I think there may be a slight confusion in terms here - in English-speaking countries, "government" is often used to refer to the state as a whole. In that sense, the entire parliament and all authorities are part of the government.
In Sweden, the word is used in a stricter sense; only the executive organ is referred to as "government". The rest is referred to simply as "the state".
No, it's a case of America being different from everyone else again; here in the UK you can be in Parliament, but not in government like over there; I believe the same is true of Canada.
I can still be in Parliament as an MP (member of a political party or not) but not be part of the government.
That doesn't make any sense. If you are in Parliament, then you are one of the people governing the country - i.e, you are "in government."
"Government" in the UK refers to ministers, their departments & the civil service etc. Because of the way our parliamentary system works (with no separation of powers, and strong party whips) it means that just because I've been elected to Parliament, I can't do any actual "governing", I can just oppose and try* to stop the majority party from doing more or less what it likes.
In terms that make it easier for a US slashdot reader, in the UK the term "government" is used to refer to the executive branch, who are a subset of the legislature, but have enormous power over it (they set introduce all the bills & set the timetables etc.). The collective term for all three branches of Government is Parliament as the Supreme Court of the UK is the House of Lords,** so what you call government, we just call Parliament.
Of course this is extremely simplified, but we've had around a thousand years to make it complicated, so forgive us our little quirks.
*and this is a harder task than it is in the USA
**This actually changed in July last year (2009) and the Law lords are now no longer, we have a separate supreme court.
No, I agree, there's quite a few people from many political parties who want a PR system here in the UK, it's kept out because it's not in the interest of the big two parties to provide a fair electoral system, the current one makes sure that only they retain huge amounts of power despite only ever getting 30-40% of the overall vote.
"We want to legalise non-commercial file sharing "
Then how do I sell software to home users if they can copy it freely?
A couple of ways just off the top of my head (there must be far more). Sell support & updates; no one said you have to support the product if it wasn't bought from you. Incentiveise people, for example give away posters or concept art with your game, or perhaps a chance to win a prize with your app. Lastly but most importantly sell at a reasonable price, I believe people would rather buy software from a reliable source than trust that a.torrent isn't full of malware. They can only do this, however, if your product is affordable. An example, a lot of people pirate MSOffice. I have a legitimate copy of the Enterprise version. It cost me a total of ~£18.00and that's only because I paid extra for the backup disk & shipping without those it was ~£9.00. How you ask, through Microsoft's home User program http://www.microsofthup.com/hupus/chooser.aspx?culture=en-GB . I know it's cool on/. to bash MS, but this is one thing they've go right.
Out of interest, what is it you're developing? I have no pirated software on my PC, it's almost all FOSS and freeware. I don't think I've paid over £20.00 for an application, and most people are willing to pay up to that to avoid dodgy.torrents or malware infested warez sites.
Yeah, you guys have a Proportional system. Here in the UK we have a First past the post system; means that minor parties don't usually get a look in. Even out of out three major parties, only two are ever likely to get enough seats to form a government, though it looks like we might be heading for a hung parliament this coming election with our third party (the liberal democrats) holding the balance of power.
By being elected to a seat in the government? Jesus fuck, you're a member of a political party, and don't even understand the basics of government?
We seem to be speaking a different language here, in the UK "the government" is the term given to the executive (the day after the General election, the Queen will ask one of the party leaders to form a government). I can still be in Parliament as an MP (member of a political party or not) but not be part of the government. You seem to be using the term as a blanket one to encompass the legislature, executive and judiciary. It's not used like that here. America and Britain, two countries separated by a common language...
I hope my post makes more sense with that in mind.
So, sharing my personal data is OK, as long as it's between individuals?
No, I'm differentiating between private, personal data (for which we'd introduce stronger data protection laws) and public, but copyrighted data (for which sharing would be decriminalised); I've linked the manifesto where this is spelt out in detail, I'm unsure why you have a problem with this concept.
The entire premise of forming a political party is to be in government. Why else would you do such a thing? It amounts to an act of fraud on the citizens to form a political party without aiming to govern.
Here in the UK, the Green Party has never been elected to a seat in Parliament, however just by standing and taking votes from the other parties they have managed to get their platform onto the agenda of the main parties - they've essentially won the argument. If the PPUK can emulate that, we'd consider it a success. I mean, we're just about to fight our first election, under a year after we formed; we're only standing in 10 seats out of the ~650 or so that there are. Even if we won all 10 seats we couldn't form a government. Hell, if you can stump up £500* deposit you can stand, you don't even need to be part of a party. How is one person going to become part of the government?
*returned if you get 5% or more of the votes in that seat.
OK, so that seems a bit schizophrenic. You want to increase privacy, but also want to "let information be free" in terms of allowing sharing of information. But increased privacy is the opposite of sharing information, it's increased control over it.
We want openness and transparency from government and organisations but privacy protections for individuals. There's no contradiction there, just empowerment for the normal person. Copyright would still remain (at a much reduced length) for people who try and make money from others work, just sharing between individuals would be decriminalized. A full PPUK manifesto can be found from here: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/press/releases/2010/mar/22/pirate-party-uk-announces-general-election-manifes/
Pirate can be changed into Privacy - still a P, so not such a change.
How would changing the name to the "Privacy Party" be relevant? If it's not the exact opposite of what the party stands for, it's at least highly tangential. The Pirate Party stands for sharing information, not privacy.
Have you actually looked at our policies? At least here in the UK rolling back surveillance & defending individual privacy is part of our platform. Just look at the three bullet points on our front page: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/
You make it sound like superpower status was recently achieved.
1945 is very recent - I come from a country that was last successfully invaded in 1066, I regularly drink in a pub whose cellar goes back to the12Century (the rest of the building is of Tudor origin a little over 200 years later). My idea of a long time is two thousand years, a couple of hundred is nothing. What's your idea of a long time?
So EU law works similar to US law. An American could do this same thing, cite the relevant law regarding false advertising of a product, and get a refund. -or- Drag the retailer into small claims court.
It'll be different in different member states but here in the UK if the retailer offers something and I later find out that they ripped me off (e.g. they only gave me a 10% refund, but I was entitled to a full 100%) I can still drag them back into the small claims court. If they acted fairly, however then they are fine.
It'll be close the the American system because yours is based on the common law that we invented; I don't know how it works in the rest of Europe, where they are based on the civil law system.
>If I had kept the receipt for my PS3 I might go after EB games for a refund.
In the UK, and I guess Europe, you don't need your receipt, just some proof somewhere and somehow that you bought from that company - credit card records, for instance.
Not even that, just reasonable expectation that you bought it from the place you're trying to return it. Fox example, if a phone company has an exclusive phone, it's highly likely you bought it from them, so they have to refund\replace even though in theory you could have bought it from someone else who got it from them. The Sale of Goods act is great like that.
How come the customer was not required to go to court *first* before getting his refund?
At least here in the UK, companies don't like ending up in court (even if they're in the right), so threatening them with legal action (just a letter\email citing the relevant legislation is fine; don't need a solicitor.)often gets you something (refund\replacement\money off vouchers etc.). Hell I've even got a replacement phone battery by complaining over the phone (citing the sale of goods act) at some bloke in a call centre half way round the world.
What if the retailer had simply said, "No."
- What would have happened next?
He could then have taken them to the small claims court.
I'm not involved with the PPUK, but ISTM that you are the only person in this thread saying anything of the sort (or at least the only person with a karma bonus or upmods), so do you have links to forum threads or IRC logs which demonstrate this behaviour. If you are correct, it is something we ought to see and which PPUK need to sort out, but as it is it there is a strong whiff of sour grapes.
I'm a member of the PPUK, I debated against the detail of current policy (IMO 5+5 is too short amongst other things); I've never encountered the behaviour he describes. In the end each of the policies in the manifesto went to a separate vote of the membership (find me another party that does that), so even if he was correct people would have had the chance to vote down the policies. As it stands I don't know what he's complaining about.
Don't vote for the UK Pirate Party. They're run by arrogant assholes, and they are more than happy to have bullying self-important pricks in the party, like a guy called Eric Priezkalns. You don't want to meet him. Ever.
Vote Lib Dem this coming election. They may actually get some seats, and are a far better party. They even have a manifesto that covers something a bit wider than 3 core policies!
Ah, I see you weren't asking a genuine question in your other post; just trolling.
Unfortunately I do not agree with the whole 'legalise non-commercial sharing' aspect, so the Pirate Party remains one I cannot support.
That's your choice, if you watched the DE Bill debate, some of the MPs taking part actually voiced support for that policy (though I doubt they knew it was a PPUK one).
Got regulations and enforcement for a game based in Iceland, hosted in London, and which the sub game gambling system is made and hosted by a random_player in random_country. Should this be "regulated"? by who?
This. I'm not American, but this legislation will fail because you can't regulate the internet. Why should online Casinos around the world care what mass. legislation is? They'll only care about their home countries, and have no reason to cooperate with this law unless the USA starts some sort of web blocking scheme.
I still prefer the way Opera does it, which is if I want to search I can type "g " or "y " to search google or yahoo. I use this all the time. This way if I want to search using the bar it is explicit.
Firefox also does it this way & has done for a while.
Slashdot Mirror
I think there may be a slight confusion in terms here - in English-speaking countries, "government" is often used to refer to the state as a whole. In that sense, the entire parliament and all authorities are part of the government.
In Sweden, the word is used in a stricter sense; only the executive organ is referred to as "government". The rest is referred to simply as "the state".
No, it's a case of America being different from everyone else again; here in the UK you can be in Parliament, but not in government like over there; I believe the same is true of Canada.
I can still be in Parliament as an MP (member of a political party or not) but not be part of the government.
That doesn't make any sense. If you are in Parliament, then you are one of the people governing the country - i.e, you are "in government."
"Government" in the UK refers to ministers, their departments & the civil service etc. Because of the way our parliamentary system works (with no separation of powers, and strong party whips) it means that just because I've been elected to Parliament, I can't do any actual "governing", I can just oppose and try* to stop the majority party from doing more or less what it likes.
In terms that make it easier for a US slashdot reader, in the UK the term "government" is used to refer to the executive branch, who are a subset of the legislature, but have enormous power over it (they set introduce all the bills & set the timetables etc.). The collective term for all three branches of Government is Parliament as the Supreme Court of the UK is the House of Lords,** so what you call government, we just call Parliament.
Of course this is extremely simplified, but we've had around a thousand years to make it complicated, so forgive us our little quirks.
*and this is a harder task than it is in the USA
**This actually changed in July last year (2009) and the Law lords are now no longer, we have a separate supreme court.
No, I agree, there's quite a few people from many political parties who want a PR system here in the UK, it's kept out because it's not in the interest of the big two parties to provide a fair electoral system, the current one makes sure that only they retain huge amounts of power despite only ever getting 30-40% of the overall vote.
"We want to legalise non-commercial file sharing " Then how do I sell software to home users if they can copy it freely?
A couple of ways just off the top of my head (there must be far more). Sell support & updates; no one said you have to support the product if it wasn't bought from you. Incentiveise people, for example give away posters or concept art with your game, or perhaps a chance to win a prize with your app. Lastly but most importantly sell at a reasonable price, I believe people would rather buy software from a reliable source than trust that a .torrent isn't full of malware. They can only do this, however, if your product is affordable. An example, a lot of people pirate MSOffice. I have a legitimate copy of the Enterprise version. It cost me a total of ~£18.00and that's only because I paid extra for the backup disk & shipping without those it was ~£9.00. How you ask, through Microsoft's home User program http://www.microsofthup.com/hupus/chooser.aspx?culture=en-GB . I know it's cool on /. to bash MS, but this is one thing they've go right.
.torrents or malware infested warez sites.
Out of interest, what is it you're developing? I have no pirated software on my PC, it's almost all FOSS and freeware. I don't think I've paid over £20.00 for an application, and most people are willing to pay up to that to avoid dodgy
Yeah, you guys have a Proportional system. Here in the UK we have a First past the post system; means that minor parties don't usually get a look in. Even out of out three major parties, only two are ever likely to get enough seats to form a government, though it looks like we might be heading for a hung parliament this coming election with our third party (the liberal democrats) holding the balance of power.
By being elected to a seat in the government? Jesus fuck, you're a member of a political party, and don't even understand the basics of government?
We seem to be speaking a different language here, in the UK "the government" is the term given to the executive (the day after the General election, the Queen will ask one of the party leaders to form a government). I can still be in Parliament as an MP (member of a political party or not) but not be part of the government. You seem to be using the term as a blanket one to encompass the legislature, executive and judiciary. It's not used like that here. America and Britain, two countries separated by a common language...
I hope my post makes more sense with that in mind.
So, sharing my personal data is OK, as long as it's between individuals?
No, I'm differentiating between private, personal data (for which we'd introduce stronger data protection laws) and public, but copyrighted data (for which sharing would be decriminalised); I've linked the manifesto where this is spelt out in detail, I'm unsure why you have a problem with this concept.
Who says their goal is to be in government?
The entire premise of forming a political party is to be in government. Why else would you do such a thing? It amounts to an act of fraud on the citizens to form a political party without aiming to govern.
Here in the UK, the Green Party has never been elected to a seat in Parliament, however just by standing and taking votes from the other parties they have managed to get their platform onto the agenda of the main parties - they've essentially won the argument. If the PPUK can emulate that, we'd consider it a success. I mean, we're just about to fight our first election, under a year after we formed; we're only standing in 10 seats out of the ~650 or so that there are.
Even if we won all 10 seats we couldn't form a government. Hell, if you can stump up £500* deposit you can stand, you don't even need to be part of a party. How is one person going to become part of the government?
*returned if you get 5% or more of the votes in that seat.
OK, so that seems a bit schizophrenic. You want to increase privacy, but also want to "let information be free" in terms of allowing sharing of information. But increased privacy is the opposite of sharing information, it's increased control over it.
We want openness and transparency from government and organisations but privacy protections for individuals. There's no contradiction there, just empowerment for the normal person. Copyright would still remain (at a much reduced length) for people who try and make money from others work, just sharing between individuals would be decriminalized. A full PPUK manifesto can be found from here: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/press/releases/2010/mar/22/pirate-party-uk-announces-general-election-manifes/
Pirate can be changed into Privacy - still a P, so not such a change.
How would changing the name to the "Privacy Party" be relevant? If it's not the exact opposite of what the party stands for, it's at least highly tangential. The Pirate Party stands for sharing information, not privacy.
Have you actually looked at our policies? At least here in the UK rolling back surveillance & defending individual privacy is part of our platform. Just look at the three bullet points on our front page: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/
You make it sound like superpower status was recently achieved.
1945 is very recent - I come from a country that was last successfully invaded in 1066, I regularly drink in a pub whose cellar goes back to the12Century (the rest of the building is of Tudor origin a little over 200 years later). My idea of a long time is two thousand years, a couple of hundred is nothing. What's your idea of a long time?
The PS3 is not exclusive to EB games, it could have come from any of a number of retailers.
I realise that, I was just explaining the general principles of UK law on the matter of sale of goods & false advertising in general.
So EU law works similar to US law. An American could do this same thing, cite the relevant law regarding false advertising of a product, and get a refund. -or- Drag the retailer into small claims court.
It'll be different in different member states but here in the UK if the retailer offers something and I later find out that they ripped me off (e.g. they only gave me a 10% refund, but I was entitled to a full 100%) I can still drag them back into the small claims court. If they acted fairly, however then they are fine.
It'll be close the the American system because yours is based on the common law that we invented; I don't know how it works in the rest of Europe, where they are based on the civil law system.
>If I had kept the receipt for my PS3 I might go after EB games for a refund.
In the UK, and I guess Europe, you don't need your receipt, just some proof somewhere and somehow that you bought from that company - credit card records, for instance.
Not even that, just reasonable expectation that you bought it from the place you're trying to return it. Fox example, if a phone company has an exclusive phone, it's highly likely you bought it from them, so they have to refund\replace even though in theory you could have bought it from someone else who got it from them. The Sale of Goods act is great like that.
How come the customer was not required to go to court *first* before getting his refund?
At least here in the UK, companies don't like ending up in court (even if they're in the right), so threatening them with legal action (just a letter\email citing the relevant legislation is fine; don't need a solicitor.)often gets you something (refund\replacement\money off vouchers etc.). Hell I've even got a replacement phone battery by complaining over the phone (citing the sale of goods act) at some bloke in a call centre half way round the world.
What if the retailer had simply said, "No." - What would have happened next?
He could then have taken them to the small claims court.
How in hell could the "government in waiting" (i.e. the opposition) not show up to at least voice their opposition?
Because their front bench also supported the bill for one; only the back benches opposed the bill & they were whipped.
I'm not involved with the PPUK, but ISTM that you are the only person in this thread saying anything of the sort (or at least the only person with a karma bonus or upmods), so do you have links to forum threads or IRC logs which demonstrate this behaviour. If you are correct, it is something we ought to see and which PPUK need to sort out, but as it is it there is a strong whiff of sour grapes.
I'm a member of the PPUK, I debated against the detail of current policy (IMO 5+5 is too short amongst other things); I've never encountered the behaviour he describes. In the end each of the policies in the manifesto went to a separate vote of the membership (find me another party that does that), so even if he was correct people would have had the chance to vote down the policies. As it stands I don't know what he's complaining about.
Don't vote for the UK Pirate Party. They're run by arrogant assholes, and they are more than happy to have bullying self-important pricks in the party, like a guy called Eric Priezkalns. You don't want to meet him. Ever.
Vote Lib Dem this coming election. They may actually get some seats, and are a far better party. They even have a manifesto that covers something a bit wider than 3 core policies!
Ah, I see you weren't asking a genuine question in your other post; just trolling.
Why does your party embrace an atmosphere of hate, bullying, and shouting down of newbies to the forum?
As a PPUK member, this isn't something I've noticed; an example please?
Why have you not expelled Eric Priezkalns, an utter prick who I know has personally put many people off being part of PPUK?
Some evidence for this claim would be nice.
Unfortunately I do not agree with the whole 'legalise non-commercial sharing' aspect, so the Pirate Party remains one I cannot support.
That's your choice, if you watched the DE Bill debate, some of the MPs taking part actually voiced support for that policy (though I doubt they knew it was a PPUK one).
The problem with PR is that it tends to come with party lists.
Only if you believe those against PR. I like the Single transferable vote system, which avoids this problem.
You mean banana peels DON'T make cars spin out?!
Yep. Taking mushrooms to make you go faster is also a bad idea.
Got regulations and enforcement for a game based in Iceland, hosted in London, and which the sub game gambling system is made and hosted by a random_player in random_country. Should this be "regulated"? by who?
This. I'm not American, but this legislation will fail because you can't regulate the internet. Why should online Casinos around the world care what mass. legislation is? They'll only care about their home countries, and have no reason to cooperate with this law unless the USA starts some sort of web blocking scheme.
Not that much is legislated federally
So why did we elect Obama?
I'm not even American, and I know that the President is an executive position, not a legislative one.
I still prefer the way Opera does it, which is if I want to search I can type "g " or "y " to search google or yahoo. I use this all the time. This way if I want to search using the bar it is explicit.
Firefox also does it this way & has done for a while.