" Some countries provide a greater range of freedoms than the US and a great deal more provide a lesser range of freedoms than the US so whats your point?"
Thats exactly my point. I am glad that you now admit that there are countries which are more free then the US.
"It should be noted that there is no nation the same size or larger than the US population wise that offers greater freedoms than the US."
Again if that's good enough for you then great.
"Yes weed does cause brain damage "
No it does not. At least no more then diet pepsi does.
"Basically to sum it up you have a problem with this guy getting jail time because you don't feel hacking into computer systems is a crime that ought to be punished."
I think you are confused about who you are arguing with. I said no such thing. It's OK to argue with what I actually say but you can't make up shit, pretend I said it and then argue against it. That's just retarded. I said the punishment was excessive.
"Then again I *AM* on Slashdot where situational ethics dominate and where people aren't responsible for their actions when they originate from the other side of an internet connection."
True enough. In real life I don't think I would have wasted 10 seconds talking to the likes of you.
It's simple. SCO sues google, MS buys google stock, google settles by buying SCO stock using the money from MS and publicly admitting that SCO owns linux. SCO stock goes through the roof and everybody makes a bundle. Clean, legal and profitable.
"I think it's called insider trading. Last time I checked that was very illegal. Maybe I'm wrong."
I can assure you that you are wrong. It's not insider trading. It happens all the time. See my post elsewhere in this thread about MS settling lawsuits by buying stock in the company suing them.
"Issuing a press release claiming they've paid license fees (and that SCO owns Linux) is certain to boost SCO's stock price, and when they actually have bought stock, that is nothing short of fraud."
It's no such thing. This kind of thing happens all the time. MS settled a lawsuit with Borland by buying a few hundred dollars woth of Borland stock. They did the same thing with Corel and Apple.
It's routine. In the case of Corel the stock went up afterwards and MS cashed out. They made a bundle. It's not fraud it's how business is done in the US.
" I would ask you to keep in mind that freedom is not just a lack of laws and regulations but the ability of the common people to go about their business on a daily basis without being accosted and or negatively affected by various social ills."
Really? That's your actual definition of freedom? Nothing about equality or habeas corpus? Nothing about fair trials or sane laws? You think prison labor OK? You think I am advocating chaos and no laws? You actually think that being addicted to cigarettes (or alcohol for that matter) has no adverse social effects but that smoking a joint does?
I now understand where you are coming from. There is no need to discuss this any further.
" Weed equipment is illegal. What is so hard to fucking understand about that? "
There is a lot that is hard to understand about that. Why is it illegal? Why is it legal to sell guns but not bongs? Why is it legal to sell bayonets but not bongs? What exactly is a bong anyway? Why not arrest people for selling tobacco pipes on the internet? You want to jail people for selling small pipes but not big ones? the whole thing is nonsensical. It's very hard to understand. Why do you blindly accept that some dork someplace decided that you should not have the right to have small pipe in your posession. Don't you care at all about your freedom? Would you roll over and let them deny you the right to carry cigarettes or tissues too? How about pocket knives?
It boggles my mind that it does not bother you that having a small pipe in your pocket is illegal or that selling a pipe over the internet is illegal.
"Or is it an unfree country because you can't do whatever the hell you damn well please?"
It's a good question. How do you measure freedom of a country. How do you compare if one country is more free then another one.
A logical thing would be to compare the number of laws. The less laws there are the more freedom you have right?
Another one might be about how trivial and nonsensical the laws are. For example in some countries it's illegal to worship some religions in other countries it's illegal to cross the street in the middle or to be in the posession of indigenous flora. In some countries you can be jailed simply for posessing a device which might be used to burn and smoke plant material.
Another criterea might be how what percentage of the population is in jail at any one time.
Maybe you could take into account whether the country executes it's criminals or uses prison labor.
You could also look at whether some prisoners are denied habeas corpus and are locked up without access to lawyers or charges.
You could take a look to see if the country has set up concentration camps outside it's own borders so that it could freely house prisoners any bypass it's own laws or constitution.
Finally you might want to consider if all humans are treated equally in that country. For example if certain humans are not allowed to vote, or get married just because they are different then the majority. You might also want to make a list of countries where it's legal to discriminate on housing or jobs based on your differentness.
I don't know how you define freedom but those are the factors I would look at.
What is your definition of a free country? How does the US rate using your definition compred to western europe, australia, new zealand or canada?
Can you bookmark a whole set of tabs in shot yet? It's the main reason I don't use safari on my laptop. Safari looks much better but Mozilla still has more features.
"Proprietary companies have the reasons and resources to fix up their one product and make it the best it can be that can do all."
Yes but miltiple proprietary companies make the same product and waste manhours trying to compete with each other. It's the same thing. It's not like we live in a world with just one car company or just one company that makes software.
"so that we get the mess of conflicting window libraries, extensions, and code forks that we have now."
Well I still have a few windows 98 boxes at work because the software won't run on windows 2000 and my VPN client which works in windows 2000 will not work on windows XP.
You let me know when any company has a product that does not suffer from conflicting extensions and code forks. It's never going to happen.
1) Google agrees to pay SCO for the license to use linux. But instead of a cash transaction google agrees to buy SCO stock at a discount or it buys SCO stock options. MS has done similar deals with Apple and Borland.
2) Google and SCO put out a joing press release saying that Google has agreed to pay SCO X million dollars for the licence to use Linux. Google also states that they looked into SCOs allegations and that they feel that SCO is the legitamate and de-facto owner of linux. Google urges other companies to get in compliance to avoid lawsuits.
3) SCO stock goes up tenfold overnight.
It's a win-win for SCO and Google. MS will most likely chip in to sweeten the pot by financing the google purchase of SCO stock. They could do this by buying a few percent of google (knowing full well that they will get the money back on the IPO).
Every body involved would make billions of dollars overnight so I definately think this is a likely scenario.
I can only think of one reason why the above scenario would not happen and that's if the owners of google are people who would put their ethics and morality above profits. But then again we live in America.
"Do you keep potentially sensitive information in your shed? For instance, payroll information, information regarding contacts, unpublished articles, or other confidential information?"
Now that I think about it I did have some paperwork stored there. Things like old bills, paystubs and maybe even a some old cancelled checks. I also had oher valuable things in there like lawnmower, shredder, weedeater gardening implements etc. Finally there was gasoline and paint there which could have been used to torch the place.
The point is that the guy stole nothing, he didn't dig through the boxes, he didn't walk off with the lawnmower, he didn't burn the place down.
You honestly think that people should go to jail for they could have stolen instead of what they actually did steal?
Let's take your analogy. Let's say that my shed was locked and there was all kinds of sensitive information there. If the guy picked open the lock and slept in there should he go to jail for five years?
"He deserves to be punished."
How much? At worst what he did should be a misdemeanor. Did he actually do any damage to anybody? It seems to me his only crime was to embarass a corporation.
Five years for tresspassing? That just not right. I once had a homeless person enter my yard and sleep in the shed (it wasn't locked). I called the police and they removed him but they didn't charge him with anything and he didn't spend 5 years in jail. I don't see why what this guy did is so much more evil then any homeless person who "breaks into" a unlocked building and sleep.
Of course there is no denying that extinctions happen. In fact several times during the course of history there have been mass extinctions in which over 70% of all species on the planet died. When the dinosaurs disappeared so did most other creatures. For thousands of years the earth was mostly covered in ferns.
The earth will survive of that there is no doubt. What about us though?
"The Palestinians could become Israeli citizens, vote, and even be elected to the Knesset. "
Not if they live in the west bank or gaza. Israel does not recognize those human beings as being citizens of any country.
"I am hoping that the Palestinians get smart and elect a real leader who is actually interested in living in peace and democracy rather than an autocratic terrorist. This will make it easier for the Israelis to do the same. Then there will be a Palestinian state and the immigration issues can ensue."
It will never happen. God is telling the Israelis that the land belongs to them. God is also telling the palestenians the exact same thing. Both people go on listening to their God and trying to get rid of the people on "their" land.
Maybe one day God will ease up on the poor fellows but I doubt it.
The illegals in houston traveled from their country to ours. They crossed our borders illegally.
The israeli army rolled into the west bank and captured that terratory in war. The palestenians had been living there previously.
The situation is more like china invading tibet. China invaded tibet, killed a bunch of tibetians, destroyed their culture and heritage and moved a bunch of chinese into tibet to dilute the population.
Unlike Israel though it eventually made all the tibetians chinese citizens. Israel after 30+ years of occupying the palestenians can't get itself act like a civilized nation and make these people citizens. Hell it can't even bring itself to act like china.
Instead it has chosen to act like South Africa and set up an apartheid. Shame, shame,shame.
Slashdot Mirror
Hell will freeze over before any politician will grow balls enough to cut funding to Israel.
" Some countries provide a greater range of freedoms than the US and a great deal more provide a lesser range of freedoms than the US so whats your point?"
Thats exactly my point. I am glad that you now admit that there are countries which are more free then the US.
"It should be noted that there is no nation the same size or larger than the US population wise that offers greater freedoms than the US."
Again if that's good enough for you then great.
"Yes weed does cause brain damage "
No it does not. At least no more then diet pepsi does.
"Basically to sum it up you have a problem with this guy getting jail time because you don't feel hacking into computer systems is a crime that ought to be punished."
I think you are confused about who you are arguing with. I said no such thing. It's OK to argue with what I actually say but you can't make up shit, pretend I said it and then argue against it. That's just retarded. I said the punishment was excessive.
"Then again I *AM* on Slashdot where situational ethics dominate and where people aren't responsible for their actions when they originate from the other side of an internet connection."
True enough. In real life I don't think I would have wasted 10 seconds talking to the likes of you.
Since there is no way to absolutely know how the market will react then it's not inside trading. As I said other companies do this all the time.
It's simple. SCO sues google, MS buys google stock, google settles by buying SCO stock using the money from MS and publicly admitting that SCO owns linux. SCO stock goes through the roof and everybody makes a bundle. Clean, legal and profitable.
"In the US, US Citizens are protected by the writ of habeas corpus and fair trials."
Unless you are labled a bad guy by the president.
"Again prison labor is fine. There's nothing wrong with it and if there is you haven't stated any reasons why it should not be allowed"
There are lots of reasons against it but I really don't feel like wasting my time talking to you about it.
"It doesn't always succeed but it tries."
I guess that's good enough for you. Are there other countries which succeed more then the US in this regard?
" Obviously it is less damaging than weed smoking since weed smoking carries most of the same dangers as smoking yet adds brain damage."
Weed does not cause brain damage. I don't know where you got that from.
"My point is that you have tried to paint the US as being full of unfair and unjust laws and a non-free country. "
I did no such thing. You should learn to read better. I simply pointinted out that other countries provide a greater range of freedoms then the US.
"I think it's called insider trading. Last time I checked that was very illegal. Maybe I'm wrong."
I can assure you that you are wrong. It's not insider trading. It happens all the time. See my post elsewhere in this thread about MS settling lawsuits by buying stock in the company suing them.
"Issuing a press release claiming they've paid license fees (and that SCO owns Linux) is certain to boost SCO's stock price, and when they actually have bought stock, that is nothing short of fraud."
It's no such thing. This kind of thing happens all the time. MS settled a lawsuit with Borland by buying a few hundred dollars woth of Borland stock. They did the same thing with Corel and Apple.
It's routine. In the case of Corel the stock went up afterwards and MS cashed out. They made a bundle. It's not fraud it's how business is done in the US.
" I would ask you to keep in mind that freedom is not just a lack of laws and regulations but the ability of the common people to go about their business on a daily basis without being accosted and or negatively affected by various social ills."
Really? That's your actual definition of freedom? Nothing about equality or habeas corpus? Nothing about fair trials or sane laws? You think prison labor OK? You think I am advocating chaos and no laws? You actually think that being addicted to cigarettes (or alcohol for that matter) has no adverse social effects but that smoking a joint does?
I now understand where you are coming from. There is no need to discuss this any further.
" Weed equipment is illegal. What is so hard to fucking understand about that? "
There is a lot that is hard to understand about that. Why is it illegal? Why is it legal to sell guns but not bongs? Why is it legal to sell bayonets but not bongs? What exactly is a bong anyway? Why not arrest people for selling tobacco pipes on the internet? You want to jail people for selling small pipes but not big ones? the whole thing is nonsensical. It's very hard to understand. Why do you blindly accept that some dork someplace decided that you should not have the right to have small pipe in your posession. Don't you care at all about your freedom? Would you roll over and let them deny you the right to carry cigarettes or tissues too? How about pocket knives?
It boggles my mind that it does not bother you that having a small pipe in your pocket is illegal or that selling a pipe over the internet is illegal.
"Or is it an unfree country because you can't do whatever the hell you damn well please?"
It's a good question. How do you measure freedom of a country. How do you compare if one country is more free then another one.
A logical thing would be to compare the number of laws. The less laws there are the more freedom you have right?
Another one might be about how trivial and nonsensical the laws are. For example in some countries it's illegal to worship some religions in other countries it's illegal to cross the street in the middle or to be in the posession of indigenous flora. In some countries you can be jailed simply for posessing a device which might be used to burn and smoke plant material.
Another criterea might be how what percentage of the population is in jail at any one time.
Maybe you could take into account whether the country executes it's criminals or uses prison labor.
You could also look at whether some prisoners are denied habeas corpus and are locked up without access to lawyers or charges.
You could take a look to see if the country has set up concentration camps outside it's own borders so that it could freely house prisoners any bypass it's own laws or constitution.
Finally you might want to consider if all humans are treated equally in that country. For example if certain humans are not allowed to vote, or get married just because they are different then the majority. You might also want to make a list of countries where it's legal to discriminate on housing or jobs based on your differentness.
I don't know how you define freedom but those are the factors I would look at.
What is your definition of a free country? How does the US rate using your definition compred to western europe, australia, new zealand or canada?
Can you bookmark a whole set of tabs in shot yet? It's the main reason I don't use safari on my laptop. Safari looks much better but Mozilla still has more features.
" I am talking about taking a closed source GTK app and adding this into it."
Just buy the commercial license from troll tech. That way you know you are safe. No different then buying any other toolkit from any other vendor.
"Proprietary companies have the reasons and resources to fix up their one product and make it the best it can be that can do all."
Yes but miltiple proprietary companies make the same product and waste manhours trying to compete with each other. It's the same thing. It's not like we live in a world with just one car company or just one company that makes software.
"so that we get the mess of conflicting window libraries, extensions, and code forks that we have now."
Well I still have a few windows 98 boxes at work because the software won't run on windows 2000 and my VPN client which works in windows 2000 will not work on windows XP.
You let me know when any company has a product that does not suffer from conflicting extensions and code forks. It's never going to happen.
I can this happening.
SCO approaches google with the following offer.
1) Google agrees to pay SCO for the license to use linux. But instead of a cash transaction google agrees to buy SCO stock at a discount or it buys SCO stock options. MS has done similar deals with Apple and Borland.
2) Google and SCO put out a joing press release saying that Google has agreed to pay SCO X million dollars for the licence to use Linux. Google also states that they looked into SCOs allegations and that they feel that SCO is the legitamate and de-facto owner of linux. Google urges other companies to get in compliance to avoid lawsuits.
3) SCO stock goes up tenfold overnight.
It's a win-win for SCO and Google. MS will most likely chip in to sweeten the pot by financing the google purchase of SCO stock. They could do this by buying a few percent of google (knowing full well that they will get the money back on the IPO).
Every body involved would make billions of dollars overnight so I definately think this is a likely scenario.
I can only think of one reason why the above scenario would not happen and that's if the owners of google are people who would put their ethics and morality above profits. But then again we live in America.
"Do you keep potentially sensitive information in your shed? For instance, payroll information, information regarding contacts, unpublished articles, or other confidential information?"
Now that I think about it I did have some paperwork stored there. Things like old bills, paystubs and maybe even a some old cancelled checks. I also had oher valuable things in there like lawnmower, shredder, weedeater gardening implements etc. Finally there was gasoline and paint there which could have been used to torch the place.
The point is that the guy stole nothing, he didn't dig through the boxes, he didn't walk off with the lawnmower, he didn't burn the place down.
You honestly think that people should go to jail for they could have stolen instead of what they actually did steal?
Let's take your analogy. Let's say that my shed was locked and there was all kinds of sensitive information there. If the guy picked open the lock and slept in there should he go to jail for five years?
"He deserves to be punished."
How much? At worst what he did should be a misdemeanor. Did he actually do any damage to anybody? It seems to me his only crime was to embarass a corporation.
Don't forget tommy chong. He is in jail for selling bongs on the internet.
I guess that's what passes for a free country these days.
Did the guy who spray painted your car get five years in jail?
Five years for tresspassing? That just not right. I once had a homeless person enter my yard and sleep in the shed (it wasn't locked). I called the police and they removed him but they didn't charge him with anything and he didn't spend 5 years in jail. I don't see why what this guy did is so much more evil then any homeless person who "breaks into" a unlocked building and sleep.
When you build your country you better make sure that the criterea for voting does not include inteligence, you'd never pass the test.
Lucky for humanity your sphere of influence will never extend past your trailer.
Personal responsiblity is for suckers and fools. Smart people form corporations and shirk all personal responsiblity.
"I don't believe voting should be a right but rather a privilege to be earned."
Yes because democracy and freedom such ugly things.
Why don't you move to Saudi Arabia or something?
Wha? fact? figures? Science? you must be some sort of a commie liberal fag or something.
Rush sez there is no such thing as global warming and I don't need any nerd with book learnin tellin me otherwise.
Of course there is no denying that extinctions happen. In fact several times during the course of history there have been mass extinctions in which over 70% of all species on the planet died. When the dinosaurs disappeared so did most other creatures. For thousands of years the earth was mostly covered in ferns.
The earth will survive of that there is no doubt. What about us though?
either way Bush will be known as the biggest tax and spend president in a generation.
He spends money like a drunken sailor in a whore house.
"The Palestinians could become Israeli citizens, vote, and even be elected to the Knesset. "
Not if they live in the west bank or gaza. Israel does not recognize those human beings as being citizens of any country.
"I am hoping that the Palestinians get smart and elect a real leader who is actually interested in living in peace and democracy rather than an autocratic terrorist. This will make it easier for the Israelis to do the same. Then there will be a Palestinian state and the immigration issues can ensue."
It will never happen. God is telling the Israelis that the land belongs to them. God is also telling the palestenians the exact same thing. Both people go on listening to their God and trying to get rid of the people on "their" land.
Maybe one day God will ease up on the poor fellows but I doubt it.
Apparently you are way confused.
,shame.
The illegals in houston traveled from their country to ours. They crossed our borders illegally.
The israeli army rolled into the west bank and captured that terratory in war. The palestenians had been living there previously.
The situation is more like china invading tibet. China invaded tibet, killed a bunch of tibetians, destroyed their culture and heritage and moved a bunch of chinese into tibet to dilute the population.
Unlike Israel though it eventually made all the tibetians chinese citizens. Israel after 30+ years of occupying the palestenians can't get itself act like a civilized nation and make these people citizens. Hell it can't even bring itself to act like china.
Instead it has chosen to act like South Africa and set up an apartheid. Shame, shame