Quality-wise, the existent grids run very badly, with very common crashes, asset loss, bad performance, region crossing issues...
Development is unprofessional. The developers pulled an april fools day prank that caught by suprise several companies depending on their work. It wasn't an april fools day checkin either, but a change prepared weeks in advance, set to trigger on April 1. Which made it seriously hard to figure out what was going on.
Then there are the rumors about the developers keeping certain functionality intentionally broken, to make sure the project is hard to use seriously for free.
As much as I like Open Source, the fact is that at the time, Linden Labs has a much better infrastructure, better code, and a much better team to support it.
Go into a shop, but a webcam, take it home and find that the drivers don't work with the customer's version of Linux they run. You have no idea which one they run, it'll probably be Ubuntu but even then, which version?
Things don't work like that in Linux.
You don't insert a CD with webcam software. If webcam is already supported by the kernel, then you plug it in, and it works without any extra messing with stuff. The "if" is of course the problem, but if there's no driver in a recent distro then it's quite likely none exists at all. Fortunately webcam support is very good these days and I've never heard of a webcam that didn't work.
Regading "which version", it doesn't matter. Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu all support the same hardware. Other distributions of a similar date are unlikely to show any significant differences. You can often see Linux logos on network cards, because the driver is in the kernel, so all distributions get it from there.
Linux does things differently here, and frankly I prefer the Linux way.
The Windows way is: The manufacturer provides their own software and driver, possibly for hardware that's not really their own. Manufacturers like Logitech often sell cameras not only by their technical specs but by the software included with them. For instance, the more expensive Logitech cameras have software that will let you stick a beard on your webcam image in Mr. Potato head style, even though the ability has nothing to do with the webcam itself.
The Linux way is: The chip manufacturer's (hopefully) provides specs. Kernel supports the chip, supporting at once both the Logitech and the Creative webcams using the same hardware, possibly covering 10 different webcams with the same driver. This means that the users of all of those get unified, and if Logitech contributes a bug fix, Creative users get it too. The kernel provides the same interface for all webcams, so that so long it works, the software doesn't care what you have. If you want to stick a beard on yourself, you look for a program that will do that on Linux (haven't looked), which will work both with the most expensive and the cheapest USB1 webcam you can find.
And that's what I like about the Linux way: The webcam is just hardware and works and such. It doesn't come with some gaudy and buggy piece of software to change settings. Every webcam works with the system in exactly the same way.
So first you claim we don't have software patents. But it turns out we do, and in staggering numbers. So.... why not shift the goalposts.
Not shifting the goalposts, I heard of the 30K before.
I simply think that to have none at all, and to have some but which have no effect are functionally equivalent. I could be wrong about the "have no effect" part though, in which case that wouldn't be true anymore.
That said, whether effective or not I consider the whole thing fishy and will try to do my part to get those removed for good.
It also says the patents have been granted against the law.
I can't find any mentions of those patents being actually used to sue somebody for infringement. Which makes sense, since they're unlawful.
As far as I can tell the situation is: There are no legal software patents, 30000 were illegally accepted but currently are not enforced, and the only reason for getting one of those right now is to be first in case they're actually legalized. So long they're illegal they'll remain ineffective.
So the reason we're fine still is that none of them are actually doing anything.
That will only work for toy inventions. It takes 3 to 5 years to simply build a 1.0 product. By the time the product is out the door, you have only 2 to 4 years to make any profit.
Tough. The field moves fast, get used to it.
Personally I'd rather abolish patents completely.
Say goodbye to a lot of software inventions. Why should other fields of technology enjoy patent protection, but not software?
We don't have software patents in europe currently, and are doing perfectly fine anyway, thank you very much.
As a programmer who ostensibly might benefit from them, I don't want them. I don't think it would do me, nor the industry any good. It would just create more stupid lawsuits along the lines of Microsoft is involved in right now. And I don't see where's the benefit of wasting money on litigation, when useful coding could be getting done instead.
Would you argue that from a scientific, logic point of view, homosexuality is not a flaw?
Why, yes I would.
I mean, if ever I saw a trait that evolution would suppress, this would be it.
Yet after millions of years, it didn't. Go figure.
The last theory on it I heard is that homosexuality frees up a lot of time that would otherwise be spent on breeding and caring for their own children. That means they have time to support their tribe/relatives, improving the group's chances of survival. And their genes still get passed on by their straight relatives.
Not all traits have to be always beneficial in all times and places. Sickle cell anemia is a well known example.
I don't have time for a proper reply right now, but I'll say this:
I think that if patents ever worked, they have stopped doing what they were intended to do. So I'm skeptical about the usefulness of having patents at all.
That said, I'm only an expert in my own field, and I'm completely certain that I don't want them there. And note that I'm somebody who could supposedly benefit from their existence.
Well, I don't agree with patenting algorithms either.
I think when you think of an algorithm, you have in mind something like an image recognizing algorithm that took years to perfect.
But when I as a developer think of an algorithm I think of very basic building blocks, like binary search, quicksort, hashes, RLE compression, Hamming code. If any of those was patented progress would get slowed down for years.
It can get even simpler than that. Something trivial like "if( there_is_data_to_print && there_is_paper && there_is_ink ) print_document()" is an algorithm.
Allowing patents on this means giving somebody the ownership of a piece of math. That something could be illegal to calculate without paying somebody is completely insane IMO.
As a developer I say: I don't want software patents in any shape or form. Not of the "business method" sort. Not of the "algorithm" sort. There should never be such a thing as a line of code that can't be written without paying somebody for a license. Period.
The question is can anything be secure in the long term if an attacker can monitor the conversation between alice and bob 24/7?
Well, yeah. That's the whole point of protocols like SSL, and tools like GPG. Though they're not magical and you need to pay attention and not blindly click "Ok" to every self-signed cert.
Yes, I've heard the tempest stories but I'm jumping to the conclusion that those techniques are only available to big $$ governements institutions and are not used by the random drive-by hacker (yet..)
From what I heard, TEMPEST is doable on hardware like monitors for very cheap. Your shielded cables aren't going to be much good there, and the keyboard's cable is probably not shielded either. I don't think it's common in wardriving yet, though.
No it doesn't. The only way you can think that is if your refusing to see that copyright as well as land rights are comprised of several different rights over a certain thing. When you sell a copy of the copyrighted work, you don't sell you copyright, so why is it that when someone assumes the copyright in order to distribute the work (without permission) you insist that the entire piece disappear?
"Assuming copyright" strikes me as a very bad wording.
A young child can commit copyright infringement by sharing stuff without knowing about there being such a thing as copyright. They can't be assuming something that they don't know exists.
I can freely distribute and resell GPL licensed software. It's copyrighted, but I don't need to "assume" I hold the copyright on some code to distribute it.
Some things are in the public domain, and I can distribute them freely, whether the creator (or their heirs) like that or not.
Some things like plain collections of facts are simply uncopyrightable.
I insist the whole piece disappear for being able to call it "theft". If people simply copy your stuff, that's simply copyright infringement, since you still retain control of your work. Infringement on rights you continue to hold is never theft. Tresspassing is not theft of land.
If you still don't get it, here's an example with another right:
Me kidnapping you and holding you in my basement is an infringement of your right to freedom. I didn't take away your right to be free, I infringed on it. The government putting you into prison is taking your right to freedom away. You've legally lost your right to be free.
I use the same logic for defining what's theft and not regarding copyrighted materials.
Crinminal conversion is a class under theft as a legal concept. Infringement is the same. The only reason why it is called infringement is because it was codified that way. But that doesn't remove the element in which is resides.
Wikipedia doesn't seem to agree with you: "Criminal conversion, in criminal law, is usually defined as the crime of exerting unauthorized use or control of someone else's property. It differs from theft in that..."
Ok, maybe you don't like Wikipedia. How about the Indiana Code? Criminal conversion is under the "Chapter 4. Theft, Conversion, and Receiving Stolen Property". Now why would it have that name if all of it was theft? To me this clearly indicates that Chapter 4 is about these related but separate concepts: theft, conversion, and receiving stolen property. Just like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is a bureau that is in charge of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives, all those things being separate from each other though having enough things in common to make it sense to have one bureau regulate all of them.
No, it wouldn't it would be theft of your right to be on the land
That directly conflicts with your earlier claim that your copyright is somehow being "assumed" when it's infringed.
Criminal conversion is not a new or specific name. It's a legal concept that has been around almost longer then our legal system. Just because this is the first you have heard of it does not make it new or special. Please don't argue, I didn't know about it so it doesn't count.
Reading comprehension issues. I'm saying that the very reason we are talking about "criminal conversion" is that it's not theft. If it was, then it'd be plainly called "theft" and no other term would be needed.
They were all theft.
No, none of them were.
(This is amusing, how long are we going to keep this up?)
If copyright is the only thing that allows permission to distribute copyrighted materials, then you must assume a copyright in order to distribute it. It's a temporary theft but it is there. You also do not have to act in a certain way or to the full extent of the right in order to take it.
So by that logic, trespassing is temporary theft of land? I'm sorry, but that's retarded.
No. Criminal conversion is theft, it's in the statutes regarding theft, is it theft.
So why does it have a specific name, "criminal conversion"? If it was theft, then no new term for it would be needed. Sorry, won't agree with this.
I support it because we're continuously tracked every day -- you can bet that if the police wants, they'll get a complete record of where you've been, by tracking the usage of your credit card, monthly tube pass, video surveillance and so on.
I'd like less of that crap. And what better way to make that point than to make the watched watch the watchers and let them see for themselves what getting tracked feels like.
In a way, it is. You have no right to distribute my copyrighted works, when you do, you are in effect assuming the copyright for the purpose of distributing my copyrighted materials.
No, I'm not assuming your copyright. I'm infringing on it.
If I were to somehow assume your copyright, I could go into court and sue people for infringement. But that clearly would be a very bad idea, me not having the copyright and unlawfully making copies of your stuff, and all.
You don't need to be deprived of anything to have a theft occur. Seriously, look into the concept of Criminal conversion. You act as if I lost nothing that prevented me from doing anything, theft can't occur. That's simple incorrect.
It's not theft. Criminal conversion is criminal conversion. Theft is theft. They're separate.
No it does not. Infringment is a parrent class of copyright violations. Within it, there are several classes of actions that cause the violation. Theft is one of them. Taking a right that does not belong to you is theft.
Infringement is infringement. Criminal conversion is criminal conversion. Theft is neither of those.
Her is your confusion showing through again. The right is not to do my own manufacturing, it's to exclusively control the copying and distribution of the materials. Whether I can still do it or not is irrelevant as I have the ability to limit you from doing the same.
Yes it is.
Otherwise you're equating copyright infringement with unlawful transfer of copyright.
One means that somebody somewhere made a copy against your wishes. Your ability to continue producing is uncompromised, you're actually free to ignore the infringement if you so wish because you're not directly stopped from doing anything. Further, your right to control your design doesn't disappear when a single party infringes on it. You may ignore one party and go for another.
If I did get your copyright somehow transferred to me, though, you'd lose the ability to legally make whatever you're making. That's a much, much bigger deal than some guy somewhere unlawfully using your picture in a page about his cat.
Those two situations are clearly separate and must not be confused with each other. It won't work to your advantage if the second happens to you and everybody thinks it's the first.
We can all choose to remain ignorant or uninformed. It's like leading a horse to water and not being able to make him drink. Agreeing with me is not what you need to do. Understanding the legal constructs involved, how they are applied, and what that means is. Now I explained it best I can, if you still don't agree, then read the laws and case law yourself because they are legally binding despite anything either of us say.
The law clearly defines theft and copyright infringement as separate, and treats them differently. There's no arguing about this.
You may not agree with the prosecution and conviction that could come later either. But it wouldn't make it disappear from reality either. It's a matter of law, not what either of us want to agree to. If you disagree, you will have to get the laws and legal constructs changed.
I'm not arguing about the legality here. I'm saying that taking a cell phone is theft, and copying a cell phone's design is copyright infringement.
Again, like the grandparent said, nothing is being taken. Taking would imply something being lost, and a right being infringed on isn't taken away. There's a vast difference between trespassing (which infringes on the right to deny people to use your land), and taking your title to the land away (which stops you from being able to live in it)
I don't see how is anything gained by confusing both of those issues, when they are clearly different, need very different actions to be performed, and vastly differ in the damage they cause.
You're aware that a laser works by bouncing laser light around inside until it's strong enough, and collimated enough, to be worth releasing, right?
Yes. However, I remember reading somewhere that pointing a high powered laser pointer at a mirror in such a way that the beam is reflected at the laser may end up damaging it.
Also, your retroreflector is going to be vaporized before it can reflect much light. Then the light it does reflect has to go all the way back through the atmosphere again.
The beam emitter may well be able to deal with it, but how about making the laser go a bit off course, so that it might hit other parts of the laser, the operator, or anything else that might be found nearby? Having it get reflected back and hit some soldier's eyes would probably make them really hate the laser.
Even if the retroreflector doesn't last long, and there are losses, something that can make a hole in a missile isn't going to need that much time to leave somebody blind.
The problem here is the generic take without permission equal stealing ideology we have all been taught. If you take something that doens't belong to you without permision or a right to do so, people consider that stealing.
My own understanding is that "taking" refers to a physical objects, and as such, abstract things like ideas, designs and exclusivity do not apply.
What is stolen is the right to be in control to the extent the law allows. And yes, if you took my control over the copying and distribution of something, I am out that concept just like I would if you took my cell phone or TV or car.
No, it isn't. You still haven't lost the ability to do your own manufacturing.
The only situation where I might agree something was taken from you is if I really managed to take the ability to manufacture it away from you, for instance by somehow fraudulently getting the copyright transferred to me, not only making me able to manufacture your cell phone design, but making it illegal for you to do that at the same time.
So long my copying your cell phone's design doesn't somehow stop you from making them, I will never agree there's theft involved. It's copyright infringement.
No, it isn't, unless you're talking about people breaking into your house and stealing your hard disk with the data.
Simple example to see the difference:
If I steal your cell phone, has anything been taken away from you? Definitely, yes.
If I copy the design of your cell phone and manufacture it on my own, has anything been taken away from you? Not really.
If you say that "profit" has been taken away from you, then that's not the same thing, as I could do that in other ways, by for instance speaking to my friends and telling them your phone sucks, causing them not to buy it. Have I stolen anything from you in that case, and are you going to take me to court for theft?
And for the record, I'm not anti-copyright, but still don't like the attempts to equate copyright with the ownership of a physical object. They don't work the same.
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Because opensim is unprofessional.
Quality-wise, the existent grids run very badly, with very common crashes, asset loss, bad performance, region crossing issues...
Development is unprofessional. The developers pulled an april fools day prank that caught by suprise several companies depending on their work. It wasn't an april fools day checkin either, but a change prepared weeks in advance, set to trigger on April 1. Which made it seriously hard to figure out what was going on.
Then there are the rumors about the developers keeping certain functionality intentionally broken, to make sure the project is hard to use seriously for free.
As much as I like Open Source, the fact is that at the time, Linden Labs has a much better infrastructure, better code, and a much better team to support it.
Things don't work like that in Linux.
You don't insert a CD with webcam software. If webcam is already supported by the kernel, then you plug it in, and it works without any extra messing with stuff. The "if" is of course the problem, but if there's no driver in a recent distro then it's quite likely none exists at all. Fortunately webcam support is very good these days and I've never heard of a webcam that didn't work.
Regading "which version", it doesn't matter. Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu all support the same hardware. Other distributions of a similar date are unlikely to show any significant differences. You can often see Linux logos on network cards, because the driver is in the kernel, so all distributions get it from there.
Linux does things differently here, and frankly I prefer the Linux way.
The Windows way is: The manufacturer provides their own software and driver, possibly for hardware that's not really their own. Manufacturers like Logitech often sell cameras not only by their technical specs but by the software included with them. For instance, the more expensive Logitech cameras have software that will let you stick a beard on your webcam image in Mr. Potato head style, even though the ability has nothing to do with the webcam itself.
The Linux way is: The chip manufacturer's (hopefully) provides specs. Kernel supports the chip, supporting at once both the Logitech and the Creative webcams using the same hardware, possibly covering 10 different webcams with the same driver. This means that the users of all of those get unified, and if Logitech contributes a bug fix, Creative users get it too. The kernel provides the same interface for all webcams, so that so long it works, the software doesn't care what you have. If you want to stick a beard on yourself, you look for a program that will do that on Linux (haven't looked), which will work both with the most expensive and the cheapest USB1 webcam you can find.
And that's what I like about the Linux way: The webcam is just hardware and works and such. It doesn't come with some gaudy and buggy piece of software to change settings. Every webcam works with the system in exactly the same way.
Not shifting the goalposts, I heard of the 30K before.
I simply think that to have none at all, and to have some but which have no effect are functionally equivalent. I could be wrong about the "have no effect" part though, in which case that wouldn't be true anymore.
That said, whether effective or not I consider the whole thing fishy and will try to do my part to get those removed for good.
It also says the patents have been granted against the law.
I can't find any mentions of those patents being actually used to sue somebody for infringement. Which makes sense, since they're unlawful.
As far as I can tell the situation is: There are no legal software patents, 30000 were illegally accepted but currently are not enforced, and the only reason for getting one of those right now is to be first in case they're actually legalized. So long they're illegal they'll remain ineffective.
So the reason we're fine still is that none of them are actually doing anything.
The Pirate Party is going to get a good donation from me to help with this.
Any other good organizations to donate to? Which are the right places to contact to express opposition?
Tough. The field moves fast, get used to it.
Personally I'd rather abolish patents completely.
We don't have software patents in europe currently, and are doing perfectly fine anyway, thank you very much.
As a programmer who ostensibly might benefit from them, I don't want them. I don't think it would do me, nor the industry any good. It would just create more stupid lawsuits along the lines of Microsoft is involved in right now. And I don't see where's the benefit of wasting money on litigation, when useful coding could be getting done instead.
A console is a computer, just with annoying restrictions tacked on.
But generally good advice, that's why I don't buy consoles in general, and avoid Sony like the plague.
Why, yes I would.
Yet after millions of years, it didn't. Go figure.
The last theory on it I heard is that homosexuality frees up a lot of time that would otherwise be spent on breeding and caring for their own children. That means they have time to support their tribe/relatives, improving the group's chances of survival. And their genes still get passed on by their straight relatives.
Not all traits have to be always beneficial in all times and places. Sickle cell anemia is a well known example.
I don't have time for a proper reply right now, but I'll say this:
I think that if patents ever worked, they have stopped doing what they were intended to do. So I'm skeptical about the usefulness of having patents at all.
That said, I'm only an expert in my own field, and I'm completely certain that I don't want them there. And note that I'm somebody who could supposedly benefit from their existence.
Well, I don't agree with patenting algorithms either.
I think when you think of an algorithm, you have in mind something like an image recognizing algorithm that took years to perfect.
But when I as a developer think of an algorithm I think of very basic building blocks, like binary search, quicksort, hashes, RLE compression, Hamming code. If any of those was patented progress would get slowed down for years.
It can get even simpler than that. Something trivial like "if( there_is_data_to_print && there_is_paper && there_is_ink ) print_document()" is an algorithm.
Allowing patents on this means giving somebody the ownership of a piece of math. That something could be illegal to calculate without paying somebody is completely insane IMO.
As a developer I say: I don't want software patents in any shape or form. Not of the "business method" sort. Not of the "algorithm" sort. There should never be such a thing as a line of code that can't be written without paying somebody for a license. Period.
Well, yeah. That's the whole point of protocols like SSL, and tools like GPG. Though they're not magical and you need to pay attention and not blindly click "Ok" to every self-signed cert.
From what I heard, TEMPEST is doable on hardware like monitors for very cheap. Your shielded cables aren't going to be much good there, and the keyboard's cable is probably not shielded either. I don't think it's common in wardriving yet, though.
"Assuming copyright" strikes me as a very bad wording.
A young child can commit copyright infringement by sharing stuff without knowing about there being such a thing as copyright. They can't be assuming something that they don't know exists.
I can freely distribute and resell GPL licensed software. It's copyrighted, but I don't need to "assume" I hold the copyright on some code to distribute it.
Some things are in the public domain, and I can distribute them freely, whether the creator (or their heirs) like that or not.
Some things like plain collections of facts are simply uncopyrightable.
I insist the whole piece disappear for being able to call it "theft". If people simply copy your stuff, that's simply copyright infringement, since you still retain control of your work. Infringement on rights you continue to hold is never theft. Tresspassing is not theft of land.
If you still don't get it, here's an example with another right:
Me kidnapping you and holding you in my basement is an infringement of your right to freedom. I didn't take away your right to be free, I infringed on it.
The government putting you into prison is taking your right to freedom away. You've legally lost your right to be free.
I use the same logic for defining what's theft and not regarding copyrighted materials.
Wikipedia doesn't seem to agree with you: "Criminal conversion, in criminal law, is usually defined as the crime of exerting unauthorized use or control of someone else's property. It differs from theft in that ..."
Ok, maybe you don't like Wikipedia. How about the Indiana Code? Criminal conversion is under the "Chapter 4. Theft, Conversion, and Receiving Stolen Property". Now why would it have that name if all of it was theft? To me this clearly indicates that Chapter 4 is about these related but separate concepts: theft, conversion, and receiving stolen property. Just like the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is a bureau that is in charge of alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives, all those things being separate from each other though having enough things in common to make it sense to have one bureau regulate all of them.
That directly conflicts with your earlier claim that your copyright is somehow being "assumed" when it's infringed.
Reading comprehension issues. I'm saying that the very reason we are talking about "criminal conversion" is that it's not theft. If it was, then it'd be plainly called "theft" and no other term would be needed.
No, none of them were.
(This is amusing, how long are we going to keep this up?)
Perfect, we agree then. End of discussion.
What the artist/label thinks has absolutely no importance. The only important thing is what the law says.
So by that logic, trespassing is temporary theft of land? I'm sorry, but that's retarded.
So why does it have a specific name, "criminal conversion"? If it was theft, then no new term for it would be needed. Sorry, won't agree with this.
It's none of those.
True. But that's not why I support what she does.
I support it because we're continuously tracked every day -- you can bet that if the police wants, they'll get a complete record of where you've been, by tracking the usage of your credit card, monthly tube pass, video surveillance and so on.
I'd like less of that crap. And what better way to make that point than to make the watched watch the watchers and let them see for themselves what getting tracked feels like.
No, I'm not assuming your copyright. I'm infringing on it.
If I were to somehow assume your copyright, I could go into court and sue people for infringement. But that clearly would be a very bad idea, me not having the copyright and unlawfully making copies of your stuff, and all.
It's not theft. Criminal conversion is criminal conversion. Theft is theft. They're separate.
Infringement is infringement. Criminal conversion is criminal conversion. Theft is neither of those.
Get tired of it all you like, but I prefer it when somebody stealing my music CDs and somebody copying their contents are clearly separate.
Perl isn't supposed to be written in all caps.
It's either "Perl" when referring to the programming language itself, or "perl" when you're referring to the interpreter.
Yes it is.
Otherwise you're equating copyright infringement with unlawful transfer of copyright.
One means that somebody somewhere made a copy against your wishes. Your ability to continue producing is uncompromised, you're actually free to ignore the infringement if you so wish because you're not directly stopped from doing anything. Further, your right to control your design doesn't disappear when a single party infringes on it. You may ignore one party and go for another.
If I did get your copyright somehow transferred to me, though, you'd lose the ability to legally make whatever you're making. That's a much, much bigger deal than some guy somewhere unlawfully using your picture in a page about his cat.
Those two situations are clearly separate and must not be confused with each other. It won't work to your advantage if the second happens to you and everybody thinks it's the first.
The law clearly defines theft and copyright infringement as separate, and treats them differently. There's no arguing about this.
I'm not arguing about the legality here. I'm saying that taking a cell phone is theft, and copying a cell phone's design is copyright infringement.
Again, like the grandparent said, nothing is being taken. Taking would imply something being lost, and a right being infringed on isn't taken away. There's a vast difference between trespassing (which infringes on the right to deny people to use your land), and taking your title to the land away (which stops you from being able to live in it)
I don't see how is anything gained by confusing both of those issues, when they are clearly different, need very different actions to be performed, and vastly differ in the damage they cause.
I doubt that's very helpful for a laser that should be capable of slicing limbs off in a fraction of a second.
Yes. However, I remember reading somewhere that pointing a high powered laser pointer at a mirror in such a way that the beam is reflected at the laser may end up damaging it.
The beam emitter may well be able to deal with it, but how about making the laser go a bit off course, so that it might hit other parts of the laser, the operator, or anything else that might be found nearby? Having it get reflected back and hit some soldier's eyes would probably make them really hate the laser.
Even if the retroreflector doesn't last long, and there are losses, something that can make a hole in a missile isn't going to need that much time to leave somebody blind.
My own understanding is that "taking" refers to a physical objects, and as such, abstract things like ideas, designs and exclusivity do not apply.
No, it isn't. You still haven't lost the ability to do your own manufacturing.
The only situation where I might agree something was taken from you is if I really managed to take the ability to manufacture it away from you, for instance by somehow fraudulently getting the copyright transferred to me, not only making me able to manufacture your cell phone design, but making it illegal for you to do that at the same time.
So long my copying your cell phone's design doesn't somehow stop you from making them, I will never agree there's theft involved. It's copyright infringement.
No, it isn't, unless you're talking about people breaking into your house and stealing your hard disk with the data.
Simple example to see the difference:
If I steal your cell phone, has anything been taken away from you? Definitely, yes.
If I copy the design of your cell phone and manufacture it on my own, has anything been taken away from you? Not really.
If you say that "profit" has been taken away from you, then that's not the same thing, as I could do that in other ways, by for instance speaking to my friends and telling them your phone sucks, causing them not to buy it. Have I stolen anything from you in that case, and are you going to take me to court for theft?
And for the record, I'm not anti-copyright, but still don't like the attempts to equate copyright with the ownership of a physical object. They don't work the same.