What a pile of horse shit.
What needs to go, is the inherent respect for people's precious sensibilities. People who choose to be offended by every blunt fucking thing said, need to be offended to the point that they realize that taking offense is rather like an act of self-mutilation than an act of victimization, and that the idea of reducing blunt insults is not just a worthless, but impossible ideal. As indeed it should be.
Man, am I getting tired of muslims being offended.
Hey, muslims, here's a news flash!
WE'RE ALL OFFENDED!
ALL THE TIME!
People with half the guts of a mouse just live with it, and it's not rocket science, either. You just... live with it. It's really just that simple, and you're not beyond it. Get over yourselves, you whining, gutless, fucking pussies.
Also I have to add... foreign money is worth a lot in Iceland now, and will for quite a while (decades). It's one of the most serious economic problems facing Iceland, the low value of the currency. It's terrible for the Icelandic population of course, but it means that labour is dirt cheap if you have foreign currency. Odds are you'd get much better bang for the buck.
"Bandwidth is one, another is how much extra does it cost to design a facility to be more resistant to earthquakes as the vulcanization that offers those benefits of abundant geothermal power also means there is seismic instability."
While a perfectly legitimate concern, bandwidth is not a problem. Neither is the seismic activity. Any serious seismic activity is well mapped out and building for it hasn't been a problem since we crawled out of the caves (which admittedly was only around 1900). In my opinion, the earthquakes are outright fun, and we know well where the earthquake danger zones are. Start worrying if you hear that they want to build it around Selfoss.;)
I'm born raised in Iceland but currently live in Canada and I've spent a year in Finland, and I can absolutely, positively guarantee you that the tech guru population per capita in Iceland is drastically higher than in either one of those. Even though the Finns are generally geeks... and I mean that in a good way obviously. Frankly, I think lack of geek skills in Iceland are not a problem for this particular project, and besides, the worst case scenario is that it won't be as monstrously huge as otherwise.
Of course I'm biased, I can only promise you that I'd tell you if I thought it were a problem.
I suppose the biggest problem would be the controversy over the energy it would require. Even though we are extremely lucky for how cheap electricity is in Iceland, there is also the counter-view that nature is to be preserved and therefore not exploited... even though it's the most nature-friendly way of producing electricity imaginable... okay, let's not get into politics.;)
Honestly, I think that would be the biggest problem. Dealing with the politics.
It seems to be a common misconception that authoritarian, fascist methods to prevent crime don't work. They do. They always worked, they always will. The problem is that it takes away the citizens' privacy as well.
If the only argument needed for increased surveillance is to deter crime, then we've essentially doomed ourselves into a society of surveillance, because it always works.
Lack of privacy, even in public houses, needs to be seen as problem, not as something that can endlessly be given up in the name of security. Freedom and democracy always were and always will be unpredictable, that's what's so cool about them.
To hell with the CCTV cameras. Of course they work to deter crime, the problem is that they also work to control the population, and that's a real problem that needs to be considered as well, not simply ignored.
You might be able to convince them that it's actually in their own interest that you contribute code back to the project, as it's still BSD and they can still use it. In other words, it seems like they don't want anyone to have the improvements that you would otherwise make, even if they don't want to pay for it.
A lot of companies have such clauses simply because they don't bother to think about it, and they're compelled to be as mean as possible, since that's somehow supposed to be more grownup behavior. Usually though, those with the most cynical view of open-source software development as competition, even when it suits themselves, tend to know absolutely nothing about it. Use that.
I used the 2xRAM rule of thumb until I got to about 2GB, when I decided 4GB of swap is just ridiculous. Now I put 1xRAM just in case there is some engineering quirk in some software that relies on it. 2xRAM these days simply must be waaaay more than excessive.
4GB of RAM should be enough for everyday *at this particular point in time*.;)
Even if this nonsense did anything at all to combat terrorism, which it doesn't, the idea of an personally identifiable internet connection is a pipe dream, not to mention that it's ethically preposterous. One of the greatest strengths about the internet is how easy it is to remain anonymous and that's a feature, not a bug.
This is such an obvious case of pure hatred, fear and hysteria over the obviously serious crime of child abuse. Yes, it's horrible, no, that does not mean that artificial child porn causes child sex abuse. The causal relationship is merely assumed.
In fact, I would expect the opposite, that sexually disturbed people would get satisfaction for their disgusting urges by watching artificial child porn, thus REDUCING, not increasing, the risk of them abusing an actual living child.
But of course, the hysteria will win, as usual.
I don't think open-source software is ever going to be adequately marketable in the same way as closed-source software if we look at the piece of software as a physical object that is to be bought and sold. Much more sensibly, the work to create and support that software is the service, and to attrack the service, there's incentive to make the software good.
In short, mass-producing software costs virtually no extra effort or resources, except of course for the physical, and mostly unnecessary, packaging.
I think it's fundamentally incompatible with basic economic principles to market a freely mass-producable item as a limited resource. For example, we don't have stores that sell pieces of legal information, we have services that provide us with information in terms of the law, but we don't sell the actual legal advice itself. The service is absolutely necessary even though the "good" (the legal advice) is in a way, free. You're free to tell others about the legal advice you acquired by getting someone's service.
This is exactly why I oppose Qt and favour wxWidgets and Gtk, for those who are familiar with the QPL/GPL scenario vs. LGPL. With wxWidgets, you can use the software for your commercial products, whether closed or open, and you can hire the author or some of his buddies for support and that's basically the business model. But you and me can also offer support services for wxWidgets for those who wish to create commercial software out of wxWidgets. It doesn't have to be the people that made wxWidgets, it can be anyone who knows it well enough.
Contrast that with the Qt way. If you're a business and you want services, you're just gonna have to buy it from Trolltech. If you're unhappy with their services, you're going to have to switch toolkits, you can't just switch service providers (as you can with legal service and ISPs). Me and you could both open up a support shop for virtually all LGPL'ed software, provided that we have the know-how. This would create competition which is the absolute foundation of any successful marketing strategy that is to benefit the consumers and not ONLY those who own the product being sold (as is the case with most if not all closed-source software).
Long story short, when there is no competition in service provision, the prices will of course be high. It's not an open-source thing, it's an economics thing. That said, I still think the problem is primarily that too few software groups realize this, and thus there are not (yet) enough support services for software in general, but given enough time, assuming that people don't get gooped into economically unviable scenarios like those of Qt and Microsoft, it will be fixed, it just takes time for people to realize that open-source software CANNOT be sold as product in the long run, it HAS to be sold as a service and ONLY as a service.
Can somebody explain to me why censorship is not a good idea, except when someone REALLY wants to censor something? Still, after years of trying to squeeze some actual sense out of anti-pornographers in Iceland, I still cannot find a single thread of anything even resembling scientific evidence, showing a link between pornography and any "bad behaviour". Every single study I have read, begins by denying that a cause-and-effect relationship has to be established, and instead adheres to what these reports/studies call "common sense", which is scientifically absurd, especially when it comes to limiting freedom of expression and the freedom of research or teenage masturbation.
Democracy IS REALLY CONSIDERED A PUBLIC THREAT in Communish China. Anti-government propaganda WAS REALLY CONSIDERED A PUBLIC THREAT in Nazi Germany. How is this any different? Keep your own damn "common sense" to yourself and try to figure out a way to make youngsters exposed to pornographic material realize that it's a show just like any other car-exploding, blood-guzzling, foul-mouth film like those made in Hollywood. It's shocking, and disgusting, and limits your family values, and you know what? That's the price we pay for a fundamental right called Freedom of Expression. Freedom of expression is more important than a tenuous (at best) danger of some kid at some point mistaking the right to view pornogrophay as the right to rape.
By the way, the crime rate in China is WAY lower than in the USA; does that mean that the right to a fair trial is a bad idea? Hitler got Germany out of an economic depression by simply taking over every single industry and producing arms; does that mean that the free enterprise is a bad idea? Of course not.
Freedom of expression is not just about the right to express what's "healthy", or "ethical". It is the right to express yourself, whether it be in film or at a public hearing, regardless of those factors. Anything other than that, is not freedom of expression. Freedom of expression is boolean, not a floating point. And they call it "the land of the free"... pardon my French (or just sue me); my ass.
A parent that doesn't want its kid to view pornography should have the same right, no more and no less, than the parent who wants its kid to be Catholic. You use whatever methods you can in your upbringing, but this constant "society is responsible for me not knowing how to raise my kid"-argument is getting respect to the point of fascism.
P.S. I'm NOT sorry if I offended someone. Deal with it or move to China.
Because science is a way to discover the truth about the natural world around us. Anything that can neither be proven nor disproven through logic, is by definition not science.
Another thing very important in the scientific method (which you obviously haven't studied, with all due respect), is that you cannot uphold a theory based on a pre-determined conclusion, and fit the facts afterwards to fit the hypothesis. That's usually referred to as "junk science" in many other debates, as it's merely scientific-sounding but totally contradicts the most basic of all scientific methods.
So it's not science. I might suggest that you look up the definition of science and religion some time, that'll probably explain the whole thing.
Whether you think the world was created by a deity, space aliens, perfectly logical and easily comprehended rules of physics or George Lucas, just doesn't matter. It's just not science.
I just love this debate. The "Intelligent Design" people lose every single time, crashing and burning in any topic even remotely resembling the cause-and-effect hypothesis commonly referred to as science.
The argument that Intelligent Design rises with and falls by, is that it's not supposed to make sense that the universe has existed forever. It's true, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense except from a philosophical standpoint (or at the point where physics and philosophy become indistinguishable), but then you might ask... why does it all of a sudden make sense that The Creator has been forever? Surely, if the universe was created by something, that something must have existed. Then the ID-people say that God has existed forever and will exist forever.
Why does that make any more sense than the universe having been forever? What hypothetical problem of evolution does Intelligent Design really address? I can't see it addressing it, I can merely see it ignoring it, and of course, only when it suits their "theory".
Another thing to keep in mind is that evolution is still a scientific theory. The fact of the matter is, however, that in a scientific context, precisely NOTHING is referred to as fact until it is a matter of definition. We can say something is black because we have chosen the concept of black for certain characteristics, thus it is a fact. But every single physiological, biological, psychological and philosophical debate in the history of mankind, according to modern science, ARE THEORIES. NONE OF THEM ARE REFERRED TO AS FACTS. People who don't know this, often think that because evolution is still referred to as a theory, it has some explaining to do. The fact of the matter is, it's not a fact, it's like the moon revolving around the earth, a well documented, thorougly investigated, extremely well supported scientific theory. It's not any less "real" because of that.
Yes, yes. Actually, the evidence behind sharing artwork simply does not stand with the case. It is ASSUMED that they're losing an X amount of money because of some Y factor, but no evidence has popped up yet to actually support these claims.
I believe that it's a fundamental mistake to first of all assume that those who are downloading copyrighted material, are going to be less interested in buying a retail version. I think this whole thing is a misunderstanding. I think somebody who downloads Fight Club and loves it, is in fact MORE likely to buy the retail version than someone who never saw the movie to begin with (or experienced it as-good-as-it-gets in a moviehouse or something).
I think the fundamental mistake here, is to assume certain behaviour upon dozens of millions of people, in a multi-billion dollar industry, and to me, that's not just scientifically shaky, it's also intellectually proposterous. People don't just work the way you (or the companies) assume they work. The companies are NOT losing money, quite on the contrary the industry is expanding faster than ever before, and absolutely nothing indicates that the free flow of information in general (regardless of copyright) has any consideriable negative impact on the interests of these companies, not to mention the good it actually does to the idea of a people, that have the opportunity to know what they're buying before they buy it.
That's not a very high standard, to know what you're buying, and me being able to use my mother's car every once in a while does not mean that I don't have any reasons left to buy my own car. Quite on the contrary, if I'd *never* use my mother's car, I'd probably just be happy with bicycling. But I'm not. I like to drive, and I want my own car. I bought myself a Muse CD the other day after a buddy of mine showed me dozens of their songs, 100% illegally.
This people-work-in-the-worst-possible-way theory just has to go. It just doesn't work like that.
I'm betting on that not only the industry, but also the public, will have grown up from this scientifically shallow theory of a people that simply hate good products. It's just simply not the case.
The fact that this guy is pissed off for other people using his GLP'ed code, proves beyond reasonable doubt that he doesn't even understand the basic principles of open-source software.
In reply, ask the man why he took GPL code to begin with. I'll bet my left kidney that he doesn't have a clue why. "Stealing" from a spinoff is no different than "stealing" from any GPL'ed project. If your resulting code is GPL as well, it's okay. That is the MAIN purpose of the GPL, and if he doesn't like it, just tell him to get his act together and hire a programmer to do a closed-source version of his present GPL code. Then he'll be forced to ask himself what his problem is. The truth is, it's not a problem, it's just good'ol fashion much ado about nothing.
It's just hipocracy to create a spinoff GPL code, and then complain when "the wrong person" actually bothers to use the rights given to him through the GPL.
Just tell the man to "RTFM", the GPL, in this case.
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What a pile of horse shit. What needs to go, is the inherent respect for people's precious sensibilities. People who choose to be offended by every blunt fucking thing said, need to be offended to the point that they realize that taking offense is rather like an act of self-mutilation than an act of victimization, and that the idea of reducing blunt insults is not just a worthless, but impossible ideal. As indeed it should be.
Man, am I getting tired of muslims being offended. Hey, muslims, here's a news flash! WE'RE ALL OFFENDED! ALL THE TIME! People with half the guts of a mouse just live with it, and it's not rocket science, either. You just... live with it. It's really just that simple, and you're not beyond it. Get over yourselves, you whining, gutless, fucking pussies.
Also I have to add... foreign money is worth a lot in Iceland now, and will for quite a while (decades). It's one of the most serious economic problems facing Iceland, the low value of the currency. It's terrible for the Icelandic population of course, but it means that labour is dirt cheap if you have foreign currency. Odds are you'd get much better bang for the buck.
"Bandwidth is one, another is how much extra does it cost to design a facility to be more resistant to earthquakes as the vulcanization that offers those benefits of abundant geothermal power also means there is seismic instability." While a perfectly legitimate concern, bandwidth is not a problem. Neither is the seismic activity. Any serious seismic activity is well mapped out and building for it hasn't been a problem since we crawled out of the caves (which admittedly was only around 1900). In my opinion, the earthquakes are outright fun, and we know well where the earthquake danger zones are. Start worrying if you hear that they want to build it around Selfoss. ;)
I'm born raised in Iceland but currently live in Canada and I've spent a year in Finland, and I can absolutely, positively guarantee you that the tech guru population per capita in Iceland is drastically higher than in either one of those. Even though the Finns are generally geeks... and I mean that in a good way obviously. Frankly, I think lack of geek skills in Iceland are not a problem for this particular project, and besides, the worst case scenario is that it won't be as monstrously huge as otherwise.
Of course I'm biased, I can only promise you that I'd tell you if I thought it were a problem.
I suppose the biggest problem would be the controversy over the energy it would require. Even though we are extremely lucky for how cheap electricity is in Iceland, there is also the counter-view that nature is to be preserved and therefore not exploited... even though it's the most nature-friendly way of producing electricity imaginable... okay, let's not get into politics. ;)
Honestly, I think that would be the biggest problem. Dealing with the politics.
It seems to be a common misconception that authoritarian, fascist methods to prevent crime don't work. They do. They always worked, they always will. The problem is that it takes away the citizens' privacy as well. If the only argument needed for increased surveillance is to deter crime, then we've essentially doomed ourselves into a society of surveillance, because it always works. Lack of privacy, even in public houses, needs to be seen as problem, not as something that can endlessly be given up in the name of security. Freedom and democracy always were and always will be unpredictable, that's what's so cool about them. To hell with the CCTV cameras. Of course they work to deter crime, the problem is that they also work to control the population, and that's a real problem that needs to be considered as well, not simply ignored.
You might be able to convince them that it's actually in their own interest that you contribute code back to the project, as it's still BSD and they can still use it. In other words, it seems like they don't want anyone to have the improvements that you would otherwise make, even if they don't want to pay for it. A lot of companies have such clauses simply because they don't bother to think about it, and they're compelled to be as mean as possible, since that's somehow supposed to be more grownup behavior. Usually though, those with the most cynical view of open-source software development as competition, even when it suits themselves, tend to know absolutely nothing about it. Use that.
I used the 2xRAM rule of thumb until I got to about 2GB, when I decided 4GB of swap is just ridiculous. Now I put 1xRAM just in case there is some engineering quirk in some software that relies on it. 2xRAM these days simply must be waaaay more than excessive. 4GB of RAM should be enough for everyday *at this particular point in time*. ;)
Even if this nonsense did anything at all to combat terrorism, which it doesn't, the idea of an personally identifiable internet connection is a pipe dream, not to mention that it's ethically preposterous. One of the greatest strengths about the internet is how easy it is to remain anonymous and that's a feature, not a bug.
This is such an obvious case of pure hatred, fear and hysteria over the obviously serious crime of child abuse. Yes, it's horrible, no, that does not mean that artificial child porn causes child sex abuse. The causal relationship is merely assumed. In fact, I would expect the opposite, that sexually disturbed people would get satisfaction for their disgusting urges by watching artificial child porn, thus REDUCING, not increasing, the risk of them abusing an actual living child. But of course, the hysteria will win, as usual.
I don't think open-source software is ever going to be adequately marketable in the same way as closed-source software if we look at the piece of software as a physical object that is to be bought and sold. Much more sensibly, the work to create and support that software is the service, and to attrack the service, there's incentive to make the software good. In short, mass-producing software costs virtually no extra effort or resources, except of course for the physical, and mostly unnecessary, packaging. I think it's fundamentally incompatible with basic economic principles to market a freely mass-producable item as a limited resource. For example, we don't have stores that sell pieces of legal information, we have services that provide us with information in terms of the law, but we don't sell the actual legal advice itself. The service is absolutely necessary even though the "good" (the legal advice) is in a way, free. You're free to tell others about the legal advice you acquired by getting someone's service. This is exactly why I oppose Qt and favour wxWidgets and Gtk, for those who are familiar with the QPL/GPL scenario vs. LGPL. With wxWidgets, you can use the software for your commercial products, whether closed or open, and you can hire the author or some of his buddies for support and that's basically the business model. But you and me can also offer support services for wxWidgets for those who wish to create commercial software out of wxWidgets. It doesn't have to be the people that made wxWidgets, it can be anyone who knows it well enough. Contrast that with the Qt way. If you're a business and you want services, you're just gonna have to buy it from Trolltech. If you're unhappy with their services, you're going to have to switch toolkits, you can't just switch service providers (as you can with legal service and ISPs). Me and you could both open up a support shop for virtually all LGPL'ed software, provided that we have the know-how. This would create competition which is the absolute foundation of any successful marketing strategy that is to benefit the consumers and not ONLY those who own the product being sold (as is the case with most if not all closed-source software). Long story short, when there is no competition in service provision, the prices will of course be high. It's not an open-source thing, it's an economics thing. That said, I still think the problem is primarily that too few software groups realize this, and thus there are not (yet) enough support services for software in general, but given enough time, assuming that people don't get gooped into economically unviable scenarios like those of Qt and Microsoft, it will be fixed, it just takes time for people to realize that open-source software CANNOT be sold as product in the long run, it HAS to be sold as a service and ONLY as a service.
Can somebody explain to me why censorship is not a good idea, except when someone REALLY wants to censor something? Still, after years of trying to squeeze some actual sense out of anti-pornographers in Iceland, I still cannot find a single thread of anything even resembling scientific evidence, showing a link between pornography and any "bad behaviour". Every single study I have read, begins by denying that a cause-and-effect relationship has to be established, and instead adheres to what these reports/studies call "common sense", which is scientifically absurd, especially when it comes to limiting freedom of expression and the freedom of research or teenage masturbation.
Democracy IS REALLY CONSIDERED A PUBLIC THREAT in Communish China. Anti-government propaganda WAS REALLY CONSIDERED A PUBLIC THREAT in Nazi Germany. How is this any different? Keep your own damn "common sense" to yourself and try to figure out a way to make youngsters exposed to pornographic material realize that it's a show just like any other car-exploding, blood-guzzling, foul-mouth film like those made in Hollywood. It's shocking, and disgusting, and limits your family values, and you know what? That's the price we pay for a fundamental right called Freedom of Expression. Freedom of expression is more important than a tenuous (at best) danger of some kid at some point mistaking the right to view pornogrophay as the right to rape.
By the way, the crime rate in China is WAY lower than in the USA; does that mean that the right to a fair trial is a bad idea? Hitler got Germany out of an economic depression by simply taking over every single industry and producing arms; does that mean that the free enterprise is a bad idea? Of course not.
Freedom of expression is not just about the right to express what's "healthy", or "ethical". It is the right to express yourself, whether it be in film or at a public hearing, regardless of those factors. Anything other than that, is not freedom of expression. Freedom of expression is boolean, not a floating point. And they call it "the land of the free"... pardon my French (or just sue me); my ass.
A parent that doesn't want its kid to view pornography should have the same right, no more and no less, than the parent who wants its kid to be Catholic. You use whatever methods you can in your upbringing, but this constant "society is responsible for me not knowing how to raise my kid"-argument is getting respect to the point of fascism.
P.S. I'm NOT sorry if I offended someone. Deal with it or move to China.
That's actually quite simple.
Because science is a way to discover the truth about the natural world around us. Anything that can neither be proven nor disproven through logic, is by definition not science.
Another thing very important in the scientific method (which you obviously haven't studied, with all due respect), is that you cannot uphold a theory based on a pre-determined conclusion, and fit the facts afterwards to fit the hypothesis. That's usually referred to as "junk science" in many other debates, as it's merely scientific-sounding but totally contradicts the most basic of all scientific methods.
So it's not science. I might suggest that you look up the definition of science and religion some time, that'll probably explain the whole thing.
Whether you think the world was created by a deity, space aliens, perfectly logical and easily comprehended rules of physics or George Lucas, just doesn't matter. It's just not science.
I just love this debate. The "Intelligent Design" people lose every single time, crashing and burning in any topic even remotely resembling the cause-and-effect hypothesis commonly referred to as science.
The argument that Intelligent Design rises with and falls by, is that it's not supposed to make sense that the universe has existed forever. It's true, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense except from a philosophical standpoint (or at the point where physics and philosophy become indistinguishable), but then you might ask... why does it all of a sudden make sense that The Creator has been forever? Surely, if the universe was created by something, that something must have existed. Then the ID-people say that God has existed forever and will exist forever.
Why does that make any more sense than the universe having been forever? What hypothetical problem of evolution does Intelligent Design really address? I can't see it addressing it, I can merely see it ignoring it, and of course, only when it suits their "theory".
Another thing to keep in mind is that evolution is still a scientific theory. The fact of the matter is, however, that in a scientific context, precisely NOTHING is referred to as fact until it is a matter of definition. We can say something is black because we have chosen the concept of black for certain characteristics, thus it is a fact. But every single physiological, biological, psychological and philosophical debate in the history of mankind, according to modern science, ARE THEORIES. NONE OF THEM ARE REFERRED TO AS FACTS. People who don't know this, often think that because evolution is still referred to as a theory, it has some explaining to do. The fact of the matter is, it's not a fact, it's like the moon revolving around the earth, a well documented, thorougly investigated, extremely well supported scientific theory. It's not any less "real" because of that.
Yes, yes. Actually, the evidence behind sharing artwork simply does not stand with the case. It is ASSUMED that they're losing an X amount of money because of some Y factor, but no evidence has popped up yet to actually support these claims. I believe that it's a fundamental mistake to first of all assume that those who are downloading copyrighted material, are going to be less interested in buying a retail version. I think this whole thing is a misunderstanding. I think somebody who downloads Fight Club and loves it, is in fact MORE likely to buy the retail version than someone who never saw the movie to begin with (or experienced it as-good-as-it-gets in a moviehouse or something). I think the fundamental mistake here, is to assume certain behaviour upon dozens of millions of people, in a multi-billion dollar industry, and to me, that's not just scientifically shaky, it's also intellectually proposterous. People don't just work the way you (or the companies) assume they work. The companies are NOT losing money, quite on the contrary the industry is expanding faster than ever before, and absolutely nothing indicates that the free flow of information in general (regardless of copyright) has any consideriable negative impact on the interests of these companies, not to mention the good it actually does to the idea of a people, that have the opportunity to know what they're buying before they buy it. That's not a very high standard, to know what you're buying, and me being able to use my mother's car every once in a while does not mean that I don't have any reasons left to buy my own car. Quite on the contrary, if I'd *never* use my mother's car, I'd probably just be happy with bicycling. But I'm not. I like to drive, and I want my own car. I bought myself a Muse CD the other day after a buddy of mine showed me dozens of their songs, 100% illegally. This people-work-in-the-worst-possible-way theory just has to go. It just doesn't work like that. I'm betting on that not only the industry, but also the public, will have grown up from this scientifically shallow theory of a people that simply hate good products. It's just simply not the case.
I have a very strong opinion in this.
The fact that this guy is pissed off for other people using his GLP'ed code, proves beyond reasonable doubt that he doesn't even understand the basic principles of open-source software.
In reply, ask the man why he took GPL code to begin with. I'll bet my left kidney that he doesn't have a clue why. "Stealing" from a spinoff is no different than "stealing" from any GPL'ed project. If your resulting code is GPL as well, it's okay. That is the MAIN purpose of the GPL, and if he doesn't like it, just tell him to get his act together and hire a programmer to do a closed-source version of his present GPL code. Then he'll be forced to ask himself what his problem is. The truth is, it's not a problem, it's just good'ol fashion much ado about nothing.
It's just hipocracy to create a spinoff GPL code, and then complain when "the wrong person" actually bothers to use the rights given to him through the GPL.
Just tell the man to "RTFM", the GPL, in this case.