OTOH, I'm not sure there are a lot of 'good' reasons to be a bad driver...people who regularly drive while tired as just as dangerous as people who regularly drive while drunk. A better idea might be to partially forgive non-repeating reasons, aka, 'I was in a hurry because someone I know just got hospitalized'.
I'll give a simple example of the kind of behavior I'd love to see a crackdown on. It's the kind of thing that actually does cause accidents. The other day I was driving to work. I had the green light and was going straight through an intersection (i.e. I was not turning). I clearly had right-of-way. Someone with a red light decides to pull out right in front of me. I have good reflexes and it thankfully wasn't that difficult to avoid hitting him.
Get this: I was the only other car on the road. Had he waited about seven seconds he'd have had the entire road to himself. Additionally, once this individual got in front of me, he decided to drive quite slowly, significantly below the speed limit. Because of those two factors, not even "I was in a hurry" explains this behavior.
A lot of drivers in my area are like this though I doubt it's specific to my area at all. It's just a childish "me first!" mentality from so-called adults.
I don't want people like this to have licenses. The purpose of requiring a license is to establish competency, usually by means of instruction and training. This person is clearly not a competent driver. Therefore he should not have a license.
I'd rather the states stop using traffic violation fines as a revenue source. Instead, I'd like them to institute a severely difficult competency test as a requirement for having a license. This test should have an expensive fee each time it is taken. It should be required for all new drivers, and also to reinstitute a suspended or revoked license. The failure rate for this test should be above 50% due to its difficulty. Following too closely, failure to yield right-of-way, blocking the passing lane by needlessly hanging out in someone's blind spot, impeding traffic by going significantly under the speed limit in good conditions, using the double-yellow line as a guide for the left tires, and swerving into the opposing lane of traffic on sharp curves would all be instant failures with no refund and a six-month waiting period before being allowed to retest. I'd rather they use the fees from this test as a revenue source instead of traffic tickets.
If "driving is a privilege, not a right" then it should be a privilege reserved for mature adults who understand the concept that their actions can impact others. Let the rest take the bus or hire a cab.
If the cable company could send a bandwidth bill to netflix for example, well netflix has to charge users more per movie to pay for that bandwidth bill. They can make netflix charge enough so that its cheaper to keep your cable tv subscription than watch your tv shows and movies off the internet.
They could do something radical, extreme, and utterly crazy. Like pricing their Internet access in such a way that it realistically reflects the price of providing it, rather than hoping to subsidize it with another avenue of business such as cable TV or trying to strong-arm other companies into paying them for non-existent debts.
MADD can kiss my fucking ass. They aren't even about drink driving anymore -- their Founder left the organization because they've turned into (in her words) a neo-prohibitionist organization.
That's an inevitable and unfortunate side effect of basing public policy on extreme visceral emotions, like the loss of a loved one. The idea that someone you care about is hurt, maimed, or killed because of the completely preventable, blatant irresponsibility and disregard for life of a drunk driver is quite naturally an extreme and very emotional position. I'll make an understatement and say that it's downright fucking horrible and I wouldn't wish it on any enemy. That's quite understandable.
The problem is that because this begins with an extreme and emotional position it has its basis in visceral satisfaction. It does not have its basis in a reasonable approach to making changes to the law and the culture to ultimately benefit society. It is natural that what begins with an extreme finds its home within an extreme such as neo-Prohibition. Prohibition of any sort is quite simply the failure to recognize human beings as moral agents capable of making choices and being held responsible for those choices and instead transferring that status to inanimate objects like bottles of ethanol. It's completely unreasonable and dehumanizing. It also doesn't work.
Just as a judge is expected to recuse himself from a case to which he has personal connections, those who have been deeply, personally, and tragically affected by drunk driving are the least qualified to create public policy concerning it. The neo-Prohibition is because enough is never enough. Enough is never enough because the pain of such a staggering loss like these mothers have unjustly suffered is so great that no piece of legislation can hope to take it away.
I'm 100% behind using the police power of government to stop drunk drivers. I drive a car, too. So do my friends and family. I don't want to be endangered by someone else's blatant stupidity, nor do I desire that for anyone else. But I say that based on sound principle of what is reasonable, not emotional hatred of people who perpetrate such crimes. What I support even more than stopping drunk drivers is the preservation of our civil liberties while doing it. You can't get that with ends-justify-the-means thinking.
If someone refuses to use reason and principle, and death and loss are the only criteria they recognize, then I want them to consider this: lots of people die because of drunk drivers. How many people fought and died to secure the civil liberties that made this country the light of the world? How many more will suffer and die if we erode those civil rights and become a totalitarian police state?
Personally, I have zero sympathy for drunk drivers.
Same here. I just want them to be arrested and prosecuted based on observable behavior, such as the way that they drive. A dangerous driver who disregards safety is not exactly difficult to detect. On the plus side, doing things this way might accomplish more towards addressing the dangerous drivers who are quite sober but just aggressive and/or stupid.
When a police officer suspects impaired driving, and they pull you over and suspect you are drunk, I have no problem with asking for a breathalyzer. And if you refuse, I have no problem with assuming that the driver, was in fact drunk.
Then I'd rather you lobby for the repealing of the Fifth Amendment. That's a damn sight better than simply ignoring it. It's also the honest way to get what you seem to want. It's much more honest than coming up with clever ways to get around it, such as implied consent laws. "Driving is a privilege, not a right" is true, but the Fifth Amendment does not say "this law of the land does not apply to privileges". In fact it applies to the government whenever it wants to use its police power against a citizen, for any reason.
A concept that is totally unrelated in subject but completely related in principle is the notion of a "free speech zone". You see, that's a clever way to get around the First Amendment. That was also perpetrated by someone who did not want to honestly lobby for the repealing of the First Amendment and instead wanted to play clever word games to effectively ignore it.
I am not saying you are playing clever word games. I am saying that you have adopted the positions of people who are like religious zealots. A
"true believer" thinks that the ends always justify the means. If it means throwing out 200+ years of jurisprudence and American traditions of freedom, if it means weakening the highest law of the land, then so be it as long as we catch a few drunks, right? Such people are utterly confident of their position and can be quite convincing. I can tell you are influenced by their thinking as long as the crusade is difficult to argue with, like "we want to catch drunk drivers". That still doesn't make it right.
Blowing on a breathalyzer is not a big deal. It is not some infringement on your rights to blow a little air into a straw.
The difference is that in any other criminal matter, you are not punished for refusing to incriminate yourself. When the cop asks you to blow into a tube, he is asking you to prove that you are innocent. That is not the way our system is supposed to work. It's the cop's job to gather evidence that you have committed a crime. The fact that we really don't like this particular crime is not a good reason to change this. That's the sort of reactive emotional thinking that is a complete departure from the wisdom of "innocent until proven guilty".
No reasonable person would refuse such a trivial request unless they had something to hide.
That's the most honest statement of your position so far. Not "honest" in terms of deception but "honest" in terms of showing a full awareness of the implications, as in the truth and the whole truth. "I've got nothing to hide, so I'll submit to any infringement of my civil rights" is a very, very dangerous position. The DUI implied consent laws are a clever way to ignore the 5th Amendment. The asset forfeiture laws of the War on (some) Drugs are a clever way to ignore the 4th Amendment. Free speech zones are a clever way to ignore the 1st Amendment. The federal government's practice of unfunded mandates on the one hand, and encouraging states to desperately depend on federal money on the other, is a clever way around the 10th Amendment. I won't even discuss the 2nd Amendment. That's where your sentiment leads, what it produces, what it evolves toward and blossoms into. It is not a static idea but a dynamic entity that expands whererver it can.
I don't like drunk drivers either but they are rather tame compared to the full expression of that sentiment.
you'd think if they were trying to sell us on swampland that they wouldn't use the word "compromise"
Actually when dealing with businessmen and politicians the word "compromise" is one of the key warning signs. When they use it, it's designed to dispel opposition without actually removing the causes of opposition. It sounds so good and reasonable.... until...
That said they should've stuck to their guns. Their new Net Neutrality position sucks.
Fact: Yes we sold out, but we didn't sell that much...
Hah. Yeah, the first MYTH about principles is that they can be compromised and retain their status as principles. The (polite) term for this is situational ethics.
Um... what? Wireless is MORE competitive? Do they live in the US? Where did they get this false info?
While international in scope, Google is a US-based company. Slashdot is the same way, so yes this probably does focus on the USA. Further, I don't think Verizon operates outside of the USA at all, at least not under that name. Still, I had a similar response to a different portion of the summary text:
Third, network and device openness is now beginning to take off as a significant business model in this space.
In other words, the tremendous and completely artificial efforts to prevent network and device openness are finally beginning to fail.
Arrest doesn't have to be proven, though, so I'm sure there'll be lots of cases of mild defamation by association of being on the site.
It's funny that of all the crimes out there, they choose to do this with DUI suspects. The notion that "driving is a privilege, not a right" has been twisted and abused so that if you are accused by the state of a DUI offense, you either have to incriminate yourself or suffer a punishment for not incriminating yourself. On a MVR (motor vehicle record) the charge for refusing a breathalyzer is quite similar to the charge for having taken and failed a breathalyzer. DUI, certain asset forfeiture laws, and maybe sexual harassment are the only crimes where the accused must demonstrate innocence. None of this is compatible with a reasonable interpretation of the Fifth Amendment, yet it goes on, because it's "for our own good" or something.
So it's interesting that this is done with DUI arrestees. They're basically screwed either way. This attempt to attach a stigma just makes that more so.
That said, I did read something recently that said (IIRC) naming and shaming doesn't actually help reduce crime rates.
That makes sense. It's common sense, really. Criminals generally do not believe that they will get caught. If they believe that they will certainly get caught they tend not to do the crime. A stigma is a punishment that takes place after they get caught. Of course this isn't going to have much of a deterrent effect. If you really want to prevent crime, clever ways to make people suffer won't do the trick. That is punishment but it's not much of a deterrent. It'd be better to understand what personal/character flaws make someone like a DUI offender want to be so careless with the life and safety of others. Then you'd have some ability to prevent. But that's a much harder problem than locking people up or publically humiliating them which are quite easy to do by comparison.
Arrest doesn't have to be proven, though, so I'm sure there'll be lots of cases of mild defamation by association of being on the site.
I've always believed that there should be no such thing as an arrest record. There should be only a record of convictions. Otherwise someone can be haunted for the rest of their lives by a mere accusation that they have to explain to all future employers and others when in fact they are innocent. Otherwise people get the idea that cops and judges and politicians are something other than human beings who can make serious mistakes. Arrest records don't do anything to serve any real notion of justice. Neither does defaming someone who has not actually been convicted.
Because you can't control the close substitutes that are being sold either. For example, all three major video game consoles are like iPhones in that they need to be jailbroken to run anything interesting.
Unlike smartphones, gaming consoles don't usually know your phone number, your contacts, your e-mail, or have photos and videos of you and people you know in real life. It's a bit more important to have control over a device that holds all of that information than it is to control a device that has the sole purpose of playing video games. That's why there is much more such debate over one class of device (smartphones) and far less over another class of device (game consoles) in case you were wondering.
Its pretty patently clear that implantation is the ultimate goal, and this opens a whole can of worms best left unopened while the research is young.
Yeah, we'll keep it under the radar and let it gather lots of momentum, entrench itself in terms of research thus far invested, and then we'll spring open that can of worms. Surely that will avert the controversy concerning brain implants!
The fact that there's no reference to the government should be a give-away.
How do you propose to conduct a lawsuit or other legal proceeding without involving the government?
Not that I'd condone the use of that inane reference even if there was.
That's nice. Meanwhile you illustrate one of the problems with reacting that strongly to a word merely because you wouldn't use it yourself. Specifically, it caused you to forget that a lawsuit quite obviously does involve the government so a reference to the government is implicit.
Of course, the right of free speech - at least for everything beyond what the owner can personally defend against the world by means of force -- is also one of limited and artificially constructed grants of rights. Which isn't to say that property law is a branch of speech laws, but rather that free speech rights are just as artificial.
FTFY
YW:)
The Constitution of the USA is not based on such a premise. If it is the USA of which you speak, then you make a fundamental error. The basis of it is not that rights can be granted. The basis of it is that we have inalienable rights because we are human beings. We have those rights merely because we exist. The purpose of governemnt, then, is to recognize and protect those rights. That's the reason we have a legal system. Such rights are absolutely not "granted" or "given" but are merely acknowledged and honored.
The only way things can be "artificial" is if you have a model of feudalism where there is a poltiical elite which holds all the power. Otherwise there is the rule of law where all people are equal in the eyes of the law and all have the same fundamentl rights.
That's what is missing from the "living document" view of the Constitution. To folks who hold such a view, phrases like "shall not be infringed" are ambiguous and open to interpretation. I reject this viewpoint entirely.
What's that got to do with making a financial contribution being a legal obligation under the GPL?
To the best of my knowledge the GPL does not require any sort of financial contribution to anyone. It requires only that if you distribute software including GPL code, that you make the full source code (including your original work) available under the GPL. It requires further that you can't add additional restrictions to GPL-licensed code, etc.
So if I want to fork Firefox and make my own browser based on the Firefox source code, I can do that because it's GPL-licensed code. But if I distribute this to anyone else, I have to be willing to supply the full source code to that person or persons. That way they in turn have the option of doing the same thing that I did. None of this requires that money change hands. I could hire programmers for money to help me with my project but I am not required to do that. Others could also volunteer or I could do the whole thing myself.
My point is that because financial support is not required by any version of the GPL that I have read (keep in mind I am not a lawyer), it would be voluntary on Apple's part. Any financial support they do provide would be doing it for purposes of good PR and/or because they believe the investment will pay off in the form of useful software that they can incorporate into future products.
I would compare it to the many corporations who sponsor sports teams or donate money to charity organizations such as the United Way. They get no immediate or obvious financial benefit from doing those things. Yet they do them because it gets their name out there and makes the company look good. That is positive PR.
When the system for legislation gets so confusing that not even the people passing the bills can keep it straight, I think it shows that there is some fundamental flaw in the system, or it didn't scale well or something.
Do we have to go back to Schoolhouse Rock?
There's an easy fix for this. Make the following change to the Constitution:
Each year, before any new law can be created or any existing law modified, the Speaker of the House must first read aloud every last federal law on the books while all other members of Congress listen. If that takes more than one year (and the federal tax code alone would easily do so) then Congress is allowed only to repeal existing laws the following year. The next year after that, the reading aloud begins again and only if completed within one year can a new law be passed or an old law modified.
If you could go after people working for a company personally then nobody would work for a company
Just like if you could go after a contractor directly, nobody would be a contractor? Oh wait, you can, and there are. I'm pretty much on the far right politically, when it comes to economics. But I still don't necessarily support the idea of the corporate shield. Capitalism and corporatism are two separate concepts, and one can support one without the other.
Besides, the buck should stop with those who make the decisions, not those who are forced to carry them out. Removing the corporate shield wouldn't make working for a company any more dangerous - just running one. And I think we've seen enough examples lately to know that their just plain isn't sufficient accountability at that level of corporate management - the corporate shield is being abused.
Agreed. In fact the concept is so damned simple that few want to acknowledge it.
The corporate shield should be for any tort that could land an individual in civil court. It should also shield against debt, failed business ventures (businesses often take risks and those risks don't always work out for the business), and the like.
The corporate shield should absolutely never protect anyone against anything that would land an individual in criminal court. Collusion is just a fancy way of committing fraud. This is fraud. Fraud is a crime. Individuals who commit this crime go to prison. The executives who decided that this was a good idea are individuals who can be prosecuted. They are merely using the corporation as a proxy to commit the crime and are still guilty of fraud, just like a person who hires a hit-man is still guilty of murder even though he didn't do the deed directly.
None of this is difficult to understand. It's amazing how much debate there can be about such simple concepts.
Just in case you were wondering where the punishment of the families comes in, seen what they do during drug convictions? You have to prove that you bought your home before you started engaging in drug activity or they will seize it. Do you think that this is going to happen to these execs? Is there any reason why money made from drugs and money made from fraud should be treated differently by the state? I mean, besides one's personal feelings regarding the regulation of business, under which both of these hypotheticals fall?
Not only am I against the asset forfeiture laws that are excused by the War on (some) Drugs, I believe they are blatantly unconstitutional. Carrying a lot of cash? Well, "we know it's for drugs" so we're going to seize it without charging you with any crime, that way we don't have to prove anything.
If it were up to me we'd end the whole War on (some) Drugs and only concern ourselves with crimes that actually involve an unwilling victim. That would also de-fund all of the gangs and organized criminals that view illicit contraband as an important source of income. It would tremendously reduce crime -- no one had gunfights and died in the streets over alcohol until it was made illegal, for all of the same reasons we have so much violent crime now that is drug-related. The War on (some) Drugs is a complete and total failure according to any of its stated goals. Sorry to put it so bluntly but only a moron wants to continue doing something that fails over and over again while causing gigantic social costs, financial costs, and other collateral damage.
Ending this BS is such a good idea that no one with political power wants to do it. It would deprive them of useful crises and problems to solve.
If I responded strongly to the other poster, it's because anyone who sees injustice like the asset forfeiture laws and says "but it's acceptable if we really don't like you" is part of the problem. That's just the sort of character weakness that perpetuates this kind of injustice.
What I feel would work is make it a mandantory 2 year sentence at Leavenworth Federal Prison - Low Security the first time around. Give em hard labor and personally fine them. Increase the penalty to 5 years in the medium security section and if they're found guilty a thrid time, life in maximum security with the real dangerous criminals. Furthermore, place them in with the general population instead of the damn country club. Also in regards to the 2nd and 3rd offenses, you punish their families too.
If you or I committed such crimes personally without a corporation that resulted in the same amount of monetary loss, we would not get such light treatment as a low security prison away from the hardened prison population. Neither should the executives who create these issues.
I cannot rightly support punishing their families. If family members are proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have committed a crime, then by all means prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. Otherwise, advocating the punishing of innocents is much worse than any fraud the execs in question may have perpetrated. In fact it's quite likely that such innocents were as deceived by the perpetrators as anyone else. You should be ashamed for desiring such an outcome, sir. This is not honor or justice. It's a smack in the face to both. You lose the right to represent either honor or justice the moment you want to harm innocents who remain innocent until proven guilty. I cannot overstate how pathological such an urge actually is.
They have to prove that the house was bought with Mom's Money instead of Daddies and may be what it takes to get them thinking before they commit such crimes.
They have to prove nothing. That burden of proof is squarely on the shoulders of the prosecution should an accusation be made. You dishonor and shame yourself for advocating such a witch-hunt. It is beneath you. If it is not, it should be. If you are so easily corrupted by outrage then you are manifestly unfit to deal correctly with injustice, for you represent what you claim to be against.
If that stings a bit, it doesn't sting enough. How do you suppose people like those execs become so amoral and corrupt in the first place? It's because they see injustice like anyone else and eventually they become just like what they hate. Take this as a warning if there is any wisdom within you.
I think this is a good approach, personally. A much more significant and lasting punishment for the crime.
Question is, how long to punish? I think it would only be fair to force them to sell at a lowered price for the same duration they sold at jacked up prices. If they go out of business, tough shit. Should have thought about the consequences of the actions.
And yes, everyone who bought an LCD during those dates should either receive a reimbursement equal in % to what they were overcharged, or receive a coupon for that % off a purchase of any new LCD from that company that they buy.
No more light slaps on the back of the hands, corporations need a solid punch in the gut for pulling stunts like this.
There's one thing that needs to take place if you want a truly effective deterrent.
All top-level executives who supported this collusion need to be personally conviced of fraud in a criminal court. I'm guessing that fraud on the scale of multiple millions of dollars would land them some hard time in a maximum-security prison. Fraud is fraud even if the criminal who perpetrated the fraud did not directly receive the money out of which the victims were defrauded (i.e. it went directly to his/her corporation).
What needs to end NOW, and in fact is long overdue, is to remove the "untouchable" status of the people behind the scenes. If we did that, I personally wouldn't care if the corporation itself is fined or not because we'd be taking the punitive measures directly to the source of the problem. By contrast, a heavy fine proportional to the crime that is levied against the corporate entity might end up harming customers and/or rank-and-file employees who had no decision-making input regarding whether or not massive fraud was going to be committed.
The "limited liability" nature of a corporation should be for failed business ventures and unintentional negligence only (i.e. honest mistakes). It absolutely should never apply to intentional, willful criminal activity.
It's one of the natures of advancing society for its educated to become more and more specialized in knowledge. To expect everyone to maintain the technical facility to maintain anonymous internet identities is just as ludicrous as it is for anyone who doesn't know how to raise and reap their own crops to starve.
Common sense is not something that becomes "more specialized" merely because disciplines of knowledge are more specialized. I am amazed that this entire discussion revolves around technical competency.
Hey Slashdot, your rights and your privacy are not being compromised on a technological front. They are being compromised on a legal front. Warrentless wiretapping was given a pass by a court of law, retroactively even. If the people behind it did a lot of hard time in federal prison, you wouldn't have to worry so much about encryption and anonymization.
The common sense element can be stated thusly: some politician or organization wants to make excuses for spying on me and restricting freedoms I currently enjoy. I don't support this no matter how they wish to carry it out: low-tech or high-tech.
If that kind of clear insight were not so rare, we would not be having a discussion about technical countermeasures designed to frustrate a government that actively opposes our interests.
No, they can pass on that cost and people will use other parts.
Before we talk about the pros and cons of various forms of sanction against these companies, I have a simple question.
These multiple companies are being accused of colluding. That's a word for a specific type of conspiracy. Since this involves those companies conspiring together, does that mean we immediately scoff at the notion, dismiss it out-of-hand without examination of evidence, and accuse anyone who supports the notion of being a tin-foil hat-wearing nutter?
I just want a little consistency. That's how we treat anyone who suggests that people within government would conspire in some way when both money and power is involved. Why don't we act the same way when anyone suggests that people within corporations would conspire in some way when only money is involved?
Oh, right, because you can choose not to do business with particular corporations so you feel little to no need to bury your heads in the sand when they conspire. It's not so easy to escape the malfeasance of your own government, so you feel a desperate need to say that it isn't and could never be so.
Given how intangible goodwill is to accountants, I can't think of it in those terms. To me if the absolute results is one that is morally good, then I credit a company for that even if motivations may be mixed. After all, since much of what Apple works on is BSD licensed, they don't have to contribute to anything (though people would rightfully think much less of them if they did so).
I also think it's unfair to to Apple engineers who work really hard on the public facing stuff to say that the whole of the work is simply Apple the company wanting to gain goodwill. Real people work on that stuff and I think real people are proud of what they produce when others find it useful.
So I'm not saying the involvement in any one project is wholly altruistic, but neither is it wholly selfish and amoral. It's a moral obligation to give back to open source projects that you use, and so it follows naturally to consider companies that do so as being at least to some degree morally in the right as a result.
Goodwill is tangible enough that many firms specialize in PR. When they charge their clients for the service of providing spin or "good PR", they can tally up to the penny what their services are worth in that market.
The Apple engineers personally may have very altruistic motives. Or they may not. In either case, it would be much more difficult for their work to reach a wide and already-established audience under a brand that is already world-famous if they operated as individuals. Instead, they operate as part of an organization, an abstract corporate entity that believes putting them to this purpose is in its interests.
If you are referring to the GPL, it is a legal obligation to give back to the software projects that you use. Webkit in particular has components released under the LGPL and the rest is under a BSD license. Regarding the BSD components, Apple indeed has no legal obligation to give code back. But you can bet that they wouldn't give any BSD-licensed code back if they were certain it would cost them a competitive advantage. A CEO who allowed otherwise could even be sued by the shareholders.
The difference between true morality and convenience is that you follow your morality even when it's highly inconvenient, such as when it places you at a disadvantage. Otherwise the word that applies is "hypocrite".
That's why I view Apple Inc. and all other corporations as faceless amoral entities. A particular employee, some employees, or (unlikely) all employees might be quite moral, but that's because they are human beings. The corporation to which they contribute their labor and from which they draw a paycheck is absolutely amoral.
Incidentally this is why I have always felt it was a big mistake to give a corporation the legal rights of a person. Either that should be completely revoked, or, corporations guilty of crimes should have all assets frozen and all business operations halted for the duration of time that a human being would be incarcerated for the same offense. For the most severe offenses, the corporate death penalty (revocation of the corporate charter) should apply. There should be none of this bullshit where a corporation gets fined for doing things that would land you in prison if you did the same.
The patents do seem overly vague in that way, basically poster children for why software patents are bad to begin with.
Agreed. If we are going to have software patents, the duration needs to be adjusted for the rapid pace of technological advancement. If 12 years is appropriate for a brick-and-mortar business designing, prototyping, manufacturing, and marketing a physical product then 2-3 years should be appropriate for software.
Having said that... if it were up to me, copyright would be the only government-granted monopoly given to software. Computer and network technology is far too important to allow patents to imped
It isn't so much I have a sore spot, as I feel like people's motivations should be pointed out in a way that is self-reinforcing if valid. The person I was responding to didn't really care if Apple was lifting ideas or not, he was simply chortling with glee that there was something negative about Apple he could use as leverage to attack anyone who liked Apple products. So it was more Slashdot judo than anything.
"Slashdot Judo" is an interesting and amusing term for it. Sometimes I'm rather direct and not so creative as that. So, I tend to use words like "reacting and being the effect of a cause to something you could overcome with a better example". Really the only difference at all is caring about what the other person does.
It's a subtle thing. It's the difference between "setting them straight" versus "something's wrong with that". The former is about the messenger; the latter is about the message. The former impacts you in some way while the latter is dispassionate.
I personally feel the informative parts far outweigh the troll rating
It's easy to agree with that one. Then, I'm not among the easily offended. That makes me content with a "diamond in the rough". If a post is 90% garbage, I don't have to be offended or disappointed with that because I'm too busy appreciating the remaining 10%. There's no disagreement from me that a lot of mods feel no desire to understand a post before judging its merits. Thus they have a knee-jerk reaction to strong wording without a thought for whether it's justifiable.
, but was expecting some down-moderation from someone so rage-filled as to just ignore the pertinent things that were said - in effect the troll moderation is thus reinforcing the last point, which I find rather humorous.
Or it just shows the inherently irrational nature of operating on rage as a motivating or driving force behind one's actions. That may even explain your fascination with triggering the phenomenon. The drawback is that your humor may be the only purpose it serves.
That is not really correct. I consider one of the larger goods of Apple to be how it integrates open source and contributes back to same. The work they have done on Webkit, on LLVM, on HTML5 and many other little things (like Zeroconf) - these are all very good things, both from a practical and moral standpoint and absolutely benefit an audience much wider than only Apple customers.
The logic behind a successful corporation is that the expected cost of a thing is less than the expected gain from doing it. If Apple has worked on Webkit or any other project, it's because its gains from community support or goodwill or positive PR outweigh what it has to pay its employees to do so. I wouldn't call that "morally good" or morally anything. I would call that amoral.
If I were going to compliment or appreciate anything it would be the events that had to be set in motion before we'd have a situation where cooperation was viewed by an amoral corporation as its best possible maneuver. That would have a great deal to do with Open Source as a movement, various communities, various principles, and generally wouldn't have anything to do with Apple Inc.
That rules out any kind of altruistic behavior on the part of Apple. Their non-altruistic, monetarily compensated behavior is on behalf of their customers who compensate them. Any benefit to anyone else is secondary to this purpose. This again is amoral and not altruistic.
I can of course see where it counteracts, I myself pointed out how I consider this patent illustration thing to be copyright infringement and not good whatsoever. That said, does taking a few screen shots without permission really impact that wide an audience outside the world of patent applications and some iPhone application developers?
Slashdot Mirror
I'll give a simple example of the kind of behavior I'd love to see a crackdown on. It's the kind of thing that actually does cause accidents. The other day I was driving to work. I had the green light and was going straight through an intersection (i.e. I was not turning). I clearly had right-of-way. Someone with a red light decides to pull out right in front of me. I have good reflexes and it thankfully wasn't that difficult to avoid hitting him.
Get this: I was the only other car on the road. Had he waited about seven seconds he'd have had the entire road to himself. Additionally, once this individual got in front of me, he decided to drive quite slowly, significantly below the speed limit. Because of those two factors, not even "I was in a hurry" explains this behavior.
A lot of drivers in my area are like this though I doubt it's specific to my area at all. It's just a childish "me first!" mentality from so-called adults.
I don't want people like this to have licenses. The purpose of requiring a license is to establish competency, usually by means of instruction and training. This person is clearly not a competent driver. Therefore he should not have a license.
I'd rather the states stop using traffic violation fines as a revenue source. Instead, I'd like them to institute a severely difficult competency test as a requirement for having a license. This test should have an expensive fee each time it is taken. It should be required for all new drivers, and also to reinstitute a suspended or revoked license. The failure rate for this test should be above 50% due to its difficulty. Following too closely, failure to yield right-of-way, blocking the passing lane by needlessly hanging out in someone's blind spot, impeding traffic by going significantly under the speed limit in good conditions, using the double-yellow line as a guide for the left tires, and swerving into the opposing lane of traffic on sharp curves would all be instant failures with no refund and a six-month waiting period before being allowed to retest. I'd rather they use the fees from this test as a revenue source instead of traffic tickets.
If "driving is a privilege, not a right" then it should be a privilege reserved for mature adults who understand the concept that their actions can impact others. Let the rest take the bus or hire a cab.
They could do something radical, extreme, and utterly crazy. Like pricing their Internet access in such a way that it realistically reflects the price of providing it, rather than hoping to subsidize it with another avenue of business such as cable TV or trying to strong-arm other companies into paying them for non-existent debts.
Sane laws tend to place hard limits on the availability of political power. That's why they aren't so popular among politicians.
That's an inevitable and unfortunate side effect of basing public policy on extreme visceral emotions, like the loss of a loved one. The idea that someone you care about is hurt, maimed, or killed because of the completely preventable, blatant irresponsibility and disregard for life of a drunk driver is quite naturally an extreme and very emotional position. I'll make an understatement and say that it's downright fucking horrible and I wouldn't wish it on any enemy. That's quite understandable.
The problem is that because this begins with an extreme and emotional position it has its basis in visceral satisfaction. It does not have its basis in a reasonable approach to making changes to the law and the culture to ultimately benefit society. It is natural that what begins with an extreme finds its home within an extreme such as neo-Prohibition. Prohibition of any sort is quite simply the failure to recognize human beings as moral agents capable of making choices and being held responsible for those choices and instead transferring that status to inanimate objects like bottles of ethanol. It's completely unreasonable and dehumanizing. It also doesn't work.
Just as a judge is expected to recuse himself from a case to which he has personal connections, those who have been deeply, personally, and tragically affected by drunk driving are the least qualified to create public policy concerning it. The neo-Prohibition is because enough is never enough. Enough is never enough because the pain of such a staggering loss like these mothers have unjustly suffered is so great that no piece of legislation can hope to take it away.
I'm 100% behind using the police power of government to stop drunk drivers. I drive a car, too. So do my friends and family. I don't want to be endangered by someone else's blatant stupidity, nor do I desire that for anyone else. But I say that based on sound principle of what is reasonable, not emotional hatred of people who perpetrate such crimes. What I support even more than stopping drunk drivers is the preservation of our civil liberties while doing it. You can't get that with ends-justify-the-means thinking.
If someone refuses to use reason and principle, and death and loss are the only criteria they recognize, then I want them to consider this: lots of people die because of drunk drivers. How many people fought and died to secure the civil liberties that made this country the light of the world? How many more will suffer and die if we erode those civil rights and become a totalitarian police state?
Same here. I just want them to be arrested and prosecuted based on observable behavior, such as the way that they drive. A dangerous driver who disregards safety is not exactly difficult to detect. On the plus side, doing things this way might accomplish more towards addressing the dangerous drivers who are quite sober but just aggressive and/or stupid.
Then I'd rather you lobby for the repealing of the Fifth Amendment. That's a damn sight better than simply ignoring it. It's also the honest way to get what you seem to want. It's much more honest than coming up with clever ways to get around it, such as implied consent laws. "Driving is a privilege, not a right" is true, but the Fifth Amendment does not say "this law of the land does not apply to privileges". In fact it applies to the government whenever it wants to use its police power against a citizen, for any reason.
A concept that is totally unrelated in subject but completely related in principle is the notion of a "free speech zone". You see, that's a clever way to get around the First Amendment. That was also perpetrated by someone who did not want to honestly lobby for the repealing of the First Amendment and instead wanted to play clever word games to effectively ignore it.
I am not saying you are playing clever word games. I am saying that you have adopted the positions of people who are like religious zealots. A "true believer" thinks that the ends always justify the means. If it means throwing out 200+ years of jurisprudence and American traditions of freedom, if it means weakening the highest law of the land, then so be it as long as we catch a few drunks, right? Such people are utterly confident of their position and can be quite convincing. I can tell you are influenced by their thinking as long as the crusade is difficult to argue with, like "we want to catch drunk drivers". That still doesn't make it right.
The difference is that in any other criminal matter, you are not punished for refusing to incriminate yourself. When the cop asks you to blow into a tube, he is asking you to prove that you are innocent. That is not the way our system is supposed to work. It's the cop's job to gather evidence that you have committed a crime. The fact that we really don't like this particular crime is not a good reason to change this. That's the sort of reactive emotional thinking that is a complete departure from the wisdom of "innocent until proven guilty".
That's the most honest statement of your position so far. Not "honest" in terms of deception but "honest" in terms of showing a full awareness of the implications, as in the truth and the whole truth. "I've got nothing to hide, so I'll submit to any infringement of my civil rights" is a very, very dangerous position. The DUI implied consent laws are a clever way to ignore the 5th Amendment. The asset forfeiture laws of the War on (some) Drugs are a clever way to ignore the 4th Amendment. Free speech zones are a clever way to ignore the 1st Amendment. The federal government's practice of unfunded mandates on the one hand, and encouraging states to desperately depend on federal money on the other, is a clever way around the 10th Amendment. I won't even discuss the 2nd Amendment. That's where your sentiment leads, what it produces, what it evolves toward and blossoms into. It is not a static idea but a dynamic entity that expands whererver it can.
I don't like drunk drivers either but they are rather tame compared to the full expression of that sentiment.
You forget the easiest option C: don't drink and drive. Thanks a million, MADD.
I sure as hell don't need MADD to tell me that driving drunk is a bad idea. Do you?
Actually when dealing with businessmen and politicians the word "compromise" is one of the key warning signs. When they use it, it's designed to dispel opposition without actually removing the causes of opposition. It sounds so good and reasonable.... until ...
Until it's no longer so good and reasonable.
Fact: Yes we sold out, but we didn't sell that much...
Hah. Yeah, the first MYTH about principles is that they can be compromised and retain their status as principles. The (polite) term for this is situational ethics.
Um... what? Wireless is MORE competitive? Do they live in the US? Where did they get this false info?
While international in scope, Google is a US-based company. Slashdot is the same way, so yes this probably does focus on the USA. Further, I don't think Verizon operates outside of the USA at all, at least not under that name. Still, I had a similar response to a different portion of the summary text:
In other words, the tremendous and completely artificial efforts to prevent network and device openness are finally beginning to fail.
It's funny that of all the crimes out there, they choose to do this with DUI suspects. The notion that "driving is a privilege, not a right" has been twisted and abused so that if you are accused by the state of a DUI offense, you either have to incriminate yourself or suffer a punishment for not incriminating yourself. On a MVR (motor vehicle record) the charge for refusing a breathalyzer is quite similar to the charge for having taken and failed a breathalyzer. DUI, certain asset forfeiture laws, and maybe sexual harassment are the only crimes where the accused must demonstrate innocence. None of this is compatible with a reasonable interpretation of the Fifth Amendment, yet it goes on, because it's "for our own good" or something.
So it's interesting that this is done with DUI arrestees. They're basically screwed either way. This attempt to attach a stigma just makes that more so.
That makes sense. It's common sense, really. Criminals generally do not believe that they will get caught. If they believe that they will certainly get caught they tend not to do the crime. A stigma is a punishment that takes place after they get caught. Of course this isn't going to have much of a deterrent effect. If you really want to prevent crime, clever ways to make people suffer won't do the trick. That is punishment but it's not much of a deterrent. It'd be better to understand what personal/character flaws make someone like a DUI offender want to be so careless with the life and safety of others. Then you'd have some ability to prevent. But that's a much harder problem than locking people up or publically humiliating them which are quite easy to do by comparison.
I've always believed that there should be no such thing as an arrest record. There should be only a record of convictions. Otherwise someone can be haunted for the rest of their lives by a mere accusation that they have to explain to all future employers and others when in fact they are innocent. Otherwise people get the idea that cops and judges and politicians are something other than human beings who can make serious mistakes. Arrest records don't do anything to serve any real notion of justice. Neither does defaming someone who has not actually been convicted.
Why buy a device that you cannot control?
Because you can't control the close substitutes that are being sold either. For example, all three major video game consoles are like iPhones in that they need to be jailbroken to run anything interesting.
Unlike smartphones, gaming consoles don't usually know your phone number, your contacts, your e-mail, or have photos and videos of you and people you know in real life. It's a bit more important to have control over a device that holds all of that information than it is to control a device that has the sole purpose of playing video games. That's why there is much more such debate over one class of device (smartphones) and far less over another class of device (game consoles) in case you were wondering.
Yeah, we'll keep it under the radar and let it gather lots of momentum, entrench itself in terms of research thus far invested, and then we'll spring open that can of worms. Surely that will avert the controversy concerning brain implants!
How do you propose to conduct a lawsuit or other legal proceeding without involving the government?
That's nice. Meanwhile you illustrate one of the problems with reacting that strongly to a word merely because you wouldn't use it yourself. Specifically, it caused you to forget that a lawsuit quite obviously does involve the government so a reference to the government is implicit.
Of course, the right of free speech - at least for everything beyond what the owner can personally defend against the world by means of force -- is also one of limited and artificially constructed grants of rights. Which isn't to say that property law is a branch of speech laws, but rather that free speech rights are just as artificial.
FTFY
YW :)
The Constitution of the USA is not based on such a premise. If it is the USA of which you speak, then you make a fundamental error. The basis of it is not that rights can be granted. The basis of it is that we have inalienable rights because we are human beings. We have those rights merely because we exist. The purpose of governemnt, then, is to recognize and protect those rights. That's the reason we have a legal system. Such rights are absolutely not "granted" or "given" but are merely acknowledged and honored.
The only way things can be "artificial" is if you have a model of feudalism where there is a poltiical elite which holds all the power. Otherwise there is the rule of law where all people are equal in the eyes of the law and all have the same fundamentl rights.
That's what is missing from the "living document" view of the Constitution. To folks who hold such a view, phrases like "shall not be infringed" are ambiguous and open to interpretation. I reject this viewpoint entirely.
What's that got to do with making a financial contribution being a legal obligation under the GPL?
To the best of my knowledge the GPL does not require any sort of financial contribution to anyone. It requires only that if you distribute software including GPL code, that you make the full source code (including your original work) available under the GPL. It requires further that you can't add additional restrictions to GPL-licensed code, etc.
So if I want to fork Firefox and make my own browser based on the Firefox source code, I can do that because it's GPL-licensed code. But if I distribute this to anyone else, I have to be willing to supply the full source code to that person or persons. That way they in turn have the option of doing the same thing that I did. None of this requires that money change hands. I could hire programmers for money to help me with my project but I am not required to do that. Others could also volunteer or I could do the whole thing myself.
My point is that because financial support is not required by any version of the GPL that I have read (keep in mind I am not a lawyer), it would be voluntary on Apple's part. Any financial support they do provide would be doing it for purposes of good PR and/or because they believe the investment will pay off in the form of useful software that they can incorporate into future products.
I would compare it to the many corporations who sponsor sports teams or donate money to charity organizations such as the United Way. They get no immediate or obvious financial benefit from doing those things. Yet they do them because it gets their name out there and makes the company look good. That is positive PR.
When the system for legislation gets so confusing that not even the people passing the bills can keep it straight, I think it shows that there is some fundamental flaw in the system, or it didn't scale well or something.
Do we have to go back to Schoolhouse Rock?
There's an easy fix for this. Make the following change to the Constitution:
Each year, before any new law can be created or any existing law modified, the Speaker of the House must first read aloud every last federal law on the books while all other members of Congress listen. If that takes more than one year (and the federal tax code alone would easily do so) then Congress is allowed only to repeal existing laws the following year. The next year after that, the reading aloud begins again and only if completed within one year can a new law be passed or an old law modified.
Code changes (if you distribute it), yes.
But I was under the impression that GP was using the phrase in a financial sense; there is no legal obligation under the GPL to do that.
My comments about positive PR were intended to cover moves like that.
If you could go after people working for a company personally then nobody would work for a company
Just like if you could go after a contractor directly, nobody would be a contractor? Oh wait, you can, and there are. I'm pretty much on the far right politically, when it comes to economics. But I still don't necessarily support the idea of the corporate shield. Capitalism and corporatism are two separate concepts, and one can support one without the other.
Besides, the buck should stop with those who make the decisions, not those who are forced to carry them out. Removing the corporate shield wouldn't make working for a company any more dangerous - just running one. And I think we've seen enough examples lately to know that their just plain isn't sufficient accountability at that level of corporate management - the corporate shield is being abused.
Agreed. In fact the concept is so damned simple that few want to acknowledge it.
The corporate shield should be for any tort that could land an individual in civil court. It should also shield against debt, failed business ventures (businesses often take risks and those risks don't always work out for the business), and the like.
The corporate shield should absolutely never protect anyone against anything that would land an individual in criminal court. Collusion is just a fancy way of committing fraud. This is fraud. Fraud is a crime. Individuals who commit this crime go to prison. The executives who decided that this was a good idea are individuals who can be prosecuted. They are merely using the corporation as a proxy to commit the crime and are still guilty of fraud, just like a person who hires a hit-man is still guilty of murder even though he didn't do the deed directly.
None of this is difficult to understand. It's amazing how much debate there can be about such simple concepts.
Just in case you were wondering where the punishment of the families comes in, seen what they do during drug convictions? You have to prove that you bought your home before you started engaging in drug activity or they will seize it. Do you think that this is going to happen to these execs? Is there any reason why money made from drugs and money made from fraud should be treated differently by the state? I mean, besides one's personal feelings regarding the regulation of business, under which both of these hypotheticals fall?
Not only am I against the asset forfeiture laws that are excused by the War on (some) Drugs, I believe they are blatantly unconstitutional. Carrying a lot of cash? Well, "we know it's for drugs" so we're going to seize it without charging you with any crime, that way we don't have to prove anything.
If it were up to me we'd end the whole War on (some) Drugs and only concern ourselves with crimes that actually involve an unwilling victim. That would also de-fund all of the gangs and organized criminals that view illicit contraband as an important source of income. It would tremendously reduce crime -- no one had gunfights and died in the streets over alcohol until it was made illegal, for all of the same reasons we have so much violent crime now that is drug-related. The War on (some) Drugs is a complete and total failure according to any of its stated goals. Sorry to put it so bluntly but only a moron wants to continue doing something that fails over and over again while causing gigantic social costs, financial costs, and other collateral damage.
Ending this BS is such a good idea that no one with political power wants to do it. It would deprive them of useful crises and problems to solve.
If I responded strongly to the other poster, it's because anyone who sees injustice like the asset forfeiture laws and says "but it's acceptable if we really don't like you" is part of the problem. That's just the sort of character weakness that perpetuates this kind of injustice.
What I feel would work is make it a mandantory 2 year sentence at Leavenworth Federal Prison - Low Security the first time around. Give em hard labor and personally fine them. Increase the penalty to 5 years in the medium security section and if they're found guilty a thrid time, life in maximum security with the real dangerous criminals. Furthermore, place them in with the general population instead of the damn country club. Also in regards to the 2nd and 3rd offenses, you punish their families too.
If you or I committed such crimes personally without a corporation that resulted in the same amount of monetary loss, we would not get such light treatment as a low security prison away from the hardened prison population. Neither should the executives who create these issues.
I cannot rightly support punishing their families. If family members are proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have committed a crime, then by all means prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. Otherwise, advocating the punishing of innocents is much worse than any fraud the execs in question may have perpetrated. In fact it's quite likely that such innocents were as deceived by the perpetrators as anyone else. You should be ashamed for desiring such an outcome, sir. This is not honor or justice. It's a smack in the face to both. You lose the right to represent either honor or justice the moment you want to harm innocents who remain innocent until proven guilty. I cannot overstate how pathological such an urge actually is.
They have to prove nothing. That burden of proof is squarely on the shoulders of the prosecution should an accusation be made. You dishonor and shame yourself for advocating such a witch-hunt. It is beneath you. If it is not, it should be. If you are so easily corrupted by outrage then you are manifestly unfit to deal correctly with injustice, for you represent what you claim to be against.
If that stings a bit, it doesn't sting enough. How do you suppose people like those execs become so amoral and corrupt in the first place? It's because they see injustice like anyone else and eventually they become just like what they hate. Take this as a warning if there is any wisdom within you.
I think this is a good approach, personally. A much more significant and lasting punishment for the crime.
Question is, how long to punish? I think it would only be fair to force them to sell at a lowered price for the same duration they sold at jacked up prices. If they go out of business, tough shit. Should have thought about the consequences of the actions.
And yes, everyone who bought an LCD during those dates should either receive a reimbursement equal in % to what they were overcharged, or receive a coupon for that % off a purchase of any new LCD from that company that they buy.
No more light slaps on the back of the hands, corporations need a solid punch in the gut for pulling stunts like this.
There's one thing that needs to take place if you want a truly effective deterrent.
All top-level executives who supported this collusion need to be personally conviced of fraud in a criminal court. I'm guessing that fraud on the scale of multiple millions of dollars would land them some hard time in a maximum-security prison. Fraud is fraud even if the criminal who perpetrated the fraud did not directly receive the money out of which the victims were defrauded (i.e. it went directly to his/her corporation).
What needs to end NOW, and in fact is long overdue, is to remove the "untouchable" status of the people behind the scenes. If we did that, I personally wouldn't care if the corporation itself is fined or not because we'd be taking the punitive measures directly to the source of the problem. By contrast, a heavy fine proportional to the crime that is levied against the corporate entity might end up harming customers and/or rank-and-file employees who had no decision-making input regarding whether or not massive fraud was going to be committed.
The "limited liability" nature of a corporation should be for failed business ventures and unintentional negligence only (i.e. honest mistakes). It absolutely should never apply to intentional, willful criminal activity.
It's one of the natures of advancing society for its educated to become more and more specialized in knowledge. To expect everyone to maintain the technical facility to maintain anonymous internet identities is just as ludicrous as it is for anyone who doesn't know how to raise and reap their own crops to starve.
Common sense is not something that becomes "more specialized" merely because disciplines of knowledge are more specialized. I am amazed that this entire discussion revolves around technical competency.
Hey Slashdot, your rights and your privacy are not being compromised on a technological front. They are being compromised on a legal front. Warrentless wiretapping was given a pass by a court of law, retroactively even. If the people behind it did a lot of hard time in federal prison, you wouldn't have to worry so much about encryption and anonymization.
The common sense element can be stated thusly: some politician or organization wants to make excuses for spying on me and restricting freedoms I currently enjoy. I don't support this no matter how they wish to carry it out: low-tech or high-tech.
If that kind of clear insight were not so rare, we would not be having a discussion about technical countermeasures designed to frustrate a government that actively opposes our interests.
No, they can pass on that cost and people will use other parts.
Before we talk about the pros and cons of various forms of sanction against these companies, I have a simple question.
These multiple companies are being accused of colluding. That's a word for a specific type of conspiracy. Since this involves those companies conspiring together, does that mean we immediately scoff at the notion, dismiss it out-of-hand without examination of evidence, and accuse anyone who supports the notion of being a tin-foil hat-wearing nutter?
I just want a little consistency. That's how we treat anyone who suggests that people within government would conspire in some way when both money and power is involved. Why don't we act the same way when anyone suggests that people within corporations would conspire in some way when only money is involved?
Oh, right, because you can choose not to do business with particular corporations so you feel little to no need to bury your heads in the sand when they conspire. It's not so easy to escape the malfeasance of your own government, so you feel a desperate need to say that it isn't and could never be so.
Goodwill is tangible enough that many firms specialize in PR. When they charge their clients for the service of providing spin or "good PR", they can tally up to the penny what their services are worth in that market.
The Apple engineers personally may have very altruistic motives. Or they may not. In either case, it would be much more difficult for their work to reach a wide and already-established audience under a brand that is already world-famous if they operated as individuals. Instead, they operate as part of an organization, an abstract corporate entity that believes putting them to this purpose is in its interests.
If you are referring to the GPL, it is a legal obligation to give back to the software projects that you use. Webkit in particular has components released under the LGPL and the rest is under a BSD license. Regarding the BSD components, Apple indeed has no legal obligation to give code back. But you can bet that they wouldn't give any BSD-licensed code back if they were certain it would cost them a competitive advantage. A CEO who allowed otherwise could even be sued by the shareholders.
The difference between true morality and convenience is that you follow your morality even when it's highly inconvenient, such as when it places you at a disadvantage. Otherwise the word that applies is "hypocrite".
That's why I view Apple Inc. and all other corporations as faceless amoral entities. A particular employee, some employees, or (unlikely) all employees might be quite moral, but that's because they are human beings. The corporation to which they contribute their labor and from which they draw a paycheck is absolutely amoral.
Incidentally this is why I have always felt it was a big mistake to give a corporation the legal rights of a person. Either that should be completely revoked, or, corporations guilty of crimes should have all assets frozen and all business operations halted for the duration of time that a human being would be incarcerated for the same offense. For the most severe offenses, the corporate death penalty (revocation of the corporate charter) should apply. There should be none of this bullshit where a corporation gets fined for doing things that would land you in prison if you did the same.
Agreed. If we are going to have software patents, the duration needs to be adjusted for the rapid pace of technological advancement. If 12 years is appropriate for a brick-and-mortar business designing, prototyping, manufacturing, and marketing a physical product then 2-3 years should be appropriate for software.
Having said that... if it were up to me, copyright would be the only government-granted monopoly given to software. Computer and network technology is far too important to allow patents to imped
"Slashdot Judo" is an interesting and amusing term for it. Sometimes I'm rather direct and not so creative as that. So, I tend to use words like "reacting and being the effect of a cause to something you could overcome with a better example". Really the only difference at all is caring about what the other person does.
It's a subtle thing. It's the difference between "setting them straight" versus "something's wrong with that". The former is about the messenger; the latter is about the message. The former impacts you in some way while the latter is dispassionate.
It's easy to agree with that one. Then, I'm not among the easily offended. That makes me content with a "diamond in the rough". If a post is 90% garbage, I don't have to be offended or disappointed with that because I'm too busy appreciating the remaining 10%. There's no disagreement from me that a lot of mods feel no desire to understand a post before judging its merits. Thus they have a knee-jerk reaction to strong wording without a thought for whether it's justifiable.
Or it just shows the inherently irrational nature of operating on rage as a motivating or driving force behind one's actions. That may even explain your fascination with triggering the phenomenon. The drawback is that your humor may be the only purpose it serves.
The logic behind a successful corporation is that the expected cost of a thing is less than the expected gain from doing it. If Apple has worked on Webkit or any other project, it's because its gains from community support or goodwill or positive PR outweigh what it has to pay its employees to do so. I wouldn't call that "morally good" or morally anything. I would call that amoral.
If I were going to compliment or appreciate anything it would be the events that had to be set in motion before we'd have a situation where cooperation was viewed by an amoral corporation as its best possible maneuver. That would have a great deal to do with Open Source as a movement, various communities, various principles, and generally wouldn't have anything to do with Apple Inc.
That rules out any kind of altruistic behavior on the part of Apple. Their non-altruistic, monetarily compensated behavior is on behalf of their customers who compensate them. Any benefit to anyone else is secondary to this purpose. This again is amoral and not altruistic.
If a few song