side effect, this often ends up encouraging wide adoption anyway, unless something proprietary has already become a defacto 'standard', since everyone who is not able, or does not wish to, pay to license that which is nonfree, assuming the GPL licensed work is of sufficient quality, will adopt the GPL work, hopefuly arriving at a situation where proprietary vendors are either excluded, or where they must use the GPL work in order to be competitive/compatible. One case where something proprietary can become the defacto standard is like what happened with MP3 - the authors/owners didnt bother enforcing their license for a while, and everyone assumed it was free (as in beer).
Certainly, mod me as a troll. My point stands, and just because you disagree with it doesnt change the fact that a story about 'yet another' Windows virus/exploit/trojan/whatever are met entirely with a 'ho hum, what else is new' from anyone with even the slightest bit of a clue. It is not news, it is not interesting, and quite frankly it isnt 'stuff that matters'. (At least not until it reaches the threshold where even people who are *not* clued realize that using Windows is a stupid idea)
BTW, eBay specifically allows sellers to offer non-widding bidders 'second chance' offers, as long as the contact is made thru eBay itself, *and* I'm fairly certain that you can set a preference in eBay indicating that you dont want to receive those. If they emailed you directly, then it wasnt through eBay, and I'd wonder how they got your email address, unless you had asked them questions about the item beforehand or something.
My point was, that that vast majority of spam has forged/fake sender addresses, and that there is nowhere to 'bounce' it to, and that anyone that made it a habit of doing so, was contributing to the problem by sending that spam to innocent third parties.
"Bounced" ? "Bounced" it to where? To the innocent third party's email and/or invalid email address was forged in the "From" header? Spammers dont get 'bounce' messages, as they dont provide any valid email address that one could be sent to. (This is assuming you mean normal spam, as opposed to whats known as mainsleaze)
You cant 'bounce' spam after its been received. The only way to reject spam is with a 5xx after the RCPT TO. If you dont know what RCPT TO is, you have no way of controlling it.
This article, and all articles on the same topic, can all be summarized by 'You rtypical consumer Windows system is utter swiss cheese, and is and will become more utterly vulnerable to variius exploitative 'software' which will take over the machine and use it for any number of nefarious purposes. If you are stupid enough to still think you *have* to be using Windows, at least have the sense to ensure that no Windows machine is ever connected directly to the Internet (only thru a *seperate* physical firewall/router *device* which performs NAT and does not permit connections initiated inbound from the Internet to even reach the Windows machine's NIC - software firewalls arent, dont, and cant), and that you immediately deinstall/deactivate MSIE and MSOE, and substitute less swiss-cheesy applications if you need the corresponding function. If you persist in using Windows on a directly connected Internet machine, then anyone who isnt a complete moron will label you as one'..
There. No further articles concerning Windows trojans/viruses/exploits are required. If attention is called to some new "news" regarding this, just refer to this summary.
Its also funny how /, often includes some sort of explanation of terms that most people know, but on this term, that I've never even heard of, they seem to have forgotten.
WTF is 'RAW' ? I know what raw meat is. I know what a 'raw deal' might be. But neither of those seem likely in the context of this story.
"Preserving a collection" - If an item in the collection is irreplacable (say 200 year old out of print books), then I doubt they would be allowed to be checked out under this system or would have a 'checkout' value of 'infinite'). But for books still 'inprint', which could be replaced, by purchasing a new copy for some known amount (perhaps pad for the possibility of the price going up), it makes sense.
The library does *NOT* have an interest (especially a governmental one, since libraries arent the government) in knowing *who* has a particular item, *except* for the need to ensure that it will be returned or that it can be replaced. The *only* reason libraries (currently) need your ID is so that they can track you down if you dont return items, to demand the return of the items, or if they were lost/damaged/etc, that you (!) pay the replacement cost. Having a cash deposit system where the required deposit would be the amount determined by the library that would be required to replace the item, would give the library the same protection, becuase they'd already *have* the replacement cost, they wouldnt need to worry about who you were or take the time or expense to track you down. Perhaps some sort of time limit on returns would go along with that, and after that time you'd be out your deposit (and be considered to have bought the item), and the library would buy a new one. For an illustration, look at the way college bookstores work - only they give you only a small fraction of what you pay when you bring it back - usually becuase you have the book for quite a bit longer than most libraries allow checkouts for, the books are subject to much ear (hiliting, etc), and becuase they are in it for the money. (Libraries are in it for the 'civic good' or whatever you want to consider it, and only collect fees/fines to cover their costs)
Note, the story author isnt talking about forcing this on libraries, he is talking about making it *available* to those libraries that might want to implement it, thereby allowing the privilege anonymous checkouts to their patronage who might be concerned about it (wether you feel thats a legitimate concern or not). Read the byline - he is a librarian himself.
If libraries implement this (and I suspect at least some will), then someone desiring to remain anonymous will not be required to forfeit the privilege of checking out books from those libraries.
No one wants to force libraries to do anything.
The libraries arent demanding to know who is borrowing their items. They only want to ensure they get them back (or with this scenario, that their cost to replace them would be covered if they didnt get them back)
Librarians dont like that the government is forcing them to provide access to the identity information that they have typically collected *only* to protect the safe return of their books, and this person is offering this idea to libraries that might choose to implement it.
If a library didnt want to use this idea, no one would force them to. However I think the goals of the author will appeal to libraries and librarians.
As far as your right to demand identity, sure, you have that right. But if you were holding a garage sale, and were selling a used pair of pants for $2, would you refuse to accept cash and only accept credit cards or checks, so you can know the buyers identity?
The point here is that all the library wants is a form of collateral on the items being borrowed, and that an (anonmyous) cash deposit might be a suitable way of doing that, rather than the current/only method of requring that every borrower proove their identity.
"Like a gift card, a phone card, or indeed a $20 bill, an anonymous library card represents value that vanishes if the card is lost or damaged. This is a risk that library users take for granted in these other situations, and so they should readily understand it."
But why even have the card? Why would you need to pre-deposit money - why not merely collect the rented items replacement cost at the time of checkout, and then upon its safe and intact return, refund it again? With phone cards you prepay for two reasons, one, you are getting a 'bulk discount' by purchasing a large amount at once, as well as a 'loyalty' discount becuase you arent going to payphones and picking a different carrier each time. Since payphones only accept coins, the convenience here is not having to carry coins, or to have to look for somewhere to get change if you need to make a call. With giftcards, the person paying the money is not the same as the person spending the money. The reasons are that a giftcard is (slightly) less tacky than giving cash, if you use a one-store-card then you may get a 'loyalty' discount as well, since the gift amount can only be spent at that store, and if you use a 'credit card' type of gift card (Visa, M/C, etc), then the person can also use it online or for a phone order (where using cash would be problematic)
For a library, none of these concerns is really present. The library could easily accept cash, the deposit can easily be made *at* the time of checkout, the same person providing the cash is the one checking out the item. And you can't check out a physical library item over the net or a phone call.
By avoiding the card, you avoid creating this 'additional' bearer item to worry about losing. You only have to worry about being careful to hang onto your cash, which is a pretty well ingrained instinct with most folk.
Because *many* servers are bought (or even built) and then the OS installed later. While (legal) windows installs could be counted reasonable accurately, due to the requirement that the OS/license be purchased; many Linux, FreeBSD, and other F/OSS OS installations can't really be accounted for.
If the ones that *are* accounted for purportedly equal (as far as market share, how many copies of a linux 'server' distribution can you buy for what it costs to buy one Windows license?) then what might that say about the overall ratio?
But for it to catch on and not utterly suck, it will need to be re-implented in a programming platform that doesnt suck (eg, something other than Java. And no, Visual Basic doesnt count)
I think the op's point was that if the concept of responsibility wasnt installed in your child by the time they were 17, its too late.
And if it *has* been, then you should be able to trust your 17 year old with some privacy.
Actually here's another similarity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism