You'd have a point if Microsoft produced a free version of Visual Basic or Visual C++ which allowed you to distribute code under any license.
AFAIK, the only free MS IDE is Visual Basic v5 Learning Edition, which doesn't even allow you to save executables for your own use!
As many others have written, you're not forced to use the GPL if you don't want to. All you have to do is give Borland some money - it's not like they're asking for several times the average monthly income, is it?
The current focus of fission reactor research in Europe is a new reactor type which can use the waste of conventional reactors. In principle, one of these reactors could process the waste from 10 to 15 conventional reactors, resulting in waste that is toxic for only 100 to 200 years, instead of thousands of years. However, this research is still some years from producing even a prototype reactor (due largely to the technicalities of using a particle accelerator to keep the reactor 'reacting').
As for protecting the radioactive material in a nuclear booster from a chemical booster explosion - I doubt NASA would have even mentioned them in public if it wasn't extremely confident they could be protect them. Even back in the '60s they were building nuclear power generator casings which were more than capable of withstanding the on-pad explosion of a fully fuelled Saturn V (a blast equivalent to a small nuclear weapon!) without releasing any radioactive material. In fact NASA was also developing nuclear boosters back then, even BUILDING and TESTING (on the ground) a prototype nuclear reactor engine. I'm sure they must have started work on protecting the reactor from a booster (probably Saturn V) blast. Given 30 years extra knowledge and technology I'm sure NASA have the safety aspects under control.
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You'd have a point if Microsoft produced a free version of Visual Basic or Visual C++ which allowed you to distribute code under any license.
AFAIK, the only free MS IDE is Visual Basic v5 Learning Edition, which doesn't even allow you to save executables for your own use!
As many others have written, you're not forced to use the GPL if you don't want to. All you have to do is give Borland some money - it's not like they're asking for several times the average monthly income, is it?
The current focus of fission reactor research in Europe is a new reactor type which can use the waste of conventional reactors. In principle, one of these reactors could process the waste from 10 to 15 conventional reactors, resulting in waste that is toxic for only 100 to 200 years, instead of thousands of years. However, this research is still some years from producing even a prototype reactor (due largely to the technicalities of using a particle accelerator to keep the reactor 'reacting').
As for protecting the radioactive material in a nuclear booster from a chemical booster explosion - I doubt NASA would have even mentioned them in public if it wasn't extremely confident they could be protect them. Even back in the '60s they were building nuclear power generator casings which were more than capable of withstanding the on-pad explosion of a fully fuelled Saturn V (a blast equivalent to a small nuclear weapon!) without releasing any radioactive material. In fact NASA was also developing nuclear boosters back then, even BUILDING and TESTING (on the ground) a prototype nuclear reactor engine. I'm sure they must have started work on protecting the reactor from a booster (probably Saturn V) blast. Given 30 years extra knowledge and technology I'm sure NASA have the safety aspects under control.