Maybe he didn't release in "approved whistle blower channels", because frankly except for few really tragic war reports which general public isn't interested in detail anyway there's nothing actually to whistle about?
US diplomats actually protecting rights of US and it's corporations? Surprise, it's *official* policy for almost every country I know (Spain consulate danced around us when our deal with their biggest train producer went high wire). US protecting it's interests, maybe ugly and disputable, yet still nothing illegal?
Been there, done that. It's interesting read for historians, sociologists, analysts. But in nutshell, there's nothing to cry about.
Personally as not US citizen I don't deeply care about this situation. I understand that people can have it's problems and anger, and they sometimes act very foolishly. I get that. However in Manning's situation I would just leave army as soon as possible. If you can't handle yourself, seriously, be honest about it. This is more of personal tragedy than national scandal to me. I don't mean ill to Manning, and see him as victim of Julian's "5 minutes of fame" stunt. However, law is the law. I really hope they give him just 6 or 7 years and be done with this situation. That's enough for him to maybe get his act together and live normal life again.
Read actual UCMJ article http://usmilitary.about.com/od/punitivearticles/a/mcm104.htm, it's actually very clear that releasing any classified information released knowingly it will "leak" to the enemy is enough for "aiding enemy" definition (in eyes of UCMJ, remember Manning isn't civilian in this case). Prosecution will have to prove that Manning truly knew what WikiLeaks will do with them though.
I can agree with judge, this charge can't be dismissed. Will see what will be decision on this case.
It was counterargument for reasoning that leaks were done because of war crimes. They weren't. Guy was angry at everybody and did it because of pure spite. He broke the law because he couldn't just take notice and leave. I usually do then when I'm angry at the work place which I hate.
1) I don't think you need someone declared "enemy" to be with him formally at war. US were never at war with USSR; Would be nice to hear some specialist's opinion on this though;
2) Judge disagreed on that and it seems that law can be read more broadly than you imagine. Is releasing such information by mistake would be aiding an enemy? I don't know. As I read from articles about case judge reads law like "if you release this information in a manner you know it could help an enemy, you can be charged by this point". This contradicts to the letter of the law, however, because it separates willful helping the enemy, and just releasing information to person who are not authorized. Prosecution will have to find a way to prove that Manning knew what WikiLeaks will do with that information.
I really don't think you can get out of this attacking the law. While it's kinda broad, it's logical, however, it will struggle with this real life case, because of actual change in defining what "enemy" is and it's admittedly part of much bigger discussion how we treat military secrets.
"without proper authority, knowingly harbors or protects or gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly; shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct."
UCMJ Article 104â"Aiding the enemy
Oddly, definition of "enemy" is missing from UCMJ header. What's most important to remember that members of Army have much bigger responsibility of guarding secret information they have than, for example, journalist.
USSR collapsed because of incredibly wasteful war in Afghanistan. Talking about obsessions, those big saviors of Western brought down normally functional government with it and brought Afghanistan 30 years of war and fundie paradise.
Commies have been stupid and incredibly blood thirsty in their actions of the past, but you have to take historical situation into account, beginning with Russian Civil War. Western societies has hard time to grasp what actually happened behind Iron Curtain and how society functioned there. While lot of bad things said about USSR was true, there were huge amount of propaganda, and for one to judge and evaluate things historically, especially last 30 years of regime, patience, cool head, facts and distancing from emotional plane is needed.
There I don't agree that Reagan or Thatcher actually helped to bring down USSR. They played their role, of course, and their actions changed a lot. But was it good or worst? Both US and UK were very weary about braking down all system, due of possible collapse of society, etc. (another myth of the West).
"The studio had the greatest franchise in the history of science fiction and failed. If the employees don't hold themselves responsible, I can see why it's been closed. Considering the epic failure of Kinect Starwars and the near complete disappointment of TOR.. it's pretty clear that LucasArts Studios has been on pump and dump for some years now. Thinking back, it's hard to recall a Star Wars game since X-Wing which has even come close to meeting expectations of the fans."
You know that Kinect Star Wars is Terminal Reality and TOR is purerly Bioware/EA effort? LucasArts have few games released recently themselves - for rest of them they have acted as licensing body (which is not small deal, managing all story details in TOR must be quite a feat). Also TOR as near complete disappointment - please, without hyperboles. TOR isn't perfect, and their sub strategy were clearly at fault, but f2p has poured life back into game and Bioware have cleared up some of issues plagued TOR. As for open ended - SW is story driven, like it or not, and that's kinda contradicts heavily with open ended idea. Also please don't speak in name of all fans, because you don't know what everyone wants.
Sorry to burst your Rep bubble, but private has been pouring insane amounts of money and they still can't get their launch right more than the NASA. Also while there's no real resources starvation on Earth initiative to go and explore for private money won't be enough - they will better rage costly war than trying to mine Moon. They never really plan in long term.
Only hope is that new initiative of mining asteroids. But it is also at least 20 years away, and probably will grab some gov grants along the way anyway.
Well, for last ten years NASA have been regularly on chopping block thanks to Republicans - but it is also institution about which general voting public don't care, and that's why it's first causality in austerity chill which like it or not will come anyway.
It's difficult question - we could do manned missions again, but what's practical reason behind this? Research? Basics can be covered by robotics - probes, rovers, satellites. What would be more important though that NASA and others would work with research how to make actual flight to Mars (or return to Moon) as painless as possible. If that results in actual mission after let's say 10 years - I don't really mind, because sometimes it's better than once and right. NASA is still light years ahead of anyone else in the world anyway.
It is easy to be KS skeptic - because all these ideas are risky, people doing it for first time, underestimating risks, schedule, etc. etc. People *love* to say "I told you so", because, well, then we can say we can see the future a little bit (thus ensuring our survival a little longer).
While not all stuff on KS (and other crowdfunding sites) makes sense to me, I personally think these are great tools to get and/or test out lot of good ideas. In age when investors look for fast buck, when "that another social networking tool which will make us insanely rich" lottery attitude dominates, it is actually only way to do something unusual, something really risky.
Some ideas will definitely fail. However, we are yet to see big fiasco in crowd funding business. Usually people who are asking for pledges know that it is one shot they got and they don't wanna waste it (or they are really scam or jokers and you can easily tell them apart and usually their project is taken offline even before KS finish line). And sometimes they even have everything ready and just need money for scaling things up (mass production for example).
Will it change way how business is handled today? Hardly, at least not in nearest future. Will it help some really creative people to get their ideas out and see how they could work? Definitely. Some of these ideas will bear small yield, some of them - might change industries. In overall, it lets you try to make it work without middleman's mercy. Because middlemen - although not as evil as lot of us would think - are not infallible. They are humans like us and quite often make mistakes, especially when deciding not to doing something.
But a hacker's scam worked, didn't it? But this is problem in general with people and IT systems - common crowd don't even understand how it works broadly, so don't expect them to distinguish simple DDOS or network failure from bank/system going bankrupt, for example. Education and explaining - those can only limit damage in such cases in long term. In short term - be honest and leave yourself emergency information channels open.
In result, news has turned into circus style entertainment. Tabloids, "people news"?
Also people are slowly start to accept selective reality offered by different media channels. Fox News gives reasoning behind Tea Party/Republican struggle, MSNBC gives more of left angle (although everyone saying they both equal in BS levels need reality check - Fox News quite frequently invents facts form their opinions, I have rarely seen it in left leaning media and they also admit mistakes). In nutshell, it is easier to live in the world where you know you're right (and there's hugely popular tv channel for you to say so).
I see it as notion that people are tired to make sense out of this world. As facts and objective reality clashes more and more with their POV, they retreat to their radical positions.
I think we are "admit you are wrong, and that's the end my friend" society/civilization.
p.s. I get facts from BBC/Reuters/other news agencies, and opinions from Daily Show/Colbert Report (despite being Dem leaning both are heavily critical about them too).
While sometimes there are guys who really don't dig when you can tell a little dirty yet tasty joke and when you have to tone down it a bit (and communities have list of examples when someone clearly has crossed the line), this is rare example of other side abusing common sense.
Sometimes we don't see point of joking that way, but then we have that luxury just shrug it off and move on. I see reason to report something that is openly offensive, but it's very clear that it's not in this case.
So while I won't judge any side in this conflict, in my opinion it was overreaction - and not only from woman's side. Requesting a simple apology would be enough - if you really offended.
Carriers aren't forced to offer Apple. In fact, in Europe you aren't really obliged to do anything about Apple - you can succeed (as mobile provider) other ways. Of course, it is much harded than hoping all kool-aid drinking Apple fanboi masses come to you and you only (if serously, Apple is playing with fire here - my pick huge number of their sales in Europe comes from carriers, because no hipster or "cool kid" can afford retail price of Apple).
So, unless Apple has near 90% monopoly in smartphone market (hint: it doesn't, especially in Europe), those carriers will have to taste their own medicine - after all, Apple imposes similar tactics as mobile providers/ISP themselves imposes to us - with huge fees for early termination, etc.
Rarely you see trollinsh behavior modded insightful, therefore I will bite.
First of all, "linux fanbois" pitched uptime feature 15 - 13 years ago when Windows stability was a joke. And feature wise Linux systems weren't less complex than Windows ones. Microsoft just did quite a number of fundamental mistakes in designing Windows 95/98/98SE/ME line and also older Windows NT versions, having graphical driver in ring 0 in example. All this made Windows usable only with regular reboots. Yes, there was carefully maintained 24/7 Windows systems, but they were rarity.
So while it maybe is obsoleted already (my Windows 7 installation for games resets video driver twice in day), obsession with uptime has some practical merits. Ask any old time Windows administrator.
Another thing is role of the server. There are some systems you really can't switch off even for kernel patches. Such systems are usually designed and configured to keep any security and stability breaches at bay. Also as someone already pointed out, you do patch software, you just don't reboot server, just upgraded services. Also it's usually means you have test system with exactly same hardware and software to test updates on.
I think for common crowd and media it is quite frustrating: "didn't we already know that?". Well, for scientists to "know" isn't enough - they need evidence, facts, proof. Now proof just become much stronger.
I personally think that acknowledgment of "could have supported" is enough for me to be excited. I still in doubt and I think Mars probably didn't have any bacteria floating around, but it shows that scenario for setting up reasonable good odds for life isn't that unique. Yes, you need strong magnetic field aka natural protection from particle bombardment. Yes, life need to survive heavy artillery - like meteoroids, dino killers, etc. But still...
Also this is huge from supporting human colony there. Strange that no one here talks about that.
Because they have been there and they have this near-death expierence. So they are stalling now - they have stretched their market segment to maximum. People are used to accept Android phones, especially Samsung line (you can get very well working Samsung Android phones for simple tasks very cheap - this is where former Nokia users are going).
So it's practically Mac versus PC all over again.
Apple could stay rich and profitable and niche. However, they got lost in fear of not gaining more of market. They lost their cool of designing things and trusting their own judgement.
1) Letting someone else fining people for breaking law is very bad. It creates mistrust. And if you really want to make people to obey the common sense law they really like to break (speeding is one of them, I *won't* get into details why psychologically so many want to justify it), you have to fine them yourself, not by some commercial entity; Otherwise it just make people angry. It's bad policy, period; 2) People will like to speed more than allowed and no matter of common sense will appeal to them. So other half of arguments - scam, can't win, etc. - sorry, been there, done that. People love to violate speeding limits. Yeah, some places those limits aren't really thought trough, but they are not that many.
So while I agree it's a really bad way of controlling speed limits, judge jumped a shark here and made more of political statement. But as Judges in US are part of political system - not very big surprise.
While claim of soviet style dictatorship maybe are part of drama, I can't agree with rest of claims though.
"For someone who loves choice so much you're pretty hard set on X fanaticism. In any other arena X would be described as a monopoly. Should Canonical not be allowed the freedom to compete? Or should your zealotry force their roadmap?"
No, they can compete in anyway they like. However, they trashed Xorg first, claiming it doesn't do what they want to do - ok, fine. Then they supported Wayland. Ok, it's not good enough anymore. If it were some small hobbyist project no one would say a thing. However it's most popular Linux distro. And with this step Ubuntu tries to fragment their market away and make Ubuntu exclusive to Linux desktop. It's dirty play and it won't help them. But it sure can destroy any trust in market and I don't see how AMD and Nvidia will pay hackers to code three (!!) different driver versions for Linux. I just don't.
So, repeating - if Mir where just truly another experimental display server, no one would care. However it plans to destroy any hope we have on standardized display server, because no one will touch Mir, because of Canonical's copyright policy. Also hard card manufacturers will start to question need to produce any binary drivers for any of these display servers at all. Or will just ignore pleas of improvements and will stick with Xorg, instead of supporting progressive Wayland.
Problem is quite simple - Wayland started very small and simple, but of course were held back by legacy support requests (and then there's those closed binary video drivers) and Ubuntu planned to do next LTS with it. However, Canonical suddenly changed their direction 2 years ago, and tried to push into mobile market. Wayland (and Xorg too) can be used for mobile platform, it just needs more work. Problem is Canonical's time is running out. They can't wait. They also don't want to be in same position as others. They want to be first. They don't want to waste all their money only be beaten by some guy who will put GNOME 3 with GNOME Shell together, make it sexy and make all phone/tablet wannabies run for their money. So they retreat more and more in NIH land.
I don't mean them ill. But it's serious fragmentation and trying to destroying de facto Linux desktop ecosystem - to become ultimate winner instead. I'm not sure I can support that in any way anymore.
You forgot "...so we can claim exclusivity of the Linux desktop platform to ourselves only and therefore getting....profit?!" part of that claim.
Seriously, this is stupid. Breaking tradition isn't bad. First, wasting it's money on repairing one alternative, then trashing it and picking another one just because you suddenly feel lucky to be on mobile platform - it's bad, messy strategy. I fail to see how this will work on Canonical's advantage.
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Screw reasoning, this is sick (2 balsts, 1 controlled blast, 2 not activated). Hoping investigators will find those people.
This is also doesn't feel like Jihadists...
Maybe he didn't release in "approved whistle blower channels", because frankly except for few really tragic war reports which general public isn't interested in detail anyway there's nothing actually to whistle about? US diplomats actually protecting rights of US and it's corporations? Surprise, it's *official* policy for almost every country I know (Spain consulate danced around us when our deal with their biggest train producer went high wire). US protecting it's interests, maybe ugly and disputable, yet still nothing illegal? Been there, done that. It's interesting read for historians, sociologists, analysts. But in nutshell, there's nothing to cry about. Personally as not US citizen I don't deeply care about this situation. I understand that people can have it's problems and anger, and they sometimes act very foolishly. I get that. However in Manning's situation I would just leave army as soon as possible. If you can't handle yourself, seriously, be honest about it. This is more of personal tragedy than national scandal to me. I don't mean ill to Manning, and see him as victim of Julian's "5 minutes of fame" stunt. However, law is the law. I really hope they give him just 6 or 7 years and be done with this situation. That's enough for him to maybe get his act together and live normal life again.
Read actual UCMJ article http://usmilitary.about.com/od/punitivearticles/a/mcm104.htm, it's actually very clear that releasing any classified information released knowingly it will "leak" to the enemy is enough for "aiding enemy" definition (in eyes of UCMJ, remember Manning isn't civilian in this case). Prosecution will have to prove that Manning truly knew what WikiLeaks will do with them though.
I can agree with judge, this charge can't be dismissed. Will see what will be decision on this case.
It was counterargument for reasoning that leaks were done because of war crimes. They weren't. Guy was angry at everybody and did it because of pure spite. He broke the law because he couldn't just take notice and leave. I usually do then when I'm angry at the work place which I hate.
1) I don't think you need someone declared "enemy" to be with him formally at war. US were never at war with USSR; Would be nice to hear some specialist's opinion on this though;
2) Judge disagreed on that and it seems that law can be read more broadly than you imagine. Is releasing such information by mistake would be aiding an enemy? I don't know. As I read from articles about case judge reads law like "if you release this information in a manner you know it could help an enemy, you can be charged by this point". This contradicts to the letter of the law, however, because it separates willful helping the enemy, and just releasing information to person who are not authorized. Prosecution will have to find a way to prove that Manning knew what WikiLeaks will do with that information.
I really don't think you can get out of this attacking the law. While it's kinda broad, it's logical, however, it will struggle with this real life case, because of actual change in defining what "enemy" is and it's admittedly part of much bigger discussion how we treat military secrets.
"without proper authority, knowingly harbors or protects or gives intelligence to or communicates or corresponds with or holds any intercourse with the enemy, either directly or indirectly; shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court-martial or military commission may direct."
UCMJ Article 104â"Aiding the enemy
Oddly, definition of "enemy" is missing from UCMJ header. What's most important to remember that members of Army have much bigger responsibility of guarding secret information they have than, for example, journalist.
USSR collapsed because of incredibly wasteful war in Afghanistan. Talking about obsessions, those big saviors of Western brought down normally functional government with it and brought Afghanistan 30 years of war and fundie paradise.
Commies have been stupid and incredibly blood thirsty in their actions of the past, but you have to take historical situation into account, beginning with Russian Civil War. Western societies has hard time to grasp what actually happened behind Iron Curtain and how society functioned there. While lot of bad things said about USSR was true, there were huge amount of propaganda, and for one to judge and evaluate things historically, especially last 30 years of regime, patience, cool head, facts and distancing from emotional plane is needed.
There I don't agree that Reagan or Thatcher actually helped to bring down USSR. They played their role, of course, and their actions changed a lot. But was it good or worst? Both US and UK were very weary about braking down all system, due of possible collapse of society, etc. (another myth of the West).
"The studio had the greatest franchise in the history of science fiction and failed. If the employees don't hold themselves responsible, I can see why it's been closed. Considering the epic failure of Kinect Starwars and the near complete disappointment of TOR .. it's pretty clear that LucasArts Studios has been on pump and dump for some years now. Thinking back, it's hard to recall a Star Wars game since X-Wing which has even come close to meeting expectations of the fans."
You know that Kinect Star Wars is Terminal Reality and TOR is purerly Bioware/EA effort? LucasArts have few games released recently themselves - for rest of them they have acted as licensing body (which is not small deal, managing all story details in TOR must be quite a feat). Also TOR as near complete disappointment - please, without hyperboles. TOR isn't perfect, and their sub strategy were clearly at fault, but f2p has poured life back into game and Bioware have cleared up some of issues plagued TOR. As for open ended - SW is story driven, like it or not, and that's kinda contradicts heavily with open ended idea. Also please don't speak in name of all fans, because you don't know what everyone wants.
Sorry, but check your facts first - current debt was built in by budget created by Bush Republicans.
Sorry to burst your Rep bubble, but private has been pouring insane amounts of money and they still can't get their launch right more than the NASA. Also while there's no real resources starvation on Earth initiative to go and explore for private money won't be enough - they will better rage costly war than trying to mine Moon. They never really plan in long term.
Only hope is that new initiative of mining asteroids. But it is also at least 20 years away, and probably will grab some gov grants along the way anyway.
Well, for last ten years NASA have been regularly on chopping block thanks to Republicans - but it is also institution about which general voting public don't care, and that's why it's first causality in austerity chill which like it or not will come anyway.
It's difficult question - we could do manned missions again, but what's practical reason behind this? Research? Basics can be covered by robotics - probes, rovers, satellites. What would be more important though that NASA and others would work with research how to make actual flight to Mars (or return to Moon) as painless as possible. If that results in actual mission after let's say 10 years - I don't really mind, because sometimes it's better than once and right. NASA is still light years ahead of anyone else in the world anyway.
It is easy to be KS skeptic - because all these ideas are risky, people doing it for first time, underestimating risks, schedule, etc. etc. People *love* to say "I told you so", because, well, then we can say we can see the future a little bit (thus ensuring our survival a little longer).
While not all stuff on KS (and other crowdfunding sites) makes sense to me, I personally think these are great tools to get and/or test out lot of good ideas. In age when investors look for fast buck, when "that another social networking tool which will make us insanely rich" lottery attitude dominates, it is actually only way to do something unusual, something really risky.
Some ideas will definitely fail. However, we are yet to see big fiasco in crowd funding business. Usually people who are asking for pledges know that it is one shot they got and they don't wanna waste it (or they are really scam or jokers and you can easily tell them apart and usually their project is taken offline even before KS finish line). And sometimes they even have everything ready and just need money for scaling things up (mass production for example).
Will it change way how business is handled today? Hardly, at least not in nearest future. Will it help some really creative people to get their ideas out and see how they could work? Definitely. Some of these ideas will bear small yield, some of them - might change industries. In overall, it lets you try to make it work without middleman's mercy. Because middlemen - although not as evil as lot of us would think - are not infallible. They are humans like us and quite often make mistakes, especially when deciding not to doing something.
And it's not ups, or "my bad" - it's done deliberately, because people avoid Windows RT like a fire. Otherwise they would not simply sell.
But a hacker's scam worked, didn't it? But this is problem in general with people and IT systems - common crowd don't even understand how it works broadly, so don't expect them to distinguish simple DDOS or network failure from bank/system going bankrupt, for example. Education and explaining - those can only limit damage in such cases in long term. In short term - be honest and leave yourself emergency information channels open.
In result, news has turned into circus style entertainment. Tabloids, "people news"?
Also people are slowly start to accept selective reality offered by different media channels. Fox News gives reasoning behind Tea Party/Republican struggle, MSNBC gives more of left angle (although everyone saying they both equal in BS levels need reality check - Fox News quite frequently invents facts form their opinions, I have rarely seen it in left leaning media and they also admit mistakes). In nutshell, it is easier to live in the world where you know you're right (and there's hugely popular tv channel for you to say so).
I see it as notion that people are tired to make sense out of this world. As facts and objective reality clashes more and more with their POV, they retreat to their radical positions.
I think we are "admit you are wrong, and that's the end my friend" society/civilization.
p.s. I get facts from BBC/Reuters/other news agencies, and opinions from Daily Show/Colbert Report (despite being Dem leaning both are heavily critical about them too).
While sometimes there are guys who really don't dig when you can tell a little dirty yet tasty joke and when you have to tone down it a bit (and communities have list of examples when someone clearly has crossed the line), this is rare example of
other side abusing common sense.
Sometimes we don't see point of joking that way, but then we have that luxury just shrug it off and move on. I see reason to report something that is openly offensive, but it's very clear that it's not in this case.
So while I won't judge any side in this conflict, in my opinion it was overreaction - and not only from woman's side. Requesting a simple apology would be enough - if you really offended.
Carriers aren't forced to offer Apple. In fact, in Europe you aren't really obliged to do anything about Apple - you can succeed (as mobile provider) other ways. Of course, it is much harded than hoping all kool-aid drinking Apple fanboi masses come to you and you only (if serously, Apple is playing with fire here - my pick huge number of their sales in Europe comes from carriers, because no hipster or "cool kid" can afford retail price of Apple).
So, unless Apple has near 90% monopoly in smartphone market (hint: it doesn't, especially in Europe), those carriers will have to taste their own medicine - after all, Apple imposes similar tactics as mobile providers/ISP themselves imposes to us - with huge fees for early termination, etc.
Rarely you see trollinsh behavior modded insightful, therefore I will bite.
First of all, "linux fanbois" pitched uptime feature 15 - 13 years ago when Windows stability was a joke. And feature wise Linux systems weren't less complex than Windows ones. Microsoft just did quite a number of fundamental mistakes in designing Windows 95/98/98SE/ME line and also older Windows NT versions, having graphical driver in ring 0 in example. All this made Windows usable only with regular reboots. Yes, there was carefully maintained 24/7 Windows systems, but they were rarity.
So while it maybe is obsoleted already (my Windows 7 installation for games resets video driver twice in day), obsession with uptime has some practical merits. Ask any old time Windows administrator.
Another thing is role of the server. There are some systems you really can't switch off even for kernel patches. Such systems are usually designed and configured to keep any security and stability breaches at bay. Also as someone already pointed out, you do patch software, you just don't reboot server, just upgraded services. Also it's usually means you have test system with exactly same hardware and software to test updates on.
I think for common crowd and media it is quite frustrating: "didn't we already know that?". Well, for scientists to "know" isn't enough - they need evidence, facts, proof. Now proof just become much stronger.
I personally think that acknowledgment of "could have supported" is enough for me to be excited. I still in doubt and I think Mars probably didn't have any bacteria floating around, but it shows that scenario for setting up reasonable good odds for life isn't that unique. Yes, you need strong magnetic field aka natural protection from particle bombardment. Yes, life need to survive heavy artillery - like meteoroids, dino killers, etc. But still...
Also this is huge from supporting human colony there. Strange that no one here talks about that.
Because they have been there and they have this near-death expierence. So they are stalling now - they have stretched their market segment to maximum. People are used to accept Android phones, especially Samsung line (you can get very well working Samsung Android phones for simple tasks very cheap - this is where former Nokia users are going).
So it's practically Mac versus PC all over again.
Apple could stay rich and profitable and niche. However, they got lost in fear of not gaining more of market. They lost their cool of designing things and trusting their own judgement.
We have essentially two problems here.
1) Letting someone else fining people for breaking law is very bad. It creates mistrust. And if you really want to make people to obey the common sense law they really like to break (speeding is one of them, I *won't* get into details why psychologically so many want to justify it), you have to fine them yourself, not by some commercial entity; Otherwise it just make people angry. It's bad policy, period;
2) People will like to speed more than allowed and no matter of common sense will appeal to them. So other half of arguments - scam, can't win, etc. - sorry, been there, done that. People love to violate speeding limits. Yeah, some places those limits aren't really thought trough, but they are not that many.
So while I agree it's a really bad way of controlling speed limits, judge jumped a shark here and made more of political statement. But as Judges in US are part of political system - not very big surprise.
And they had good reason for that - to keep Wayland maintainable and supportable as much as possible.
Wow, yeah, graphics are hard. You really can't solve them designing another display server. I think we had some 5 of them 8 - 10 years ago.
While claim of soviet style dictatorship maybe are part of drama, I can't agree with rest of claims though.
"For someone who loves choice so much you're pretty hard set on X fanaticism. In any other arena X would be described as a monopoly. Should Canonical not be allowed the freedom to compete? Or should your zealotry force their roadmap?"
No, they can compete in anyway they like. However, they trashed Xorg first, claiming it doesn't do what they want to do - ok, fine. Then they supported Wayland. Ok, it's not good enough anymore. If it were some small hobbyist project no one would say a thing. However it's most popular Linux distro. And with this step Ubuntu tries to fragment their market away and make Ubuntu exclusive to Linux desktop. It's dirty play and it won't help them. But it sure can destroy any trust in market and I don't see how AMD and Nvidia will pay hackers to code three (!!) different driver versions for Linux. I just don't.
So, repeating - if Mir where just truly another experimental display server, no one would care. However it plans to destroy any hope we have on standardized display server, because no one will touch Mir, because of Canonical's copyright policy. Also hard card manufacturers will start to question need to produce any binary drivers for any of these display servers at all. Or will just ignore pleas of improvements and will stick with Xorg, instead of supporting progressive Wayland.
Problem is quite simple - Wayland started very small and simple, but of course were held back by legacy support requests (and then there's those closed binary video drivers) and Ubuntu planned to do next LTS with it. However, Canonical suddenly changed their direction 2 years ago, and tried to push into mobile market. Wayland (and Xorg too) can be used for mobile platform, it just needs more work. Problem is Canonical's time is running out. They can't wait. They also don't want to be in same position as others. They want to be first. They don't want to waste all their money only be beaten by some guy who will put GNOME 3 with GNOME Shell together, make it sexy and make all phone/tablet wannabies run for their money. So they retreat more and more in NIH land.
I don't mean them ill. But it's serious fragmentation and trying to destroying de facto Linux desktop ecosystem - to become ultimate winner instead. I'm not sure I can support that in any way anymore.
You forgot "...so we can claim exclusivity of the Linux desktop platform to ourselves only and therefore getting....profit?!" part of that claim.
Seriously, this is stupid. Breaking tradition isn't bad. First, wasting it's money on repairing one alternative, then trashing it and picking another one just because you suddenly feel lucky to be on mobile platform - it's bad, messy strategy. I fail to see how this will work on Canonical's advantage.