Now, the definition of republic is "representative democracy" but the definition of democracy is "one citizen, one vote" - so the definition of republic is pure bullshit. It's not a democracy, period.
Er, if you really want to argue definitions, you're wrong. I quote:
Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
A political or social unit that has such a government.
The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
Majority rule.
The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.
The rest of the definitions provided by other sources are similar, such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica's, which states:
Form of government in which supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodic free elections. In a direct democracy, the public participates in government directly (as in some ancient Greek city-states, some New England town meetings, and some cantons in modern Switzerland). Most democracies today are representative.
I find it disheartening that our society seems so hell bent on not only allowing, but encouraging the government to set forth laws to regulate how I raise my children.
What makes you think this law tried to do that? If this law weren't struck down, then you would still be free to let your kids play violent games, it's just that you'd have to buy them for them. The choice would still be yours, not the government's.
You don't want to have to watch your kid every second of the day? Don't have children.
You're kidding, right? You seriously think it's feasible for the average parent to spend their entire day, from waking in the morning to going to sleep at night, watching over their kids, for eighteen years? And the kid won't grow up to be a complete raving lunatic?
I'll be damned if I'm going to suffer because you couldn't be bothered to make sure your children are living the way you want them to.
Suffer? That's hilarious! If you think having to ask your parents to buy a game for you constitutes suffering, then you need to switch off the console, go outside in the fresh air, and try to get some perspective.
You mitigate what you can, teach your children how to think rather than what to think, and then trust them
I completely agree. It's just that I see this law as part of the "mitigate what you can" step. Making it illegal for people to sell them violent games mitigates the problem of the games being easily obtainable. Then they'd be harder to obtain, but not impossible to obtain, which is why the problem is mitigated, not solved. And this is where the other two steps come into play.
I'm curious how this kid managed to get to the store without the parent's permission. And then, once he's got there and purchased his game, how he manages to play it without parental oversight.
How old is the kid we are talking about? If we're talking about a four year-old, sure. But are you seriously suggesting that parents should micromanage their kids' lives when they are teenagers? Require permission to go to the store, search them for contraband when they come back in, forbid them from entering the house when you aren't there to search them and watch what they do?
The kid buys it, brings it home, and then Mom or Dad says: "What've you got there son?"
When you were a kid, did your parents strip-search you before you entered the house or something? You don't think it's easy for kids to sneak stuff past their parents?
And as any good parent will tell you, you don't have to watch the kid "every second of the day" to know what they're playing. You only have to avoid compleatly ignoring them.
That's only true if you don't consider the possibility that they know you would object and only play the game when you aren't present.
I think that you are missing the fact that kids are aware of what games you do and don't approve of. They don't blindly walk in and go, "Hey, guess what I've bought - look, you can set people on fire and everything!" when they know you don't want them playing violent games.
Let's rewind about 30 minutes to where little boy's mother bought the game for little boy despite game retailer's warning that the game might not be appropriate for him.
You're forgetting that because this law has been struck down, the kid can buy it himself without his mother's knowledge. The whole point of this legislation was to try to give parents more control over whether their kids play these games without banning them from having their own money or watching them every second of the day.
No, your mom was wrong. Typing quickly is a more important skill for you to have than writing quickly. And if this ever changes, then you'll rapidly become better at writing quickly as you get more practice.
There's nothing intrinsically better about being able to write quickly compared with being able to type quickly. It's a type of old-fashioned snobbery.
I believe PHP has a bad reputation for three reasons:
It's a language used by a lot of beginners, so you see a lot of beginner code written in PHP.
It's historically had some really poor design decisions that have led people into making grave mistakes.
There are a number of better options available that people tend not to use because PHP has greater mindshare and therefore more hosting companies make it available. By comparison to the better options, PHP is crap.
They are gradually fixing the language and the poor design decisions, but change in the language happens slowly, change in the developer attitudes happens even more slowly, and change in the perception of both of these happens glacially slowly.
If you have control over your hosting arrangement, I'd strongly recommend trying out alternatives like Django (Python), Turbogears (Python) or Rails (Ruby) before committing to PHP any more than you already have. But if you need to work with bog-standard cheap web hosts, then stick with PHP, it's not that bad.
If you're interested in this, you'll probably be interested to know about Ian Bicking's work on embedding PHP in Python web applications via PHP's FastCGI support. It's only in the experimental stages, but it's very promising, especially for developers like me who develop with Python but need to support legacy PHP code.
I believe my motives were quite clear from my very first comment. I was explaining how the amount of money a copyright holder has made from their creation is an important factor when considering whether it is ethical to infringe on their copyrights.
In short: cliffski said something I disagreed with, and I explained why I disagreed.
I find it curious what your motivation for using software you haven't paid for might be
I find it curious too, considering I've not said that I do that. I'm explaining why a particular set of actions can be considered ethical, not trying to justify my behaviour to you. I feel no need to justify myself to you, if I just wanted stuff for free, I'd post a comment like "Yeah, I just want stuff for free, who's going to stop me?", not enter into a discussion about ethics.
I don't think it's unethical to dance in the nude to "Like a Virgin" while wearing green body paint and slapping my arse cheeks in time to the music. If somebody said that it was unethical, I'd disagree with them too. That doesn't mean I do it myself.
To be honest, I find it quite pathetic that I cannot disagree with the idea that copyright infringement is always unethical without being labelled "flamebait", "thief", etc. Whatever happened to debate without name-calling? Why not just call me "anti-American" or "terrorist" while you are at it? Where is this "copyright-is-unquestionably-good, anybody-who-questions-it-should-be-demonised" attitude coming from?
There are some people who believe breaking an unjust law is unethical, and there are some people who believe it is not unethical. I am one of the latter. If you are one of the former, then we disagree at a fundamental level that can never be reconciled without one of us changing our beliefs in this matter.
I will, however, point out that I believe the world would be a much poorer place if everybody followed unjust laws, and that your belief is in stark contrast to such widely respected lawbreakers as Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks.
And, because some troll would inevitably claim otherwise, I have to add the disclaimer that I'm not comparing myself to these people in any way, I'm pointing out that by claiming breaking the law is always unethical, you are calling these people unethical.
The law is a means to an end, not a source of ethics or an end in itself.
You are right, it may be impossible to come up with an objective measure to decide how much money should be the cut-off point. But then again, copyright term lengths are just as arbitrary. Why was 14 years a fair copyright term length but 13 years unfair?
Can we agree that in this particular case of Windows XP, that Microsoft has made "lots of money" by any reasonable definition of the term "lots of money"?
Jah-Wren Ryel has it spot on. There's not been a single reply that actually addresses my argument, they all called me a thief or ignored my argument and assumed that my motivation is getting something for nothing. Those attitudes should not be admired.
If copyrights are shortened to five years, that means all that good source code from Linux as it existed in 2001 is now free, correct? I can start from a 2001 version of Linux, or any GPL'd software and fork it, adding my extensions, and release it withouth source code.
I'm well aware of this consequence and I believe it to be fair. I would like some kind of way of achieving the aims of the GPL — which is, in essence, placing something into "perpetual public domain" — to be handled by law rather than a special-case software contract, but on the whole, I'd vastly prefer reasonable copyright terms with no GPL than the current draconian copyright terms with the GPL.
An interesting argument. I presume you would like copyrights term reduced, a valid point, and I would agree with you. How long is reasonbale? shall we say 10 years? lets go amd and say 5 years.
I'm unsure of what a fair copyright term is, but I'd say something on the order of ten years is fair. It gives developers a chance to profit fairly from their work and make enough money to produce more software.
I also believe that software should come with buildable source or have it in escrow to qualify for copyright protection, because otherwise it entering the public domain isn't effective in the same way other media passing into the public domain is. It's not usually feasible to use ten year-old binaries for various reasons, but with source availability these problems can be fixed. For instance, I wouldn't like to surf the web with a public domain Windows 95 without the ability to fix its security holes.
So you agree that dishing out an operating system less than 5 years old is not a valid protest but just illegal copying for the hell of it agreed?
Agreed, to a point. Copyright works by providing economic incentive to create original works. The term length is merely one way of indirectly limiting the incentive in favour of the freedom of the public. I'm saying that it also makes sense to limit the incentive directly by infringing on copyrights where the holders have already made lots of money from those particular works. So even though the fact that Windows XP is slightly under five years old, I think it's still ethical to copy it because Microsoft have already been compensated for it by making lots of money from holding its copyright.
I don't think it's clear that there's a way of codifying such a scheme in law, so it's likely that we'll always be stuck with just the term length kludgy workaround. But that doesn't mean that infringing particular copyrights is ethically wrong. I consider it to be in line with the purpose of copyright, not against it.
In fact, copyright terms that allow copyright holders to become insanely rich actually run counter to the purpose of copyright. Economic incentives are more effective when somebody needs to work to pay the bills. If copyright has made somebody rich, that takes away the economic advantage because they don't need to create more stuff to pay the bills any more.
And I don't recall many people issuing pirated games and applications waiting 5 years, so that the copyright holder recoups his investment.
I'm not defending them. But we're talking about Windows XP, which was released about five years ago, and which has made Microsoft hundreds of millions of dollars, which is undoubtedly enough to compensate Microsoft for its creation and subsidise the creation of Vista. So, in the context of the original comment that started this thread, I don't see any ethical reason for the parents to pay for a legitimate copy of Windows XP, for precisely the reason that Microsoft have made lots of money already.
just because a company makes a lot of money on a product does not justify pirating the software.
I offered reasoning to explain one way in which it's justifiable. You are offering nothing but assertions to the contrary. If you think I'm wrong, then how about explaining why you think I am wrong?
At what point does the changeover occur?
Good question, to which I have no answer. It's a grey area, not a specific number. But can you agree that if a point exists where enough money has been made to fulfill the purpose of copyright, that Microsoft would have passed that point by now?
And why should this just relate to copyright? If I determine that a lawyer is making 'shitloads of money', his services should be free? No, it's because you can get away with it with software by pirating it.
See, this is the problem with arguing against straw men, you forget what makes sense in the context of my argument, and what makes sense in the context of your fake argument that you've wrongly attributed to me.
You are assuming that I'm starting from the position that I should get free stuff, and using that to reach the conclusion that copyright can be infringed ethically. You have that backwards. I'm starting from the position that copyright is a means to an end, that end has already been reached when a copyright holder has made lots of money, and therefore I've reached the conclusion that copyright can be infringed ethically.
Now in the case of "I want free stuff", I can see how you might think that I believe a person should work for me for free. But that's not my position, and it never has been, you've forgotten where my argument ends and your straw-man begins.
In the case of copyright infringement, there is zero work being performed by the copyright holder when I copy something they hold the copyright to. I am not making them work for free. I'm recognising that they have already been compensated for the work that they've done - which is the whole reason why copyright exists. If the purpose for copyright has already been fulfilled, there's no reason to keep applying it.
If you apply your tortured analogy properly, it would be like the lawyer appointed by a court demanding to be paid by the client, even though he's already being paid by the state. In that scenario, it would be proper to refuse to pay him because he's already been paid.
Copying software is a faceless act, you don't have to deal with the people who made the software, or pay their bills, or feed their kids.
Leave the appeal to emotion alone. We're talking about people who have made lots of money already, remember? Don't try and sway the argument with false "Think of the children!" arguments.
It's not applicable either. Sure, copyright software might be a faceless act, but copying music is even more widespread than copying software, and that involves celebrities who are adored by millions of those people who happily copy their music. The fact that software developers are "faceless" is not a factor, either in my reasoning, or in the widespread copyright infringement that is happening all over the world.
So is it just you and your friends who get to take the product for free under this system, whilst laughing at the poor schmucks who paid for it and made your actions possible?
How is that different to the "poor schmucks" who pay for something during the copyright terms before it falls into the public domain? It has always been the case that some people pay for copyrighted works while others get it for free, going back all the way to the Statute of Anne. This isn't some kind of special advantage infringers are getting, it's been a fundamental concept of copyright since day one.
All I'm doing is pointing out that it's rational to consider that making a shitload of money is just as significant — if not more significant — a point at which to consider copyright's purpose to be fulfilled as an arbitrary number of years passing.
What do I and my friends have to do with it? Are you one of those people who cannot consider any opinion short of "copyright is perfect" or "copyright is property" as anything other than an excuse? No room for valid disagreements with copyright?
You seem to be arguing in favour of a change in copyright terms, or higher corporate taxes. But rather than lobby for change, you've decided just to take stuff without paying.
I'm not taking anything without paying. I exercise my voting ability in accordance with my views on copyright, among other things.
Are you saying that I cannot disagree with copyright without spending lots of time with politicians? That voting is not enough?
I see, so as microsoft have made a lot of money, that means its ok to pirate their software?
Actually, yes, that's a perfectly valid distinction to make. Copyright exists to promote the creation of new works, by subsidising creators. Over the years, it's become cheaper and easier to create, but copyright holders have been getting more and more protection. The result is that a lot of copyright holders are earning far more than is necessary for them to create new works.
In these cases, copyright has lost its purpose for existing, and therefore it's reasonable to hold the position that infringing on copyrights where the copyright holder has already earned lots of money is acceptable, while still respecting the copyrights of those that do not make lots of money. Think of it as compensating for the way copyright has been twisted out of all proportion.
As far as the "This thread is useless without pics." joke, I read that as irony making fun of immature nerds, not anything insulting to women.
That maybe the reason more women don't go into tech is cultural - not in the "women are more interested in nail polish than hard drives"-sort of way, but in the sense that they sick and tired of dealing with all the "oohh, titties!" comments that we men think is good natured humor, but gets old with women?
Yes, I do think that. But it's stupid to let the jokes continue and set aside a special women-only club for them to play on their own. That's incredibly uncaring and condescending. The better approach is to cut out the stupid sexist jokes, flame people for making sexist jokes and ban them from the mailing lists if they continue - like you would with anybody who made racist jokes.
Maybe, just maybe, if women (or minorities or the handicapped, etc) can be provided with a supportive environment, we'll find that women are interested in tech. Maybe we'll even find that some women can be really good at it.
Er, we already know that. There are plenty of good female developers. There are fewer than men in proportion, but there's still plenty of them.
It's all about providing a supportive environment so that women can concentrate on the matter at hand
But it's creating a second-class segregated environment rather than fixing the real environment everybody currently works in. You don't see a problem with that? Maybe we should make them sit at the back of the bus too.
200 light years is only 197 thousand trillion London bus lengths wide, whereas 200 million light years is 197 billion trillion London bus lengths wide. That's a lot of busses!
I think if I were confronted with that same situation, I'd say, "Excuse me?" I'd then say nothing more, leave the entire order there at the checkout, and leave the store.
That wouldn't do any good, you'd just get the person working the checkout calling you a crazy. If you're going to make a point, explain why you think it's stupid to the manager, and do it at the checkout queue.
It's a nasty bit of double-speak. Technically, the sentence means that Linux geeks don't think that Linux is automatically better at everything than Windows - which is a completely reasonable opinion. But it's worded to imply that Linux geeks think that Linux isn't ready for important applications.
Taken literally, it's true. The average person reading it without paying attention would reach a completely false conclusion though. You could consider it to be lying, but in a way that makes it very difficult to disprove.
With an attitude like this, the fact that this chap's leaving, is actually a good news for the future of PHP. No open source project can afford devleopers with such bloated egos. And especially at the top, it's better to have less hot-headed souls, talking in a decent, humane manner.
Okay, you've accused him of:
having a bad attitude,
having a bloated ego,
being hot-headed and
acting in an inhuman manner
All this from simply quitting and not wishing to be associated with a project any more? He didn't accuse anybody of anything, he didn't rant and rave, he said he was leaving and wasn't coming back. How is that anything like the attitude you describe?
Slashdot Mirror
Er, if you really want to argue definitions, you're wrong. I quote:
The rest of the definitions provided by other sources are similar, such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica's, which states:
What makes you think this law tried to do that? If this law weren't struck down, then you would still be free to let your kids play violent games, it's just that you'd have to buy them for them. The choice would still be yours, not the government's.
You're kidding, right? You seriously think it's feasible for the average parent to spend their entire day, from waking in the morning to going to sleep at night, watching over their kids, for eighteen years? And the kid won't grow up to be a complete raving lunatic?
Suffer? That's hilarious! If you think having to ask your parents to buy a game for you constitutes suffering, then you need to switch off the console, go outside in the fresh air, and try to get some perspective.
I completely agree. It's just that I see this law as part of the "mitigate what you can" step. Making it illegal for people to sell them violent games mitigates the problem of the games being easily obtainable. Then they'd be harder to obtain, but not impossible to obtain, which is why the problem is mitigated, not solved. And this is where the other two steps come into play.
How old is the kid we are talking about? If we're talking about a four year-old, sure. But are you seriously suggesting that parents should micromanage their kids' lives when they are teenagers? Require permission to go to the store, search them for contraband when they come back in, forbid them from entering the house when you aren't there to search them and watch what they do?
When you were a kid, did your parents strip-search you before you entered the house or something? You don't think it's easy for kids to sneak stuff past their parents?
That's only true if you don't consider the possibility that they know you would object and only play the game when you aren't present.
I think that you are missing the fact that kids are aware of what games you do and don't approve of. They don't blindly walk in and go, "Hey, guess what I've bought - look, you can set people on fire and everything!" when they know you don't want them playing violent games.
You're forgetting that because this law has been struck down, the kid can buy it himself without his mother's knowledge. The whole point of this legislation was to try to give parents more control over whether their kids play these games without banning them from having their own money or watching them every second of the day.
No, your mom was wrong. Typing quickly is a more important skill for you to have than writing quickly. And if this ever changes, then you'll rapidly become better at writing quickly as you get more practice.
There's nothing intrinsically better about being able to write quickly compared with being able to type quickly. It's a type of old-fashioned snobbery.
I believe PHP has a bad reputation for three reasons:
They are gradually fixing the language and the poor design decisions, but change in the language happens slowly, change in the developer attitudes happens even more slowly, and change in the perception of both of these happens glacially slowly.
If you have control over your hosting arrangement, I'd strongly recommend trying out alternatives like Django (Python), Turbogears (Python) or Rails (Ruby) before committing to PHP any more than you already have. But if you need to work with bog-standard cheap web hosts, then stick with PHP, it's not that bad.
If you're interested in this, you'll probably be interested to know about Ian Bicking's work on embedding PHP in Python web applications via PHP's FastCGI support. It's only in the experimental stages, but it's very promising, especially for developers like me who develop with Python but need to support legacy PHP code.
I believe my motives were quite clear from my very first comment. I was explaining how the amount of money a copyright holder has made from their creation is an important factor when considering whether it is ethical to infringe on their copyrights.
In short: cliffski said something I disagreed with, and I explained why I disagreed.
I find it curious too, considering I've not said that I do that. I'm explaining why a particular set of actions can be considered ethical, not trying to justify my behaviour to you. I feel no need to justify myself to you, if I just wanted stuff for free, I'd post a comment like "Yeah, I just want stuff for free, who's going to stop me?", not enter into a discussion about ethics.
I don't think it's unethical to dance in the nude to "Like a Virgin" while wearing green body paint and slapping my arse cheeks in time to the music. If somebody said that it was unethical, I'd disagree with them too. That doesn't mean I do it myself.
To be honest, I find it quite pathetic that I cannot disagree with the idea that copyright infringement is always unethical without being labelled "flamebait", "thief", etc. Whatever happened to debate without name-calling? Why not just call me "anti-American" or "terrorist" while you are at it? Where is this "copyright-is-unquestionably-good, anybody-who-questions-it-should-be-demonised" attitude coming from?
There are some people who believe breaking an unjust law is unethical, and there are some people who believe it is not unethical. I am one of the latter. If you are one of the former, then we disagree at a fundamental level that can never be reconciled without one of us changing our beliefs in this matter.
I will, however, point out that I believe the world would be a much poorer place if everybody followed unjust laws, and that your belief is in stark contrast to such widely respected lawbreakers as Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks.
And, because some troll would inevitably claim otherwise, I have to add the disclaimer that I'm not comparing myself to these people in any way, I'm pointing out that by claiming breaking the law is always unethical, you are calling these people unethical.
The law is a means to an end, not a source of ethics or an end in itself.
You are right, it may be impossible to come up with an objective measure to decide how much money should be the cut-off point. But then again, copyright term lengths are just as arbitrary. Why was 14 years a fair copyright term length but 13 years unfair?
Can we agree that in this particular case of Windows XP, that Microsoft has made "lots of money" by any reasonable definition of the term "lots of money"?
Jah-Wren Ryel has it spot on. There's not been a single reply that actually addresses my argument, they all called me a thief or ignored my argument and assumed that my motivation is getting something for nothing. Those attitudes should not be admired.
I'm well aware of this consequence and I believe it to be fair. I would like some kind of way of achieving the aims of the GPL — which is, in essence, placing something into "perpetual public domain" — to be handled by law rather than a special-case software contract, but on the whole, I'd vastly prefer reasonable copyright terms with no GPL than the current draconian copyright terms with the GPL.
I'm unsure of what a fair copyright term is, but I'd say something on the order of ten years is fair. It gives developers a chance to profit fairly from their work and make enough money to produce more software.
I also believe that software should come with buildable source or have it in escrow to qualify for copyright protection, because otherwise it entering the public domain isn't effective in the same way other media passing into the public domain is. It's not usually feasible to use ten year-old binaries for various reasons, but with source availability these problems can be fixed. For instance, I wouldn't like to surf the web with a public domain Windows 95 without the ability to fix its security holes.
Agreed, to a point. Copyright works by providing economic incentive to create original works. The term length is merely one way of indirectly limiting the incentive in favour of the freedom of the public. I'm saying that it also makes sense to limit the incentive directly by infringing on copyrights where the holders have already made lots of money from those particular works. So even though the fact that Windows XP is slightly under five years old, I think it's still ethical to copy it because Microsoft have already been compensated for it by making lots of money from holding its copyright.
I don't think it's clear that there's a way of codifying such a scheme in law, so it's likely that we'll always be stuck with just the term length kludgy workaround. But that doesn't mean that infringing particular copyrights is ethically wrong. I consider it to be in line with the purpose of copyright, not against it.
In fact, copyright terms that allow copyright holders to become insanely rich actually run counter to the purpose of copyright. Economic incentives are more effective when somebody needs to work to pay the bills. If copyright has made somebody rich, that takes away the economic advantage because they don't need to create more stuff to pay the bills any more.
I'm not defending them. But we're talking about Windows XP, which was released about five years ago, and which has made Microsoft hundreds of millions of dollars, which is undoubtedly enough to compensate Microsoft for its creation and subsidise the creation of Vista. So, in the context of the original comment that started this thread, I don't see any ethical reason for the parents to pay for a legitimate copy of Windows XP, for precisely the reason that Microsoft have made lots of money already.
I offered reasoning to explain one way in which it's justifiable. You are offering nothing but assertions to the contrary. If you think I'm wrong, then how about explaining why you think I am wrong?
Good question, to which I have no answer. It's a grey area, not a specific number. But can you agree that if a point exists where enough money has been made to fulfill the purpose of copyright, that Microsoft would have passed that point by now?
See, this is the problem with arguing against straw men, you forget what makes sense in the context of my argument, and what makes sense in the context of your fake argument that you've wrongly attributed to me.
You are assuming that I'm starting from the position that I should get free stuff, and using that to reach the conclusion that copyright can be infringed ethically. You have that backwards. I'm starting from the position that copyright is a means to an end, that end has already been reached when a copyright holder has made lots of money, and therefore I've reached the conclusion that copyright can be infringed ethically.
Now in the case of "I want free stuff", I can see how you might think that I believe a person should work for me for free. But that's not my position, and it never has been, you've forgotten where my argument ends and your straw-man begins.
In the case of copyright infringement, there is zero work being performed by the copyright holder when I copy something they hold the copyright to. I am not making them work for free. I'm recognising that they have already been compensated for the work that they've done - which is the whole reason why copyright exists. If the purpose for copyright has already been fulfilled, there's no reason to keep applying it.
If you apply your tortured analogy properly, it would be like the lawyer appointed by a court demanding to be paid by the client, even though he's already being paid by the state. In that scenario, it would be proper to refuse to pay him because he's already been paid.
Leave the appeal to emotion alone. We're talking about people who have made lots of money already, remember? Don't try and sway the argument with false "Think of the children!" arguments.
It's not applicable either. Sure, copyright software might be a faceless act, but copying music is even more widespread than copying software, and that involves celebrities who are adored by millions of those people who happily copy their music. The fact that software developers are "faceless" is not a factor, either in my reasoning, or in the widespread copyright infringement that is happening all over the world.
How is that different to the "poor schmucks" who pay for something during the copyright terms before it falls into the public domain? It has always been the case that some people pay for copyrighted works while others get it for free, going back all the way to the Statute of Anne. This isn't some kind of special advantage infringers are getting, it's been a fundamental concept of copyright since day one.
All I'm doing is pointing out that it's rational to consider that making a shitload of money is just as significant — if not more significant — a point at which to consider copyright's purpose to be fulfilled as an arbitrary number of years passing.
What do I and my friends have to do with it? Are you one of those people who cannot consider any opinion short of "copyright is perfect" or "copyright is property" as anything other than an excuse? No room for valid disagreements with copyright?
I'm not taking anything without paying. I exercise my voting ability in accordance with my views on copyright, among other things.
Are you saying that I cannot disagree with copyright without spending lots of time with politicians? That voting is not enough?
Actually, yes, that's a perfectly valid distinction to make. Copyright exists to promote the creation of new works, by subsidising creators. Over the years, it's become cheaper and easier to create, but copyright holders have been getting more and more protection. The result is that a lot of copyright holders are earning far more than is necessary for them to create new works.
In these cases, copyright has lost its purpose for existing, and therefore it's reasonable to hold the position that infringing on copyrights where the copyright holder has already earned lots of money is acceptable, while still respecting the copyrights of those that do not make lots of money. Think of it as compensating for the way copyright has been twisted out of all proportion.
As far as the "This thread is useless without pics." joke, I read that as irony making fun of immature nerds, not anything insulting to women.
Yes, I do think that. But it's stupid to let the jokes continue and set aside a special women-only club for them to play on their own. That's incredibly uncaring and condescending. The better approach is to cut out the stupid sexist jokes, flame people for making sexist jokes and ban them from the mailing lists if they continue - like you would with anybody who made racist jokes.
Er, we already know that. There are plenty of good female developers. There are fewer than men in proportion, but there's still plenty of them.
But it's creating a second-class segregated environment rather than fixing the real environment everybody currently works in. You don't see a problem with that? Maybe we should make them sit at the back of the bus too.
200 light years is only 197 thousand trillion London bus lengths wide, whereas 200 million light years is 197 billion trillion London bus lengths wide. That's a lot of busses!
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
That wouldn't do any good, you'd just get the person working the checkout calling you a crazy. If you're going to make a point, explain why you think it's stupid to the manager, and do it at the checkout queue.
It's a nasty bit of double-speak. Technically, the sentence means that Linux geeks don't think that Linux is automatically better at everything than Windows - which is a completely reasonable opinion. But it's worded to imply that Linux geeks think that Linux isn't ready for important applications.
Taken literally, it's true. The average person reading it without paying attention would reach a completely false conclusion though. You could consider it to be lying, but in a way that makes it very difficult to disprove.
Okay, you've accused him of:
All this from simply quitting and not wishing to be associated with a project any more? He didn't accuse anybody of anything, he didn't rant and rave, he said he was leaving and wasn't coming back. How is that anything like the attitude you describe?