UK law specifically states that computer programmes are not patentable. This does not mean that the UK patent office will not hand out bogus patents anyway: it just means that they aren't worth the paper they are printed on. If you as a software patent holder try to sue someone for violating one of your software patents, the courts will rule the patent invalid and you probably won't even get your patent application fee refunded.
Anyway, if this ever did become law, then it would lead to an interesting situation.
Changes in the law do not apply retrospectively. You cannot be punished for doing something which was allowed when you did it but has been banned since then. You can be punished for something which was illegal when you did it but has since been legalised.
By this logic, software patents granted before they became enforcible in law would remain unenforcible in law. Every software patent holder would have to re-apply for their patents. In the meantime, anyone else could apply for patents on the same "inventions" {and possibly could dedicate them to the public domain} -- and anything which might have been {falsely, since the patent was invalid in the first place} considered evidence of a patent violation would now constitute prior art, and count against the very patent it was supposed to have violated!
Well, you have to work out the specific details, obviously. But I'm thinking of patenting the abovementioned business method {"scam for extorting money by pre-emptively trademarking words already used as trademarks in an alternate field of endeavour in order to claim substantial amounts by way of royalties from manufacturers seeking to diversify their product and/or service portfolio"}, so all I will have to do is wait for someone to try it on.....
Unconstitutional? Since when did that ever stop the USA passing a law?
The same paragraph also says you can't introduce a new law and then punish people for something they did before it actually became law. By my reckoning, that means any extension to a pre-existing copyright is null and void; the date of passage into the Public Domain was set in stone the day the copyright was granted {explicitly before the 1976 Act or by default thereafter} and so Steamboat Willie is in the Public Domain! Also, any prescription for medicinal cannabis which was issued while it was legal must still be valid as long as the patient is still suffering from the disease {and the Americans with Disabilities Act may also apply}.
Pretty much so, but the trademark goes with a particular product or service. For instance, you can call anything you make a BMW, unless it's a car. This actually opens up a new and interesting form of legal barratry..... you could, say, apply for a trademark on "BMW" applied to clothing. Should the eponymous purveyors of arse-end-drive cars ever decide to launch a line of clothing -- perhaps to appeal to the same idiots who drive their tacky, plasticky interiored vehicles -- they technically would be infringing on your trademark!
The solution is to get equally aggressive, demanding that any patents they obtain be struck down; either as "obvious to an expert in the field" {because hey, you thought of the same idea when you read the description}, "not novel" {because there is some prior art} or "not capable of industrial application" {because they're just some petty minded thing that doesn't deserve to be patented}.
If you have money, flout disputed patents right, left and centre. Your legal defence, should you require one, is that you believe the "patent" is without merit. Settle any bullying demands for royalties with a rubber cheque. Claim expenses for everything you possibly can. Maybe try to patent the exact same thing in your own name and, if you succeed, formally dedicate the "duplicate" patent to the Public Domain.
I really think that copyright and patent law needs to be updated. Unless you licence your invention BSD-style -- allowing anyone to use it, requiring only attribution -- or dedicate it formally to the Public Domain, then you should have to pay a tax on it. After all, if you own land, you have to pay rates -- and in certain circumstances, e.g. if it is needed for construction of a new road, the government can take it off you by force. Rates pay for local services. Copyright and patent taxes could be used to pay for enforcement {which would be considerably less expensive under an open licence}. If they want to call it "intellectual property" and treat it like property, then they should not object to it being subject to Compulsory Purchase Order, nor to paying property taxes on it!
I predict some opposition from GPL supporters, but it must be remembered that the GPL is a stopgap measure that would not be needed if it were not for abuse of copyright. However, I do not think that the addition of a clause explicitly requiring distribution of source code would be particularly onerous. Rather, it would be a simple reaffirmation of the Common Law Property Right wherein we are privy to any secret embodied in any article we rightfully own.
Countries with 50 cycle mains have actually had square pixels since anyone thought to use a TV screen as a computer monitor. The TV screen has to refresh in sync with the power, since the electron gun beam is getting weaker and stronger due to the CRT heater getting warmer and cooler as the voltage rises and falls; but as long as the peaks and troughs are in the same part of the screen each time, you won't notice. The studio lights are also similarly affected. So in the UK, Europe and Australia, TV has 25 pictures of 625 lines a second. The greater number of lines allows for more-nearly-square pixels.
This, incidentally, is why PAL Amigas have 256 or 512 line displays as opposed to 200 or 400. At least they do on most boots..... there was some obscure glitch which could force them go to 200 lines, and I confidently predict that someone will respond with an explanation.
A standard 68000 {in fact anything before an 030; and even then not the LC models, which actually had the MMU integrated but disabled by blowing a fuse} lacks a hardware Memory Management Unit. You probably could run Clinux on it, which manages to manage its memory in software without a dedicated hardware MMU.
I'll freely admit that I hate advertising of any description, and will do anything I can be bothered to do that chucks a spanner in some arsehole's works. I have very aggressive advert blocking in place, and I consider anyone attempting to show me an advert is attempting deliberately to bypass my anti-advertising measures -- which is casus belli.
I leave the room and/or mute the sound when adverts appear on TV. During playback of a home-recorded DVD, I fast-forward through the advert breaks; and I even insert a chapter marker at the end of each one, so neither I nor anyone who borrows my DVDs will ever have to see them again.
Sometimes when on the Internet, I will click on adverts for things I have no intention of buying {which is all adverts -- show me an advert and you lose any business I might have given you} just to cost somebody some money.
I do not have any qualms about this. Advertisers know the risks, yet they spend the money anyway. It's their choice to spend the money, and it's my pleasure to help make sure it is well and truly wasted. It is not really much different than inviting Jehovah's Witnesses in for a long chat and then announcing you have no intention to convert to their religion -- all the while you were doing that, you were making sure nobody else would be brainwashed by their evil, perverted cult.
However, most of the time I have more important things to do than play silly buggers, even though I would hold several gold medals if it ever became an Olympic sport. Just as I find that shouting "F**k off" through a closed door has the desired effect on Jehovah's Witnesses and doesn't waste a morning, so I tend to rely on my advert-blocking proxy. And Google advertisements so far have been unobtrusive enough to ignore.
..... it's having to wade through endless comments about dupes. IMHO such complaints are offtopic.
I always metamod any moderating-down of a "dupe" whinge as fair. Next time I get mod points, if I see a duplicate story, I will open it and I will blow the lot modding whinges about duplicates offtopic.
If you're really that bothered, download the Slash source code; start your own news and discussion forum; and police it however you like, even down to machine-gunning anyone who even thinks about posting a duplicate story. But as long as you're a guest in someone else's house, you either abide by their rules or get out.
Otherwise, for pete's sake, just ignore the fact that it's a dupe.
Maybe not ban Closed Source, but make it uneconomical. Insist for software to be guaranteed, and order source code to be held in escrow in case it is required for dispute resolution purposes. OSS gets around the escrow requirement since the user already has a copy of the source code, which is also a guarantee: it guarantees that the software will do exactly what the source code says it will do, if it is compiled and run on a suitable computer which is working properly throughout.
And how about mandating that (1) copyright lasts for ten years with no extensions, at all, ever; (2) derivative works of a work in the Public Domain can never be subject to copyright; and (3) every copyrighted work is automatically subject to a BSD-style licence unless an additional tax is paid.
most IE users are simply readers, moving from page to page, occasionally stopping along the way to shop on line, fill out a form, play a media file, or a game.
Or pick up some software..... whether they want it or not.....
What I am saying is that, since one version of Qt was under the GPL, anyone could quite legitimately have created a Windows port. They didn't. To my mind, that looks a lot as if they just couldn't be bothered.
The Free Software and Open Source communities spend a lot of time studying how things work, often out of necessity since the big players don't want to tell us. Hell, between us we've written more than enough software for a complete computing experience using only Free and Open Source software -- and told the Windows people how to go about it, while we were at it. Of course the APIs will be different between X and Windows. X is more abstracted because it doen't make assumptions about the underlying OS; Windows pretty much is the underlying OS.
Nonetheless, all it would have taken would have been a bit of hard work; but that hard work was not forthcoming. Conclusion, Windows programmers can't be bothered.
I am pissed off to the back teeth about haring about how "Finally QT for Windows is GPL'ed." Please.
GPL is GPL. You can't GPL a unix version and not a Windows version. The GPL does not allow you to restrict what platform other people can run your source code on.
If I had the patience and the ability, I could legally persuade KDE to compile on a modified ZX Spectrum, and nobody would be able to stop me. {80s computer magazines with type-in BASIC listings actually encouraged porting}. If I had to modify the code so far beyond recognition that it would be considered a new work in its own right {with the tiny portion of original KDE code remaining covered by statutory Fair Dealing exemption}, then I would be able to licence it how I liked; even BSD or MS EULA.
I don't blame TrollTech for not bringing QT to Windows sooner. I blame the Windows programmers, who are obviously too busy writing viruses, worms, adware, spyware and spamming tools to port a GPL application library. Of course, it probably doesn't help much that QT was written in C++ rather than BASIC.
They don't always claim that they lost your info, they may just want you to confirm something or other. They then take you to a fake replica of your banks login screen. You aren't giving your PIN to anyone over email you are just logging into your account at the trusty, old bank website (or so it would appear). Just having your username/password may be sufficient for the phisher to do damage without any additional info.
I know; I started filling them in with bogus details just for the hell of it. I have never used a real online banking site {it'd be more private if I shouted out my account details in the middle of New Street freaking Station} so I can't vouch for the accuracy, but I would still expect to see my remembered details pre-filled in.
The real killer, however, is the fact that you received an e-mail purportedly from a bank where you don't even have an account. If that doesn't set alarm bells ringing, what will?
Well, duh. I don't think money being phished from non-existant accounts is a big problem though.
No, what I mean is that once I have received an e-mail from Barclays {with whom I don't have an account} telling me that "due to security update" I need to fill in a form to "avoid frequently fraud transactions" [sic], and another one from "Citi" {who the hell are they?} with the same wording, then I'm more likely to be wary when I receive yet another one with the same wording purportedly from the Halifax {which is where I do have my bank account}.
Anyway, thanks to Virtual Hosting, no two people have the same e-mail address for me. So if someone really was trying to pretend to be my bank, they'd have to know what prefix my bank used for my address.
I've heard of the Milgram experiment. Nobody would ever allow that sort of thing to be repeated nowadays, unfortunately {except maybe for a reality TV show}.
Still, I maintain my position: Not only is obedience not a virtue in and of itself, but there are times when is is wrong to obey an order.
Not disobeying an order to shoot somebody who refused to obey an order to do something wrong is also wrong. So I would say let them threaten to kill me, if I saved that many lives..... someone else will undoubtedly be given the order I refused, but perhaps my own actions might just have rekindled something that had been smouldering in my replacement..... and my would-be executioners.....
When you open a bank account, they tell you quite clearly that the bank will never ask you for your PIN on the internet or telephone. The only way you will ever be asked for your PIN is at a HITW machine or supermarket checkout keypad. No human being beside you ever need know it. This is explained in the literature you are given, read out aloud to you by bank staff, and there is no excuse for not knowing it.
Why would the bank e-mail you at all? E-mail is a notoriously unreliable method of communication. You don't know that it got to the right person, or anybody at all. Why the terrible phraseology? You'd think the bank would employ someone fluent in the languages in which they communicate. And when you get to the form, why aren't your details pre-filled-in, ready for you to edit? If they have genuinely lost your details, then how come they remembered your e-mail address?
If you're smart enough to view the message source, you'll see that the main body of the message is actually a single GIF image with a totally irrelevant name. Why would the Halifax put their message in a graphical attachment? And why would it be called "bear3.gif"?
The real killer, however, is the fact that you received an e-mail purportedly from a bank where you don't even have an account. If that doesn't set alarm bells ringing, what will?
Bullshit. There is no such thing as "just following orders". You always have the option to disobey. If someone orders you to do something which you know is wrong, and you do it anyway, you are every bit as bad as them.
I don't think it would be legal to sell a patch or device that would let OS X run on non-apple hardware without Apple's OK.
Of course it would be legal. You own your hardware. That pretty much gives you the right to use and abuse it as you think fit. You might well have a right to make a copy of OS X by "fair dealing" exemption. Fair Dealing is an inalienable statutory right and it can't legally be waived: even if you sign a piece of paper promising not to, the law of the land still says you can.
Anyway. What if Apple find a way to make OS X fully open-source, but charge for technical support with a two-tier scheme: either you can buy a support package with the software, three years' unlimited tech support calls, a couple of courtesy support call vouchers for your friends {to help Apple get 'em hooked, and get you used to the idea of making a copy of your favourite Open Source software for your friends} and even on-site service for approved hardware; or you can get pay-as-you-go support through an 0907 number at £2 a minute {after using the free support call voucher your friend gave you}. So someone gets an independently-distributed copy of OS X, spends a few pounds on support calls, decides they basically like it {and the service is great, though rather pricey on PAYG} and buys the unlimited support package.
That's when Linux would be in trouble. OTOH, if Apple can't get their shit together to deliver such a system before someone else does, it'll be Apple who are in trouble.
The differences are mainly political, not practical. Only a true hacker is really likely to be bothered.
The whole thing illustrates perfectly a perverse facet of human nature: we attack our enemies' enemies {who should be our allies} rather than our mutual enemies {who then trample over us while we are busy in-fighting}. Cf. the "Judean People's Front" scene in The Life of Brian.....
Like it or not, you probably do use BSD. About half the stuff in the common "GNU/Linux" userland actually originates from BSD, if you read the manpages. Perhaps we should call it "BSD/GNU/Linux"?! And guess where all the networking stuff in Windows XP -- you know, the stuff that actually works -- came from? Microsoft are even reckoned by some conspiracy theorists to have used BSD servers for their web sites, programmed to announce themselves as running some flavour of Windows NT.
I agree that/usr/local is a PITA, but you needn't suffer. Just mv everything out of/usr/local/etc/ into/etc/ and everything else out of/usr/local/ into/usr/, then rmdir/usr/local && ln -s/usr/usr/local && ln -s/etc/usr/local/etc.
There probably is a historical reason for doing it that way. Not saying times haven't moved on though.
And Solaris is actually based on AT&T system V, which was the other tine of The Big Fork. SunOS used to be based on BSD; but when they changed the name, they switched kernels.
Slashdot Mirror
You do know that SKY is the UK end of the FOX network, right?
UK law specifically states that computer programmes are not patentable. This does not mean that the UK patent office will not hand out bogus patents anyway: it just means that they aren't worth the paper they are printed on. If you as a software patent holder try to sue someone for violating one of your software patents, the courts will rule the patent invalid and you probably won't even get your patent application fee refunded.
Anyway, if this ever did become law, then it would lead to an interesting situation.
Changes in the law do not apply retrospectively. You cannot be punished for doing something which was allowed when you did it but has been banned since then. You can be punished for something which was illegal when you did it but has since been legalised.
By this logic, software patents granted before they became enforcible in law would remain unenforcible in law. Every software patent holder would have to re-apply for their patents. In the meantime, anyone else could apply for patents on the same "inventions" {and possibly could dedicate them to the public domain} -- and anything which might have been {falsely, since the patent was invalid in the first place} considered evidence of a patent violation would now constitute prior art, and count against the very patent it was supposed to have violated!
Well, you have to work out the specific details, obviously. But I'm thinking of patenting the abovementioned business method {"scam for extorting money by pre-emptively trademarking words already used as trademarks in an alternate field of endeavour in order to claim substantial amounts by way of royalties from manufacturers seeking to diversify their product and/or service portfolio"}, so all I will have to do is wait for someone to try it on .....
Unconstitutional? Since when did that ever stop the USA passing a law?
The same paragraph also says you can't introduce a new law and then punish people for something they did before it actually became law. By my reckoning, that means any extension to a pre-existing copyright is null and void; the date of passage into the Public Domain was set in stone the day the copyright was granted {explicitly before the 1976 Act or by default thereafter} and so Steamboat Willie is in the Public Domain! Also, any prescription for medicinal cannabis which was issued while it was legal must still be valid as long as the patient is still suffering from the disease {and the Americans with Disabilities Act may also apply}.
Pretty much so, but the trademark goes with a particular product or service. For instance, you can call anything you make a BMW, unless it's a car. This actually opens up a new and interesting form of legal barratry ..... you could, say, apply for a trademark on "BMW" applied to clothing. Should the eponymous purveyors of arse-end-drive cars ever decide to launch a line of clothing -- perhaps to appeal to the same idiots who drive their tacky, plasticky interiored vehicles -- they technically would be infringing on your trademark!
The solution is to get equally aggressive, demanding that any patents they obtain be struck down; either as "obvious to an expert in the field" {because hey, you thought of the same idea when you read the description}, "not novel" {because there is some prior art} or "not capable of industrial application" {because they're just some petty minded thing that doesn't deserve to be patented}.
If you have money, flout disputed patents right, left and centre. Your legal defence, should you require one, is that you believe the "patent" is without merit. Settle any bullying demands for royalties with a rubber cheque. Claim expenses for everything you possibly can. Maybe try to patent the exact same thing in your own name and, if you succeed, formally dedicate the "duplicate" patent to the Public Domain.
I really think that copyright and patent law needs to be updated. Unless you licence your invention BSD-style -- allowing anyone to use it, requiring only attribution -- or dedicate it formally to the Public Domain, then you should have to pay a tax on it. After all, if you own land, you have to pay rates -- and in certain circumstances, e.g. if it is needed for construction of a new road, the government can take it off you by force. Rates pay for local services. Copyright and patent taxes could be used to pay for enforcement {which would be considerably less expensive under an open licence}. If they want to call it "intellectual property" and treat it like property, then they should not object to it being subject to Compulsory Purchase Order, nor to paying property taxes on it!
I predict some opposition from GPL supporters, but it must be remembered that the GPL is a stopgap measure that would not be needed if it were not for abuse of copyright. However, I do not think that the addition of a clause explicitly requiring distribution of source code would be particularly onerous. Rather, it would be a simple reaffirmation of the Common Law Property Right wherein we are privy to any secret embodied in any article we rightfully own.
Countries with 50 cycle mains have actually had square pixels since anyone thought to use a TV screen as a computer monitor. The TV screen has to refresh in sync with the power, since the electron gun beam is getting weaker and stronger due to the CRT heater getting warmer and cooler as the voltage rises and falls; but as long as the peaks and troughs are in the same part of the screen each time, you won't notice. The studio lights are also similarly affected. So in the UK, Europe and Australia, TV has 25 pictures of 625 lines a second. The greater number of lines allows for more-nearly-square pixels.
..... there was some obscure glitch which could force them go to 200 lines, and I confidently predict that someone will respond with an explanation.
This, incidentally, is why PAL Amigas have 256 or 512 line displays as opposed to 200 or 400. At least they do on most boots
A standard 68000 {in fact anything before an 030; and even then not the LC models, which actually had the MMU integrated but disabled by blowing a fuse} lacks a hardware Memory Management Unit. You probably could run Clinux on it, which manages to manage its memory in software without a dedicated hardware MMU.
I'll freely admit that I hate advertising of any description, and will do anything I can be bothered to do that chucks a spanner in some arsehole's works. I have very aggressive advert blocking in place, and I consider anyone attempting to show me an advert is attempting deliberately to bypass my anti-advertising measures -- which is casus belli.
I leave the room and/or mute the sound when adverts appear on TV. During playback of a home-recorded DVD, I fast-forward through the advert breaks; and I even insert a chapter marker at the end of each one, so neither I nor anyone who borrows my DVDs will ever have to see them again.
Sometimes when on the Internet, I will click on adverts for things I have no intention of buying {which is all adverts -- show me an advert and you lose any business I might have given you} just to cost somebody some money.
I do not have any qualms about this. Advertisers know the risks, yet they spend the money anyway. It's their choice to spend the money, and it's my pleasure to help make sure it is well and truly wasted. It is not really much different than inviting Jehovah's Witnesses in for a long chat and then announcing you have no intention to convert to their religion -- all the while you were doing that, you were making sure nobody else would be brainwashed by their evil, perverted cult.
However, most of the time I have more important things to do than play silly buggers, even though I would hold several gold medals if it ever became an Olympic sport. Just as I find that shouting "F**k off" through a closed door has the desired effect on Jehovah's Witnesses and doesn't waste a morning, so I tend to rely on my advert-blocking proxy. And Google advertisements so far have been unobtrusive enough to ignore.
Don't you ever do long division, then?
..... it's having to wade through endless comments about dupes. IMHO such complaints are offtopic.
I always metamod any moderating-down of a "dupe" whinge as fair. Next time I get mod points, if I see a duplicate story, I will open it and I will blow the lot modding whinges about duplicates offtopic.
If you're really that bothered, download the Slash source code; start your own news and discussion forum; and police it however you like, even down to machine-gunning anyone who even thinks about posting a duplicate story. But as long as you're a guest in someone else's house, you either abide by their rules or get out.
Otherwise, for pete's sake, just ignore the fact that it's a dupe.
Maybe not ban Closed Source, but make it uneconomical. Insist for software to be guaranteed, and order source code to be held in escrow in case it is required for dispute resolution purposes. OSS gets around the escrow requirement since the user already has a copy of the source code, which is also a guarantee: it guarantees that the software will do exactly what the source code says it will do, if it is compiled and run on a suitable computer which is working properly throughout.
And how about mandating that (1) copyright lasts for ten years with no extensions, at all, ever; (2) derivative works of a work in the Public Domain can never be subject to copyright; and (3) every copyrighted work is automatically subject to a BSD-style licence unless an additional tax is paid.
Exactly. IE is the problem.
Anyone thought of having a malicious ActiveX control that downloads and installs Firefox?
I develop sites to work in Firefox. Frankly, I don't give a flying toss if they run in IE or not. Anyone can run Firefox. Not everyone can run IE.
I believe it is morally very dodgy indeed to insist for someone to run a piece of closed-source software.
<? .....
if (preg_match("/msie/i", ($browser = $_ENV["HTTP_USER_AGENT"]))
&& !preg_match("/opera/i", $browser)) {
# MSIE-specific code
}
elseif (preg_match("/opera/i", $browser)) {
# Opera-specific code
}
elseif (preg_match("/lynx/i", $browser)) {
# Lynx-specific code
}
elseif (preg_match("/links/i", $browser)) {
# Links-specific code
}
elseif (preg_match("/konqueror/i", $browser)) {
# Konqueror-specific code
}
elseif (preg_match("/googlebot/i", $browser)) {
# whatever you want to see listed for your site on Google
}
else {
# standards-compliant code
};
?>
What I am saying is that, since one version of Qt was under the GPL, anyone could quite legitimately have created a Windows port. They didn't. To my mind, that looks a lot as if they just couldn't be bothered.
The Free Software and Open Source communities spend a lot of time studying how things work, often out of necessity since the big players don't want to tell us. Hell, between us we've written more than enough software for a complete computing experience using only Free and Open Source software -- and told the Windows people how to go about it, while we were at it. Of course the APIs will be different between X and Windows. X is more abstracted because it doen't make assumptions about the underlying OS; Windows pretty much is the underlying OS.
Nonetheless, all it would have taken would have been a bit of hard work; but that hard work was not forthcoming. Conclusion, Windows programmers can't be bothered.
I am pissed off to the back teeth about haring about how "Finally QT for Windows is GPL'ed." Please.
GPL is GPL. You can't GPL a unix version and not a Windows version. The GPL does not allow you to restrict what platform other people can run your source code on.
If I had the patience and the ability, I could legally persuade KDE to compile on a modified ZX Spectrum, and nobody would be able to stop me. {80s computer magazines with type-in BASIC listings actually encouraged porting}. If I had to modify the code so far beyond recognition that it would be considered a new work in its own right {with the tiny portion of original KDE code remaining covered by statutory Fair Dealing exemption}, then I would be able to licence it how I liked; even BSD or MS EULA.
I don't blame TrollTech for not bringing QT to Windows sooner. I blame the Windows programmers, who are obviously too busy writing viruses, worms, adware, spyware and spamming tools to port a GPL application library. Of course, it probably doesn't help much that QT was written in C++ rather than BASIC.
Anyway, thanks to Virtual Hosting, no two people have the same e-mail address for me. So if someone really was trying to pretend to be my bank, they'd have to know what prefix my bank used for my address.
I've heard of the Milgram experiment. Nobody would ever allow that sort of thing to be repeated nowadays, unfortunately {except maybe for a reality TV show}.
..... someone else will undoubtedly be given the order I refused, but perhaps my own actions might just have rekindled something that had been smouldering in my replacement ..... and my would-be executioners .....
Still, I maintain my position: Not only is obedience not a virtue in and of itself, but there are times when is is wrong to obey an order.
Not disobeying an order to shoot somebody who refused to obey an order to do something wrong is also wrong. So I would say let them threaten to kill me, if I saved that many lives
When you open a bank account, they tell you quite clearly that the bank will never ask you for your PIN on the internet or telephone. The only way you will ever be asked for your PIN is at a HITW machine or supermarket checkout keypad. No human being beside you ever need know it. This is explained in the literature you are given, read out aloud to you by bank staff, and there is no excuse for not knowing it.
Why would the bank e-mail you at all? E-mail is a notoriously unreliable method of communication. You don't know that it got to the right person, or anybody at all. Why the terrible phraseology? You'd think the bank would employ someone fluent in the languages in which they communicate. And when you get to the form, why aren't your details pre-filled-in, ready for you to edit? If they have genuinely lost your details, then how come they remembered your e-mail address?
If you're smart enough to view the message source, you'll see that the main body of the message is actually a single GIF image with a totally irrelevant name. Why would the Halifax put their message in a graphical attachment? And why would it be called "bear3.gif"?
The real killer, however, is the fact that you received an e-mail purportedly from a bank where you don't even have an account. If that doesn't set alarm bells ringing, what will?
Bullshit. There is no such thing as "just following orders". You always have the option to disobey. If someone orders you to do something which you know is wrong, and you do it anyway, you are every bit as bad as them.
Anyway. What if Apple find a way to make OS X fully open-source, but charge for technical support with a two-tier scheme: either you can buy a support package with the software, three years' unlimited tech support calls, a couple of courtesy support call vouchers for your friends {to help Apple get 'em hooked, and get you used to the idea of making a copy of your favourite Open Source software for your friends} and even on-site service for approved hardware; or you can get pay-as-you-go support through an 0907 number at £2 a minute {after using the free support call voucher your friend gave you}. So someone gets an independently-distributed copy of OS X, spends a few pounds on support calls, decides they basically like it {and the service is great, though rather pricey on PAYG} and buys the unlimited support package.
That's when Linux would be in trouble. OTOH, if Apple can't get their shit together to deliver such a system before someone else does, it'll be Apple who are in trouble.
If I had mod points, I'd mod you up.
.....
The differences are mainly political, not practical. Only a true hacker is really likely to be bothered.
The whole thing illustrates perfectly a perverse facet of human nature: we attack our enemies' enemies {who should be our allies} rather than our mutual enemies {who then trample over us while we are busy in-fighting}. Cf. the "Judean People's Front" scene in The Life of Brian
Like it or not, you probably do use BSD. About half the stuff in the common "GNU/Linux" userland actually originates from BSD, if you read the manpages. Perhaps we should call it "BSD/GNU/Linux"?! And guess where all the networking stuff in Windows XP -- you know, the stuff that actually works -- came from? Microsoft are even reckoned by some conspiracy theorists to have used BSD servers for their web sites, programmed to announce themselves as running some flavour of Windows NT.
/usr/local is a PITA, but you needn't suffer. Just mv everything out of /usr/local/etc/ into /etc/ and everything else out of /usr/local/ into /usr/, then rmdir /usr/local && ln -s /usr /usr/local && ln -s /etc /usr/local/etc.
I agree that
There probably is a historical reason for doing it that way. Not saying times haven't moved on though.
And Solaris is actually based on AT&T system V, which was the other tine of The Big Fork. SunOS used to be based on BSD; but when they changed the name, they switched kernels.