You agreed at some point to buy a Microsoft product. You or someone you are helping opted in. And most likely once you've got it working you will actually have saved time overall.
I and someone else didn't opt in to Microsoft wasting our time. More importantly, me helping someone else doesn't save me any time overall. Perhaps that someone else bears some of the blame, but I don't think all the blame can be shifted on people who quite clearly are incapable (either intellectually or through gross lack of information available) of having truly opted in to all that was entailed.
There's no claim that a) people opted in to Wallace's crap or b) that anyone will save time overall from what Wallace is doing.
People opted in to Wallace's crap the same way they "opted-in" to Microsoft's crap: it's a consequence of using the system for which most people acknowledge there really is no solution, short of avoiding the system. With e-mail, you can't hold the system at fault nor can the system be fixed, but in Microsoft's case you can hold them at fault and in many cases they can fix the problem. As for saving time overall, presumably somewhere Wallace spammed someone who actually bought what Wallace was peddling, thereby saving themself time overall. Your argument only plays well if you look at overall societal utility, but then I'm not really sure Microsoft gets a positive score in that area either (perhaps they and all OS makers (and Wallace) do by shear inherent increased efficiency due to computers and telecommunication.
Your analogy breaks down right there. When I moved from my Treo 600 to an iPhone, I didn't expect to be able to move my apps/games with me. Neither if I moved to a blackberry. Sure there will be some great devs who do cross-platform stuff (PopCap: Bookworm), but that's because they take the time and effort to write it in different platforms
There's this magical thing called "Java". Perhaps you've heard of it? Even without Java, if your Blackberry and Treo 600 happen to use the same processor and a similar enough OS, why should Treo's maker or Blackberry's maker stop you from you finding a way to run the app on either device through warranty voiding? That's the complaint (obviously leveled at the iPhone, really).
The iPhone is NOT a car. You can't die by using a phone, and the phone industry is not nearly as regulated as the auto industry.
The former (phones don't kill you) and the latter (the phone industry is not nearly as regulated) really shouldn't matter. In fact, more regulation really doesn't matter in this equation. What does matter is that locking software to a device is anti-competitive (which in itself doesn't matter, but it leaves a company open to anti-trust violation should it grow big) and threatening to void a warranty solely of their discretion is a violation of extant warranty laws (how much and what kind and where a manufacturer can wave warranty because of user modification is obviously a country-by-country affair, but product regulation in the US, for example, isn't so lax to effectively be null).
In short, I have NO expectation that I should be able to move my apps from one platform to another, willy-nilly. Maybe if everything was copyleft'd and we were all using ports-capable OS's, sure. But I have no expectation of that any time soon.
Clearly you're expectations aren't low enough. Even if everything was copyleft'd (specifically, GPLv2'd), you couldn't expect to be able to move apps from one platform to another or even otherwise identical platforms. Clearly, you're using expectation in the "what I expect to see in the past, present, and future" sense. The GP was speaking of expectation in the "what I demand to see in the future" sense.
An obvious stupid question, but what's to prevent a person from using the same algorithm to use modify their copy before redistributing it? Done a few times, and you've effectively got a digital analog of analog degradation.
It is not only that, but also the belief (sincere or not) that equality ought to trump quality... Government-provided schools, clinics, roads, subways, postal service, inevitably suck, but they suck equally for all rich and poor except, maybe, for the superrich like the politicians, who view themselves as more equal than others and send their own children to very expensive private schools.
That's some great logic. Obama pushes for better schools, roads, etc, so he's for equality, not quality. And then when, this being a capitalistic society, he chooses to spend his money to obtain a superior education for his children, he's just not being communistic enough? You do realize, btw, that Animal Farm is about communism, right?
To the holders of this opinion, the fact that parts of the country can get an ultra-fast optical connection (without government's subsidy), and that there is not a person any more, who can't get a high-speed dial-up (without government's subsidy), is nothing compared to the inequality between the two extremes.
Wrong on so many levels. As others have noted, the right-of-way areas used to lay those "ultra-fast optical connection"s and that "high speed dial-up" telephone wire was the result of a government subsidy to telecommunication companies to avoid having to negotiate and settle with whatever deal they could get from the millions of property owners to lay their wires. Besides that, there is no guarantee of "high-speed dial-up" unless you consider "high-speed dial-up" equivalent to 9600 baud.
The trouble with this attitude is that it is impossible to make things equally good for all people. So all attempts to do so end up making things equally bad. Equality is achieved, and quality was secondary anyway.
And this misses the point entirely. The objective isn't to make things equally good for all people. The objective is, as stated, to give better opportunities to people. This involves providing for a better minimal education, a better minimal transportation network, a better minimal communication network, etc. The important words here are "better minimal". If you wish to argue that a "better minimal" is not possible, then how do you explain Sweden, Norway, Japan, etc which do seem to have better minimals?
It is this crusaders for equality, who keep bringing up "growing income disparity" and advocate taxation and regulation to make things "fair".
And advocate taxation and regulation to make and enforce laws against theft, murder, and fraud to make things "fair". No, let's not dare tax the "superrich" a penny so that their society that maintains their wealth and position continues to exist. I'm sure they'll have enough money left over to buy up security squads to kill all those that oppose them. If nothing else, that system might be cheaper, and clearly any system advocated that costs more than the cheapest method must be advocated by "crusaders for equality".
Why they haven't yet thought of amputating a limb of Michael Phelps to "level the playing field" between him and other swimmers is beyond me... Clearly, his 8 Olympic gold medals is grossly unfair towards the rest of the swimmers, who swam the same distance at nearly the same times, but got no or one gold medal only.
Perhaps you should read Harrison Bergeron. No, not even the pigs of Animal Farm wanted to amputate their most gifted animals (or the Soviets their most gifted Olympic athletes). Yes, there is certainly a danger to the rhetoric for those few who do wish to limit the most gifted precisely because they're gifted. But, the other extreme is to allow those who are gifted to create dynasties where others equally or more gifted are oppressed under the w
In my own daily life, I avoid, to the best of my ability, transactions with people and entities I consider evil and unethical.
Then you must either have a loose definition of evil, a loose definition of unethical, or live a very closeted life.
Stallman is considered by some to be a pure saint. People think he lives his life without compromises.
Sure, some very small minority believe Stallman is a pure saint. Most recognize that he pushes an extreme ideology which is currently unlivable, so compromise is necessary to avoid living a closeted life.
Yet, he simultaneously holds the position that proprietary software is evil, and that people who write GPLed software won't do so unless they are incented by the ability to sell non-GPLed copies of that software to evil people who are going to merge it with their proprietary software and sell it for a profit.
Not quite. He holds the position that some people can't reasonably work on GPL software unless they dual-license it. This, like the LGPL, is a compromise Stallman has taken to try to foster more development in GPL or GPL-like licenses. Hopefully, even more people will realize Stallman isn't a saint.
If I believed that someone was evil, I wouldn't have anything to do with them, and if I merely thought they were misguided, I wouldn't use that term -- it is very heavily loaded. I would almost go so far as to say Stallman is evil for using it. (See how that works?)
Granted. Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. But, such a position really works into being unable to call anyone or anything evil unless one is a pure saint. Since few to no such people exists, I don't think it's a reasonably position to take. The real issue is how overly broadly and commonly uses the word evil, not that he uses it at all.
Personally, I believe that Stallman has done some good things, but also has some stuff to answer for, and calling me evil is one of those things he will eventually have to answer for. He and his followers are not yet as single-mindedly obsessed as the Taliban or the anti-abortionists, but they are getting there.
Speaking of glass houses... Yes, there will almost certainly be those few people extreme enough willing to kill for an idea, regardless of the movement. As much as Stallman has called proprietary software evil and implicitly those who make it evil, he has never remotely advocated violence. He has instead advocated a new ideology of free software and directly put effort into developing it. To call him or his followers "as single-mindedly obsessed as the Taliban" is just as accurate as "as single-mindedly obsessed as the Civil Rights Movement". But, clearly, the latter doesn't have the same pejorative nature as the former does. Nor, clearly, are the methods or ends remotely similar.
Stallman may be very wrong in calling proprietary software evil, but trying to conflate him or his followers to violent groups is absurd and offensive. Stallman is no saint, and sainthood is no basis to believe in ideas or follow a person. If you find his ideas offensive, well that's life.
It's the seeming paradox of the free market at work. To prevent fraud and allow competition, companies have to be transparent. This is required because without adequate information, deception can easily occur. Fraudsters want a black box to hide their deception. Non-fraudsters want a black box to effectively lock out competitors, giving them a monopolistic position. The GPL is an anti-black box, by allowing people to understand how the software works to know whether it's worth the money spent. If copyright were to be dissolved, this black box phenomenon would likely get worse. Regulation would invariably be necessary, just as more regulation is necessary in the financial markets.
Btw, this would be the seeming paradox. People treat the free market and Laissez-faire as the same. Yet, clearly, laissez-faire is what creates the black boxes that break the free market model; ie, the two ideas aren't truly compatible. The free market model presumes that people are rational; ie, they won't gamble their money or take risky ventures, like relying upon black box or overly complex models they don't understand. Since people clearly aren't rational on that standard, regulation is very much a necessity. The real issue, then, is how to well regulate the regulators from the extremes of under regulation, over regulation, and corruption.
Whether every single SharePoint CAL that was purchased is actually in use, is irrelevant to the point of ridicule.
Did they sell it? Did someone BUY it? THEN COUNT it, baby!
Instead of bitching, someone should be crediting Microsoft for how they manage their CALs and bundling.
In related news, my new Hello World Server (TM) has released hit 10 billion CALs. That might have something to do with my 10 billion CALs grant per Hello World Server (TM).
This is like arguing over how many copies of MS Paint are used on a daily basis. It hardly matters. Microsoft sold it, and pocketed the income, which is cash that most likely WONT go to a SharePoint competitor, whether SharePoint gets used or not.
Actually, it's quite relevant. Microsoft, like most businesses, isn't interested in selling a product once to every person. To do so, they could at best sell approximately one copy to every person on Earth; then they'd be stuck having to create a whole new product. Since Microsoft can't sell multiple *exact* copy to each person, they instead make minor or major improvements to an existing product. If Microsoft sells a product to someone and that person don't use it, they're less likely to buy an updated version of that product (short of some "clever" bundling to pump up numbers, eg. MS Paint, or monopolist pressures to conform).
Since SharePoint is being sold and doesn't grant enough leverage to be freely bundled with another product to make a de facto installed monopoly, Microsoft is trying to highlight CAL numbers to make the impression that SharePoint is developing a monopolistic position and therefore it would be wise to buy future versions even if one is upset with the current version. Yes, Microsoft has good [marketing] reason to advertise their SharePoint sales figures, but their push to highlight CAL sales is obviously intended to spark a belief in companies that there are hundreds of millions of users of SharePoint. But, that's about as absurd as thinking most IPv4 class A blocks were significantly used or my Hello World Server (TM) is really serving anywhere near close to 10 billion people.
In short, if Microsoft wants to gloat about sales figures, that's great. I wouldn't expect any less. But, the least they could do is conduct a survey to actually get some handle on actually license usage. Otherwise, the 100 million figure is almost entirely an irrelevant number (it's small relevance is some idea on the hypothetical average cost per user, but odds are good that there's an error upwards of at least an order of magnitude, hence the need for a survey).
The hardware can prevent the user from using the software on that hardware. If the point of buying the hardware is to use something other than the vendor-provided hardware, then unless you are the first person to buy the hardware with that notion in mind and don't know about the restriction, you have no room to complain. You should have bought hardware that didn't have those restrictions. Indeed, using the license to pressure vendors is entirely the wrong solution. That can't possibly work. It just ensures that those vendors use BSD-licensed software and probably don't contribute their changes back at all. The right solution is to pressure the vendor by NOT BUYING the locked-down products in the first place!
That's precisely the point. If vendors don't want to contribute their changes back, GPLv3 developers don't want the vendor using their code. That way they can buy products that use their code and be assured (well, more assured) that the product is not locked-down. That was what part of the spirit of the GPL. The GPLv2 failed to spell out once edge case that would prevent it. None of this is about pressuring vendors to release changes. It *is* about pressuring vendors to not use GPL software unless they want to contribute.
Either the goal of the GPL is to get people to make changes and fixes and enhancements available to everyone or it isn't. If it is, then limiting who can use GPL-licensed software in their products is entirely the wrong way to achieve that goal. If it isn't the goal, then what's the point of using the GPL in the first place? You might as well use a BSD license and allow source changes to be kept secret. The GPLv3 runs completely contrary to the public's best interests in this respect.
The terms of the GPL, requiring people release source code, limits the use of GPL-licensed software. Without *some* terms limiting use, people/companies could use the software without contributing back in a meaningful way. Ie, the terms were written, as you indirectly note, to weed out those who'd rather go with BSD code or some other licensed code than assuredly contribute fixes. The terms of the GPLv3, requiring the release of signing keys, is a further attempt to weed out those companies who do not wish to contribute.
If that $30 router uses GPLv3 code in its firmware, then I've already bought a "real router".
By real router, I mean a router that doesn't artificially lock you into a specific firmware.
That's what I thought you meant. So, if the router has GPLv3 code in its firmware, the fact that it needs the firmware signed is fine, since they'll give away the signing keys with the source.
It also means that developers can release GPLv3 code and be assured that legally, no "fake" router can contain their code (barring fair use, of course).
What the heck are you talking about? GPLv3 does not ensure that a "fake" router cannot contain their code. By licensing the code under the GPLv3, they are agreeing that their code can be freely redistributed, which means it can be used on ANY hardware, even including that of their competitors. It means that their competitors can't use it in a locked-down product, but if anything, companies that choose the GPL for their software WANT their competitors' products to be more restrictive so that they look better to the geek audience by comparison.
Unless, of course, you're using "fake" to mean what you described as a "real router" that is locked down, in which case, yes, but again, why should I care whether somebody puts my software into a locked-down product? If the software is out there and I'm getting fixes back, my users are benefitting from that product. *Their* users are *possibly* hurting from the locked down product, but they aren't direct users of *my* software. They are users of *their* product. When they get mad
The hardware can't prevent the user from using the software. The user merely has to provide hardware without those restrictions.
The hardware can prevent the user from using the software on said hardware. If the point of buying the hardware is to use the software on said hardware, then clearly there's a problem for the user. That of course leads to...
Boo hoo, my $30 router won't let me upgrade it with unsigned firmware. Buy a real router.
If that $30 router uses GPLv3 code in its firmware, then I've already bought a "real router". That's a major point of the GPLv3, by the way. It also means that developers can release GPLv3 code and be assured that legally, no "fake" router can contain their code (barring fair use, of course). TiVo chose to follow the letter of the GPLv2; now, the letter of the GPLv3 allows makers and users of GPLv3 code to not experience TiVo-like behavior when they stick with GPLv3 code. I'm not quite sure what there is to boo hoo about.
School's main purpose is learning, not boredom. Learning with out boredom is the optimum, the goal we should be working toward.
...
The point the GP is making, and one that I agree with, is that if you make something boring in school, people will treat it as such in life. Teach a boring biology class, you are robbing two dozen students of curiosity for the wonders of living organisms. Teach a boring math class, you create people who think they can make money off the casinos. Teach a boring English class, your students will never willingly pick up a book again.
The main purpose of school is education. If a class or teacher is boring and you're not learning, learn on your own. Should the teacher be fired for boring lectures? Possibly. But when it comes to Junior High and High School students, one's education should occur even in spite of whatever challenges school brings. Yes, school at a young age can kill curiosity; but, it is the primary job of parents and then students to maintain curiosity, not teachers. By the time biology class rolls around, certainly there's little most teachers can do to help a student who's had a dead curiosity for possibly over a decade; perhaps a few, super-fantastic teachers can bring it back to life, but that generally comes at a great cost of time and is hardly a viable strategy to long-term education.
I'm not saying learning has to be boring--well, a little bit is invariably. I certainly would welcome a teacher who can make learning exciting if it takes no more time than a boring lesson, but trying to brush the responsibility of parents and students under the rug and laying it on teachers to be entertaining is little more than saying everything in schools should be edutainment. Edutainment might be a nice treat once in a while, but it is by no means the way to educate.
Forgetting that hacking the vendor ID is a violation of the contract terms signed by Palm, releasing a new version of firmware each time Apple defeats Palm's hack costs a great deal more in terms of developer costs, QA and deployment.
What makes Palm's actions so puzzling is that this cat and mouse game is costing them a lot more money than simply creating a sync engine of their own. They would have a much shorter QA cycle and it would not require testing of their entire firmware over again if they just built the tool.
Two major points. One, Palm is probably already regularly updating their firmware anyways (well, one would hope); so, keeping up to date with Apple's changes, whatever they might be, is already a sunk cost. Two, there's nothing stopping Apple from dropping third-party support at any time or to "update" the formatting for third-parties regularly. Clearly they've shown they're willing to try to intentionally cripple a competitor. If third-parties are already being treated as second-class citizens when it comes to iTunes, why would you as a quasi-first class citizen back down when it will only put yourself in a worse position? I'd imagine Palm wants to obtain any edge it can seemingly get.
If devices begin spoofing IDs like this, the entire schema for identification of USB devices will be broken.
Get back to us when you decide to leave the airy fairly land of Open Source/Academia and join the real world which is comprised of corporations with budget constraints and shrinking revenue streams. Some of us have to actually work hard for a living.
So, in airy fairly land of Open Source/Academia, standards are eschewed in favor of pragmatism, while Corporate America, with shrinking revenue streams, is obsessed about the standard?
Apple provides a windows API for writing iTunes plugins and a similar API for OS X. They also provide the iTunes library in XML format which any third party developer can use to sync media from the library to their device. RIM makes use of this XML document to facilitate media syncing in their windows and mac Blackberry desktop applications and Palm could have done the same with the Palm pre.
It would be a trivial matter to write a syncing agent using the Library XML and I could probably write one in a few days.
A few days, in your spare time, off the books? Or would you rather just hack your Vendor/Device ID in five seconds to get it working? Which is cheaper?
Not only is palm using iTunes to sync media from the library but they are also syncing contacts and photos by piggy backing on the syncing services Apple built into windows/os x for syncing the iPhone and iPod touch. That goes beyond trying to just access media from iTunes.
How dare those bastards take advantage of extant libraries or programs. Next thing you know, they'll be compiling against Windows libraries and using Internet Explorer to display things.
If you really are the famous Bruce Perens, explain to me why Palm should be allowed to piggy back on Apple's work for syncing windows pictures and contacts. Would you support non-GPL software piggy backing on GPL'd software in the same way on linux or would you have a double standard on that issue? Are you telling us that you would attach a GPL violator but defend someone who is violating their license agreement with the USB IF?
Non-GPL software piggy backs on GPL software all the time. A large part of the web servers runs on GPL software, and every proprietary web browser is piggy backing on them. It's not sufficient to "piggy back" some software to violate copyright/trademark/whatever. If it were, the only way you could run software is if everything on the system was copyrighted by one entity.
Now, as for this being a USB IF violation, that's an actually valid point. But, to that end, if Palm is stripped of being able to advertise USB devices, so should Apple since clearly Apple's Vendor/Device pairing has nothing to do with iPhone specific quirks. No, Apple intentionally broke working software by misusing the USB specification.
I sincerely hope that you are not actually Bruce Perens and that someone has hacked your account because if that is not the case, you have become an embarrassment to the OSS movement much like RMS has become.
RMS is leader of the Free Software movement. The OSS movement sprung about precisely because there were people interested in Open Software who didn't want to be associated with Free Software ideology; ie, they were more interested in pragmatism than "[Free Software]/Academia" ideology. It's funny you're actually argue for RMS's position and chastising Perens for being more OSS movement oriented.
I thought Slashdot was opposed to copyright law and that you couldn't "steal" intellectual property because it wasn't physically taken from someone else?
You can't. You can de facto violate a license granting you privileges that copyright otherwise forbid, thereby nullifying the license and thereby committing copyright infringement. No stealing is involved.
Why is copyright bad in pro-piracy articles and good in free software articles?
Copyright is bad, period. The real issue at hand is fraud and abuse of existing copyright enforcement. Piracy is bad when you claim to be the maker of a work you're not a maker of, claim to be a distributer of a copy from a maker when you're not, or you try to force people to stop making copies or modifications of your copy. Violating licenses, like the GPL, is good when you make it clear that you're not the original maker and that you're trying your best to make code available for others to modify, even if you're not really sure you can mix all the code together under a license (thinking mixing GPL code and CDDL code) legally.
Oh, and obviously, bad != illlegal, good != legal.
Theres nothing on Linux that does anything to prevent this kind of malware - you only get more security because there's not many users.
"This kind of malware" is scareware. Scareware is software that claims you've been infected, probably through a software exploit, and that you need to install their software to fix the problem. It's social engineering. To that end, if Linux had significant market share, 99.999%* of installed software would come through a distribution's package management system. Ie, virtually all software installed would be vetted by a distribution.
Microsoft's problem, as it were, is that they don't vet software. This includes not only run of the mill software but also anti-malware software. As a result, people in the Windows world are left to fend for themselves when it comes to finding and installing anti-malware software. If Linux had significant market share, it's quite possible that there'd be more malware released for Linux. However, anti-malware would be vetted and be a part of most Linux distributions as well.
Ie, scareware websites couldn't work except on true idiots because people would know that on a Linux platform, downloading and installing programs off websites is dangerous and unnecessary. Windows users probably will never be able to have the same sentiment because there's no one in the Windows world that can be trusted to vet software. Microsoft has too much of a vested interest in their own software, and virtually no other company is in a position to withstand lawsuits when malware gets through. I'm not sure how immune Linux distributions would be in the same circumstance, but I think they'd be legally safer giving away the software for free.
*The number would be 100% for almost everyone, but people who still compiled things (and idiots) would drag down the average.
The problem is not how "popular" or "cool" it is, the problem is with education. To put it simply and bluntly, your educational system sucks, particularly when it comes to science. Reform it. Education is pretty much the same problem for anyone, you're doing it wrong, look at how others are doing it right.
A bit off-topic, but the same could be said about health care. The problem is, politicians are so jingoistic that everything is "the best" in America. Much like AA, the first step is admitting you have a problem. We're not there yet. We just pay lip service to the idea.
Almost certainly. If a patient doesn't come in complaining about feeling unhappy sometimes and demanding an anti-depressant, pharmaceutical companies have trained doctors well enough to see any of the very broad symptoms of depression in their patient and to prescribe the latest hot anti-depressant. Is it any wonder, then, when a revisit of a drug test should include a lot of people misdiagnosed with depression for which neither placebo nor anti-depressant will have any effect?
Google *paid* Sony to pre-install Chrome, just like Symantec pays for Norton bloatware to be pre-installed on HP (etc.) notebooks. There seems to be a sort of OEM market here; for years already. Nothing to see here; move along.
Internet Explorer, as the default browser, has Bing as the default search engine and as default for making suggestions. The information this provides to Bing is valuable in the field of advertising. Google wants to push their own browser to route such information to Google. Both sides are betting on the fact that most people are too lazy to change their defaults--or possibly, unwilling to commit themselves to one application over another because it shows a level of geekiness they do not want to commit themselves to defending. History seems to side very well with the idea with PCs. This is precisely how MS became the dominant force on the PC.
In short, if OEMs feel they can "snub" Microsoft when it comes to their web browser, it opens the door for all sorts of companies with enough money to push their product through to replace Microsoft's offering in the same way that Microsoft did it to their competitors. That seems a rather big deal.
They're called Anti-Competitive Practicies, they're at times illegal in most western countries, Microsoft was found guilty of them in the US, and the US government rolled over and did nothing because "[some] advocates of laissez-faire capitalism (such as Monetarists, some Neoclassical economists, and the heterodox economists of the Austrian school) reject the term, seeing all "anticompetitive behavior" as forms of competition that benefit consumers." Feel free, especially, to read the part about "natural monopolies" and consider how many Republicans are so inclined to end regulation.
I agree with nearly all that you said, but have to say that I believe that this bill is DEAD WRONG (and your support of it).
I never said I supported it. I only pointed out how illogical Neptunes_Trident's refutals of it was (focus on who gets money and a focus on it increasing taxes).
Instead, I would like a TRUE CAP and TAX bill. We should do a cap, and allow the companies to trade declining amount permits without any taxes on these except when traded. More importantly, we need to put a tax on ALL GOODS based on the CO2 from where it was produced (that includes all the major components) and the CO2 to transport it.
Your idea is interesting, but why do you want to cap CO2 production without taxing it? I presume the whole idea of taxing all goods based on CO2 is to indirectly regulate CO2. If you're already doing that, why the extra step of capping CO2 locally? Either the taxes will not have a noteable effect, no matter how much taxing you do (in which case, taxing isn't the way to go), or they will, which removes any real need for direction CO2 cap regulation.
Never mind the fact that polar bears DO know how too swim or that this is the coolest summer on record.
Polar bears don't eat much during the summer. A shorter spring translates into less bulk built up, which especially hurts polar bear young and pregnant polar bears. Cooler summer won't magically fix this.
Temperatures have been cooling since 1998/99.
"Each of the last 12 years (1997-2008) was one of the warmest on record, although the last two years have grown cooler, not warmer."
Never mind the fact the fact that this planet and other planets have warmed and cooled throughout the centuries.
Which doesn't explain why the Earth's current warming isn't linked with the warming/cooling of the other planets.
Never mind the fact that The Inconvenient Truth is actually refuted by thousands of scientists throughout the world.
Which means nothing, really, since An Inconvenient Truth, regardless of how ficticious it might be, isn't the basis for global warming concerns. Scientific studies and reports about scientific studies are the primary basis for concern. Even if in instances reports have been incorrect or exaggerative, overall the reports have been consistent in their characterization of those scientific studies, as noted by the various climatologists scientists who have been asked.
Never mind that Al Gore stands to make Billions if this Cap n Trade, Climate Change Bill HR2454 passes in the Senate and gets signed into law.
And oil companies stand to lose billions if Cap and Trade is passed. But, that's irrelevant. What is relevant is whether Cap and Trade, in HR2454, actually has an effect on global warming.
Never mind that this same Bill not only tax business but tax EVERYONE, from real estate restrictions on your home, to making you pay for renovations before you can sell your home.
Okay..and? Is there some reason why if you're in the business of selling a home you shouldn't be treated like any other business?
Never mind that all this media spin is meant too whip support for the most invasive tax bill ever brought upon all the people of this country.
What "all this media spin" do you speak of? By the way, income taxes have been the most invasive tax bill ever brought upon the people of the US.
Never mind that they rushed this bill in the house, and did not even read through it, but still passed it anyhow.
Which holds true for what percentage of bills in the house? I admit it's a shameful truth, but unless your making this statement to bring awareness to this problem to fix it in general, it's merely selective pandering against a bill you dislike.
All I will ask of YOU is too do the research behind the science of climate change and draw your own conclusions, before you are sway by ANY mass public opinion.
Or ANY non-mass public opinion. Merely going along with the opinion of others makes you a pathetic patsy. Forming a belief on your own that happens to coincide with "mass public opinion" or "non-mass public opinion" at least makes that belief of some worth.
And please we have already taken such a huge debt with these bailouts, again please read the HR2454 Cap n trade Climate Change Bill.
If you're tired of "huge debt with these bailouts", why aren't you for Cap and Trade. It raises taxes, which is the primary way to pay off debt. Perhaps you've mixed up your rant with the Heath Care Reform debate? Personally, I'd like to see more discussion about our massively wasteful spending on things like the military. No other nation in the world spends 40% of their budget on their military/"defense". And that percentage certainly isn't becaus
If you actually look over the patent being sued over, US Patent 5,787,449, you'll notice a major similarity to Microsoft's patent on LFNs. Specifically, US Patent 5,787,449 patents the idea of keeping document formating and content separate--ie, to have two separate streams of information instead of one. A simple idea for an implimentation, then, would be to have a plain.txt file and a separate tag+index file and a program that loads the two together, patches the.txt file in memory, and treats the result as an XML file.
In a similar vein, up until Windows 95, there were various schemes to overcome the 8.3 limitation of DOS filenames. Most used the idea of keeping a separate file (descript.ion for example) containing a short and long filename and merging them in memory with the directory listing for long filename supporting programs. Microsoft decided to do something similar, except they stored the long file names directly within the directory listing--ie, the took two separate streams of information and made them one.
What was my point? Merely that the idea of spliting or joining streams of related information is not at all a novel idea, inherently, although people may come up with more or less clever implementations to accomplish the goal. To that end, I'd be more than happy to support Microsoft in its efforts to stop i4i's patent, presuming of course that they too would stop suing companies like TomTom over similar patents they hold.
Is it in the public's interest for individual officers to have their names, pictures, addresses and photographs of their houses published to the world?
Yes? If I need an officer of the law *immediately*, knowing where and who is an officier nearby would be very useful. Yes, most the time (99%), it'd be better to call a central dispatch. But, there are times that when not having to wait 4 minutes for an officier to arrive is a good thing. Besides, it means one can develop a relationship with the officier in question. And it's just human nature for a human to care more about people they know, so having a good relationship with an officier is always a good thing, be they the local beat cop (assuming you have one) or a neighbor cop. Besides, if we have a sex offender registry to help us avoid bad people, what wouldn't we want an officier registry to help us meet and interact with good people?
Would you appreciate it if that were done to yourself?
Well, presuming I became a police officier to protect and serve the community and to interact with it, yes I'd very much appreciate it. Would I fear for my family's life? Possibly. But unless I have a specific "super villain" adversary or I live in a community with a history of police officer family's being harmed, I would be being overly paranoid. In the former case, I would protect my family by keeping them hidden *regardless* since clearly such an adversary could merely track or hire to track my movements. In the latter case, I'd do the same because, again, my movements are always open to being tracked and I would be interested in obscuring my family from harm. But, I can't really understand the idea of putting myself in harms way, ready to protect the community from such villains, and yet being so willing to tuck my tail between my legs and run from any way of contacting *me* when I set out to be contacted and help people. In such a role, do I really fear society as a whole so much that a few bad apples will make me treat all of society as a danger I must avoid where possible?
Yes, but that's the problem. Stalking is generally illegal because it is presumed that anyone so interested in stalking an individual is interested in commiting illegal harm against the stalked. When it comes to governments stalking individuals, the barrier of outrage is generally lower because governments have much more power than individuals in causing harm*. Similarly, it is presumed that there exist drug cartels of some nature which have more power than this indiviudal blogger, hence the outrage.
However, it would then logically follow that if the government is effectively stalking drug dealers using undercover cops, then it is *also* the case that a sufficiently large drug cartel is stalking undercover cops (perhaps by planting or buying off undercover cops). To that end, the issue then becomes if the drug problem in the area is so marginal that there's little risk (ie, in the same realm as just about any other legally gathered information on an individual, which (for example) at least some corporations likely (like google) keep track of on an individual) of the information being readily available, whether it's so bad that the blogger's efforts are redundant to the drug dealers's/cartel's already extant information, or whether the drug problem is somewhere between those extremes. The answer doesn't seem so clear cut to me that the officers are actually at risk.
*PS - One could obviously argue that governments can't commit illegal harm, only individuals in government can. But, it is generally recognized that unequal application of the law is a form of harm that is inherently illegal because it is unequal and hence goes against the idea of law being written and exercised as a step in improving justice in a society.
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I and someone else didn't opt in to Microsoft wasting our time. More importantly, me helping someone else doesn't save me any time overall. Perhaps that someone else bears some of the blame, but I don't think all the blame can be shifted on people who quite clearly are incapable (either intellectually or through gross lack of information available) of having truly opted in to all that was entailed.
People opted in to Wallace's crap the same way they "opted-in" to Microsoft's crap: it's a consequence of using the system for which most people acknowledge there really is no solution, short of avoiding the system. With e-mail, you can't hold the system at fault nor can the system be fixed, but in Microsoft's case you can hold them at fault and in many cases they can fix the problem. As for saving time overall, presumably somewhere Wallace spammed someone who actually bought what Wallace was peddling, thereby saving themself time overall. Your argument only plays well if you look at overall societal utility, but then I'm not really sure Microsoft gets a positive score in that area either (perhaps they and all OS makers (and Wallace) do by shear inherent increased efficiency due to computers and telecommunication.
There's this magical thing called "Java". Perhaps you've heard of it? Even without Java, if your Blackberry and Treo 600 happen to use the same processor and a similar enough OS, why should Treo's maker or Blackberry's maker stop you from you finding a way to run the app on either device through warranty voiding? That's the complaint (obviously leveled at the iPhone, really).
The former (phones don't kill you) and the latter (the phone industry is not nearly as regulated) really shouldn't matter. In fact, more regulation really doesn't matter in this equation. What does matter is that locking software to a device is anti-competitive (which in itself doesn't matter, but it leaves a company open to anti-trust violation should it grow big) and threatening to void a warranty solely of their discretion is a violation of extant warranty laws (how much and what kind and where a manufacturer can wave warranty because of user modification is obviously a country-by-country affair, but product regulation in the US, for example, isn't so lax to effectively be null).
Clearly you're expectations aren't low enough. Even if everything was copyleft'd (specifically, GPLv2'd), you couldn't expect to be able to move apps from one platform to another or even otherwise identical platforms. Clearly, you're using expectation in the "what I expect to see in the past, present, and future" sense. The GP was speaking of expectation in the "what I demand to see in the future" sense.
An obvious stupid question, but what's to prevent a person from using the same algorithm to use modify their copy before redistributing it? Done a few times, and you've effectively got a digital analog of analog degradation.
That's some great logic. Obama pushes for better schools, roads, etc, so he's for equality, not quality. And then when, this being a capitalistic society, he chooses to spend his money to obtain a superior education for his children, he's just not being communistic enough? You do realize, btw, that Animal Farm is about communism, right?
Wrong on so many levels. As others have noted, the right-of-way areas used to lay those "ultra-fast optical connection"s and that "high speed dial-up" telephone wire was the result of a government subsidy to telecommunication companies to avoid having to negotiate and settle with whatever deal they could get from the millions of property owners to lay their wires. Besides that, there is no guarantee of "high-speed dial-up" unless you consider "high-speed dial-up" equivalent to 9600 baud.
And this misses the point entirely. The objective isn't to make things equally good for all people. The objective is, as stated, to give better opportunities to people. This involves providing for a better minimal education, a better minimal transportation network, a better minimal communication network, etc. The important words here are "better minimal". If you wish to argue that a "better minimal" is not possible, then how do you explain Sweden, Norway, Japan, etc which do seem to have better minimals?
And advocate taxation and regulation to make and enforce laws against theft, murder, and fraud to make things "fair". No, let's not dare tax the "superrich" a penny so that their society that maintains their wealth and position continues to exist. I'm sure they'll have enough money left over to buy up security squads to kill all those that oppose them. If nothing else, that system might be cheaper, and clearly any system advocated that costs more than the cheapest method must be advocated by "crusaders for equality".
Perhaps you should read Harrison Bergeron. No, not even the pigs of Animal Farm wanted to amputate their most gifted animals (or the Soviets their most gifted Olympic athletes). Yes, there is certainly a danger to the rhetoric for those few who do wish to limit the most gifted precisely because they're gifted. But, the other extreme is to allow those who are gifted to create dynasties where others equally or more gifted are oppressed under the w
Then you must either have a loose definition of evil, a loose definition of unethical, or live a very closeted life.
Sure, some very small minority believe Stallman is a pure saint. Most recognize that he pushes an extreme ideology which is currently unlivable, so compromise is necessary to avoid living a closeted life.
Not quite. He holds the position that some people can't reasonably work on GPL software unless they dual-license it. This, like the LGPL, is a compromise Stallman has taken to try to foster more development in GPL or GPL-like licenses. Hopefully, even more people will realize Stallman isn't a saint.
Granted. Those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. But, such a position really works into being unable to call anyone or anything evil unless one is a pure saint. Since few to no such people exists, I don't think it's a reasonably position to take. The real issue is how overly broadly and commonly uses the word evil, not that he uses it at all.
Speaking of glass houses... Yes, there will almost certainly be those few people extreme enough willing to kill for an idea, regardless of the movement. As much as Stallman has called proprietary software evil and implicitly those who make it evil, he has never remotely advocated violence. He has instead advocated a new ideology of free software and directly put effort into developing it. To call him or his followers "as single-mindedly obsessed as the Taliban" is just as accurate as "as single-mindedly obsessed as the Civil Rights Movement". But, clearly, the latter doesn't have the same pejorative nature as the former does. Nor, clearly, are the methods or ends remotely similar.
Stallman may be very wrong in calling proprietary software evil, but trying to conflate him or his followers to violent groups is absurd and offensive. Stallman is no saint, and sainthood is no basis to believe in ideas or follow a person. If you find his ideas offensive, well that's life.
It's the seeming paradox of the free market at work. To prevent fraud and allow competition, companies have to be transparent. This is required because without adequate information, deception can easily occur. Fraudsters want a black box to hide their deception. Non-fraudsters want a black box to effectively lock out competitors, giving them a monopolistic position. The GPL is an anti-black box, by allowing people to understand how the software works to know whether it's worth the money spent. If copyright were to be dissolved, this black box phenomenon would likely get worse. Regulation would invariably be necessary, just as more regulation is necessary in the financial markets.
Btw, this would be the seeming paradox. People treat the free market and Laissez-faire as the same. Yet, clearly, laissez-faire is what creates the black boxes that break the free market model; ie, the two ideas aren't truly compatible. The free market model presumes that people are rational; ie, they won't gamble their money or take risky ventures, like relying upon black box or overly complex models they don't understand. Since people clearly aren't rational on that standard, regulation is very much a necessity. The real issue, then, is how to well regulate the regulators from the extremes of under regulation, over regulation, and corruption.
PS - Why, yes, I did watch Frontline last night.
Keychest takes control of the worlds nuclear arsenal and attacks, killing most consumers. Keychest reports a massive increase in piracy rates.
Just wanted to fix that for you.
In related news, my new Hello World Server (TM) has released hit 10 billion CALs. That might have something to do with my 10 billion CALs grant per Hello World Server (TM).
Actually, it's quite relevant. Microsoft, like most businesses, isn't interested in selling a product once to every person. To do so, they could at best sell approximately one copy to every person on Earth; then they'd be stuck having to create a whole new product. Since Microsoft can't sell multiple *exact* copy to each person, they instead make minor or major improvements to an existing product. If Microsoft sells a product to someone and that person don't use it, they're less likely to buy an updated version of that product (short of some "clever" bundling to pump up numbers, eg. MS Paint, or monopolist pressures to conform).
Since SharePoint is being sold and doesn't grant enough leverage to be freely bundled with another product to make a de facto installed monopoly, Microsoft is trying to highlight CAL numbers to make the impression that SharePoint is developing a monopolistic position and therefore it would be wise to buy future versions even if one is upset with the current version. Yes, Microsoft has good [marketing] reason to advertise their SharePoint sales figures, but their push to highlight CAL sales is obviously intended to spark a belief in companies that there are hundreds of millions of users of SharePoint. But, that's about as absurd as thinking most IPv4 class A blocks were significantly used or my Hello World Server (TM) is really serving anywhere near close to 10 billion people.
In short, if Microsoft wants to gloat about sales figures, that's great. I wouldn't expect any less. But, the least they could do is conduct a survey to actually get some handle on actually license usage. Otherwise, the 100 million figure is almost entirely an irrelevant number (it's small relevance is some idea on the hypothetical average cost per user, but odds are good that there's an error upwards of at least an order of magnitude, hence the need for a survey).
That's precisely the point. If vendors don't want to contribute their changes back, GPLv3 developers don't want the vendor using their code. That way they can buy products that use their code and be assured (well, more assured) that the product is not locked-down. That was what part of the spirit of the GPL. The GPLv2 failed to spell out once edge case that would prevent it. None of this is about pressuring vendors to release changes. It *is* about pressuring vendors to not use GPL software unless they want to contribute.
The terms of the GPL, requiring people release source code, limits the use of GPL-licensed software. Without *some* terms limiting use, people/companies could use the software without contributing back in a meaningful way. Ie, the terms were written, as you indirectly note, to weed out those who'd rather go with BSD code or some other licensed code than assuredly contribute fixes. The terms of the GPLv3, requiring the release of signing keys, is a further attempt to weed out those companies who do not wish to contribute.
That's what I thought you meant. So, if the router has GPLv3 code in its firmware, the fact that it needs the firmware signed is fine, since they'll give away the signing keys with the source.
The hardware can prevent the user from using the software on said hardware. If the point of buying the hardware is to use the software on said hardware, then clearly there's a problem for the user. That of course leads to...
If that $30 router uses GPLv3 code in its firmware, then I've already bought a "real router". That's a major point of the GPLv3, by the way. It also means that developers can release GPLv3 code and be assured that legally, no "fake" router can contain their code (barring fair use, of course). TiVo chose to follow the letter of the GPLv2; now, the letter of the GPLv3 allows makers and users of GPLv3 code to not experience TiVo-like behavior when they stick with GPLv3 code. I'm not quite sure what there is to boo hoo about.
Now I know why GNU/RMS is safe.
The main purpose of school is education. If a class or teacher is boring and you're not learning, learn on your own. Should the teacher be fired for boring lectures? Possibly. But when it comes to Junior High and High School students, one's education should occur even in spite of whatever challenges school brings. Yes, school at a young age can kill curiosity; but, it is the primary job of parents and then students to maintain curiosity, not teachers. By the time biology class rolls around, certainly there's little most teachers can do to help a student who's had a dead curiosity for possibly over a decade; perhaps a few, super-fantastic teachers can bring it back to life, but that generally comes at a great cost of time and is hardly a viable strategy to long-term education.
I'm not saying learning has to be boring--well, a little bit is invariably. I certainly would welcome a teacher who can make learning exciting if it takes no more time than a boring lesson, but trying to brush the responsibility of parents and students under the rug and laying it on teachers to be entertaining is little more than saying everything in schools should be edutainment. Edutainment might be a nice treat once in a while, but it is by no means the way to educate.
Two major points. One, Palm is probably already regularly updating their firmware anyways (well, one would hope); so, keeping up to date with Apple's changes, whatever they might be, is already a sunk cost. Two, there's nothing stopping Apple from dropping third-party support at any time or to "update" the formatting for third-parties regularly. Clearly they've shown they're willing to try to intentionally cripple a competitor. If third-parties are already being treated as second-class citizens when it comes to iTunes, why would you as a quasi-first class citizen back down when it will only put yourself in a worse position? I'd imagine Palm wants to obtain any edge it can seemingly get.
So, in airy fairly land of Open Source/Academia, standards are eschewed in favor of pragmatism, while Corporate America, with shrinking revenue streams, is obsessed about the standard?
A few days, in your spare time, off the books? Or would you rather just hack your Vendor/Device ID in five seconds to get it working? Which is cheaper?
How dare those bastards take advantage of extant libraries or programs. Next thing you know, they'll be compiling against Windows libraries and using Internet Explorer to display things.
Non-GPL software piggy backs on GPL software all the time. A large part of the web servers runs on GPL software, and every proprietary web browser is piggy backing on them. It's not sufficient to "piggy back" some software to violate copyright/trademark/whatever. If it were, the only way you could run software is if everything on the system was copyrighted by one entity.
Now, as for this being a USB IF violation, that's an actually valid point. But, to that end, if Palm is stripped of being able to advertise USB devices, so should Apple since clearly Apple's Vendor/Device pairing has nothing to do with iPhone specific quirks. No, Apple intentionally broke working software by misusing the USB specification.
RMS is leader of the Free Software movement. The OSS movement sprung about precisely because there were people interested in Open Software who didn't want to be associated with Free Software ideology; ie, they were more interested in pragmatism than "[Free Software]/Academia" ideology. It's funny you're actually argue for RMS's position and chastising Perens for being more OSS movement oriented.
You can't. You can de facto violate a license granting you privileges that copyright otherwise forbid, thereby nullifying the license and thereby committing copyright infringement. No stealing is involved.
Copyright is bad, period. The real issue at hand is fraud and abuse of existing copyright enforcement. Piracy is bad when you claim to be the maker of a work you're not a maker of, claim to be a distributer of a copy from a maker when you're not, or you try to force people to stop making copies or modifications of your copy. Violating licenses, like the GPL, is good when you make it clear that you're not the original maker and that you're trying your best to make code available for others to modify, even if you're not really sure you can mix all the code together under a license (thinking mixing GPL code and CDDL code) legally.
Oh, and obviously, bad != illlegal, good != legal.
"This kind of malware" is scareware. Scareware is software that claims you've been infected, probably through a software exploit, and that you need to install their software to fix the problem. It's social engineering. To that end, if Linux had significant market share, 99.999%* of installed software would come through a distribution's package management system. Ie, virtually all software installed would be vetted by a distribution.
Microsoft's problem, as it were, is that they don't vet software. This includes not only run of the mill software but also anti-malware software. As a result, people in the Windows world are left to fend for themselves when it comes to finding and installing anti-malware software. If Linux had significant market share, it's quite possible that there'd be more malware released for Linux. However, anti-malware would be vetted and be a part of most Linux distributions as well.
Ie, scareware websites couldn't work except on true idiots because people would know that on a Linux platform, downloading and installing programs off websites is dangerous and unnecessary. Windows users probably will never be able to have the same sentiment because there's no one in the Windows world that can be trusted to vet software. Microsoft has too much of a vested interest in their own software, and virtually no other company is in a position to withstand lawsuits when malware gets through. I'm not sure how immune Linux distributions would be in the same circumstance, but I think they'd be legally safer giving away the software for free.
*The number would be 100% for almost everyone, but people who still compiled things (and idiots) would drag down the average.
A bit off-topic, but the same could be said about health care. The problem is, politicians are so jingoistic that everything is "the best" in America. Much like AA, the first step is admitting you have a problem. We're not there yet. We just pay lip service to the idea.
Almost certainly. If a patient doesn't come in complaining about feeling unhappy sometimes and demanding an anti-depressant, pharmaceutical companies have trained doctors well enough to see any of the very broad symptoms of depression in their patient and to prescribe the latest hot anti-depressant. Is it any wonder, then, when a revisit of a drug test should include a lot of people misdiagnosed with depression for which neither placebo nor anti-depressant will have any effect?
Internet Explorer, as the default browser, has Bing as the default search engine and as default for making suggestions. The information this provides to Bing is valuable in the field of advertising. Google wants to push their own browser to route such information to Google. Both sides are betting on the fact that most people are too lazy to change their defaults--or possibly, unwilling to commit themselves to one application over another because it shows a level of geekiness they do not want to commit themselves to defending. History seems to side very well with the idea with PCs. This is precisely how MS became the dominant force on the PC.
In short, if OEMs feel they can "snub" Microsoft when it comes to their web browser, it opens the door for all sorts of companies with enough money to push their product through to replace Microsoft's offering in the same way that Microsoft did it to their competitors. That seems a rather big deal.
They're called Anti-Competitive Practicies, they're at times illegal in most western countries, Microsoft was found guilty of them in the US, and the US government rolled over and did nothing because "[some] advocates of laissez-faire capitalism (such as Monetarists, some Neoclassical economists, and the heterodox economists of the Austrian school) reject the term, seeing all "anticompetitive behavior" as forms of competition that benefit consumers." Feel free, especially, to read the part about "natural monopolies" and consider how many Republicans are so inclined to end regulation.
I never said I supported it. I only pointed out how illogical Neptunes_Trident's refutals of it was (focus on who gets money and a focus on it increasing taxes).
Your idea is interesting, but why do you want to cap CO2 production without taxing it? I presume the whole idea of taxing all goods based on CO2 is to indirectly regulate CO2. If you're already doing that, why the extra step of capping CO2 locally? Either the taxes will not have a noteable effect, no matter how much taxing you do (in which case, taxing isn't the way to go), or they will, which removes any real need for direction CO2 cap regulation.
Polar bears don't eat much during the summer. A shorter spring translates into less bulk built up, which especially hurts polar bear young and pregnant polar bears. Cooler summer won't magically fix this.
"Each of the last 12 years (1997-2008) was one of the warmest on record, although the last two years have grown cooler, not warmer."
Which doesn't explain why the Earth's current warming isn't linked with the warming/cooling of the other planets.
Which means nothing, really, since An Inconvenient Truth, regardless of how ficticious it might be, isn't the basis for global warming concerns. Scientific studies and reports about scientific studies are the primary basis for concern. Even if in instances reports have been incorrect or exaggerative, overall the reports have been consistent in their characterization of those scientific studies, as noted by the various climatologists scientists who have been asked.
And oil companies stand to lose billions if Cap and Trade is passed. But, that's irrelevant. What is relevant is whether Cap and Trade, in HR2454, actually has an effect on global warming.
Okay..and? Is there some reason why if you're in the business of selling a home you shouldn't be treated like any other business?
What "all this media spin" do you speak of? By the way, income taxes have been the most invasive tax bill ever brought upon the people of the US.
Which holds true for what percentage of bills in the house? I admit it's a shameful truth, but unless your making this statement to bring awareness to this problem to fix it in general, it's merely selective pandering against a bill you dislike.
Or ANY non-mass public opinion. Merely going along with the opinion of others makes you a pathetic patsy. Forming a belief on your own that happens to coincide with "mass public opinion" or "non-mass public opinion" at least makes that belief of some worth.
If you're tired of "huge debt with these bailouts", why aren't you for Cap and Trade. It raises taxes, which is the primary way to pay off debt. Perhaps you've mixed up your rant with the Heath Care Reform debate? Personally, I'd like to see more discussion about our massively wasteful spending on things like the military. No other nation in the world spends 40% of their budget on their military/"defense". And that percentage certainly isn't becaus
If you actually look over the patent being sued over, US Patent 5,787,449, you'll notice a major similarity to Microsoft's patent on LFNs. Specifically, US Patent 5,787,449 patents the idea of keeping document formating and content separate--ie, to have two separate streams of information instead of one. A simple idea for an implimentation, then, would be to have a plain .txt file and a separate tag+index file and a program that loads the two together, patches the .txt file in memory, and treats the result as an XML file.
In a similar vein, up until Windows 95, there were various schemes to overcome the 8.3 limitation of DOS filenames. Most used the idea of keeping a separate file (descript.ion for example) containing a short and long filename and merging them in memory with the directory listing for long filename supporting programs. Microsoft decided to do something similar, except they stored the long file names directly within the directory listing--ie, the took two separate streams of information and made them one.
What was my point? Merely that the idea of spliting or joining streams of related information is not at all a novel idea, inherently, although people may come up with more or less clever implementations to accomplish the goal. To that end, I'd be more than happy to support Microsoft in its efforts to stop i4i's patent, presuming of course that they too would stop suing companies like TomTom over similar patents they hold.
Yes? If I need an officer of the law *immediately*, knowing where and who is an officier nearby would be very useful. Yes, most the time (99%), it'd be better to call a central dispatch. But, there are times that when not having to wait 4 minutes for an officier to arrive is a good thing. Besides, it means one can develop a relationship with the officier in question. And it's just human nature for a human to care more about people they know, so having a good relationship with an officier is always a good thing, be they the local beat cop (assuming you have one) or a neighbor cop. Besides, if we have a sex offender registry to help us avoid bad people, what wouldn't we want an officier registry to help us meet and interact with good people?
Well, presuming I became a police officier to protect and serve the community and to interact with it, yes I'd very much appreciate it. Would I fear for my family's life? Possibly. But unless I have a specific "super villain" adversary or I live in a community with a history of police officer family's being harmed, I would be being overly paranoid. In the former case, I would protect my family by keeping them hidden *regardless* since clearly such an adversary could merely track or hire to track my movements. In the latter case, I'd do the same because, again, my movements are always open to being tracked and I would be interested in obscuring my family from harm. But, I can't really understand the idea of putting myself in harms way, ready to protect the community from such villains, and yet being so willing to tuck my tail between my legs and run from any way of contacting *me* when I set out to be contacted and help people. In such a role, do I really fear society as a whole so much that a few bad apples will make me treat all of society as a danger I must avoid where possible?
Yes, but that's the problem. Stalking is generally illegal because it is presumed that anyone so interested in stalking an individual is interested in commiting illegal harm against the stalked. When it comes to governments stalking individuals, the barrier of outrage is generally lower because governments have much more power than individuals in causing harm*. Similarly, it is presumed that there exist drug cartels of some nature which have more power than this indiviudal blogger, hence the outrage.
However, it would then logically follow that if the government is effectively stalking drug dealers using undercover cops, then it is *also* the case that a sufficiently large drug cartel is stalking undercover cops (perhaps by planting or buying off undercover cops). To that end, the issue then becomes if the drug problem in the area is so marginal that there's little risk (ie, in the same realm as just about any other legally gathered information on an individual, which (for example) at least some corporations likely (like google) keep track of on an individual) of the information being readily available, whether it's so bad that the blogger's efforts are redundant to the drug dealers's/cartel's already extant information, or whether the drug problem is somewhere between those extremes. The answer doesn't seem so clear cut to me that the officers are actually at risk.
*PS - One could obviously argue that governments can't commit illegal harm, only individuals in government can. But, it is generally recognized that unequal application of the law is a form of harm that is inherently illegal because it is unequal and hence goes against the idea of law being written and exercised as a step in improving justice in a society.