I don't know about the laws in your country but I know that this contributes to high prices in many countries. Many countries restrict or ban the international megastores in an attempt to protect small 'mom and pop" stores. In many cases the megastore can sell an item at a price equal or lower than the small retailer can even buy it. In these cases tyhe government (and theoretically the public) has decided that local ownership is more important than the citizen's standard of living.
Unless a retailer has a local presence in you country, it makes no sense for the retailer to refuse to sell you something. They are greedy bastards and would not hesitate to sell another unit if they could legally do it. If they won't sell it to you, it is because someone else is making it illegal or contract breaking to do so.
I used to buy books from Canada because the Canadian publishers edit the books better. A few years ago my vendor notified me that they could no longer allow me to buy Canadian books because of new government regulations concerning intellectual property rights. It seems that the US publishers objected that the Canadian versions were violating copyright laws protecting US publishers.
Freedom of speech is freedom from the government controlling what is said. It is NOT freedom from all entities to control what is said in all situations. In fact a big part of freedom of speech is the freedom to do just that. A newspaper nor anyone else can not be forced to transmit speech by another. There is a big difference between China's government controlling speech and a US company choosing to to transmit speech by another.
That being said, it is important for the internet to include access to all sites. Companies providing access should not make access content dependent except under extreem circumstances (Phishing, child porn, etc.) Internet providers should be required to provide access to all sites while individual sites should have the right to restrict speech as they see fit.
If the means of production is entirely in the hands of the robots what makes you think they will want to produce food and water and housing to keep the silly humans alive that are only producing inefficiencies within the system. Humans would be considered vermin.
He is still a fully tenured professor at the University of Kansas. He only resigned as Department of Religion Chair. The resignation apparently has more to do with a police report he made of an alleged assault that has some serious inconsistancies in it. Some think he made up the assault story, some think he embellished it and others believe him.
He now claims he was forced to resign but the other people involved dispute that.
In general I think there is no doubt that Linux has a lower TCO. However in some shops that are heavy into development the great productivity increase in development work that.net offers may make Windows more attractive. Luckily (I am a Linux proponent) a lot of the world has not discovered the benefits of.net and just look at it as another bunch of Microsoft fluff.
To put my experience into numbers, I found that Java was 5 times more productive for my development team than was C++. I have found that.net is twice as productive as Java. That almost makes up for all the costs and problems associated with Windows. For some situations where a great deal of development is being done for a critical but lesser used solution I have the staff develop in.net and host it on a Windows server instead of Linux. The skill set needed for.net is so much less than the skill set for Java that the staff does not suffer much lag from the use of lesser used tools. At first thr staff resisted use of.net but now they want to switch all development to it. They, of course, are not considering the TCO of the whole package and are only looking at development efforts.
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I don't know about the laws in your country but I know that this contributes to high prices in many countries. Many countries restrict or ban the international megastores in an attempt to protect small 'mom and pop" stores. In many cases the megastore can sell an item at a price equal or lower than the small retailer can even buy it. In these cases tyhe government (and theoretically the public) has decided that local ownership is more important than the citizen's standard of living. Unless a retailer has a local presence in you country, it makes no sense for the retailer to refuse to sell you something. They are greedy bastards and would not hesitate to sell another unit if they could legally do it. If they won't sell it to you, it is because someone else is making it illegal or contract breaking to do so. I used to buy books from Canada because the Canadian publishers edit the books better. A few years ago my vendor notified me that they could no longer allow me to buy Canadian books because of new government regulations concerning intellectual property rights. It seems that the US publishers objected that the Canadian versions were violating copyright laws protecting US publishers.
Freedom of speech is freedom from the government controlling what is said. It is NOT freedom from all entities to control what is said in all situations. In fact a big part of freedom of speech is the freedom to do just that. A newspaper nor anyone else can not be forced to transmit speech by another. There is a big difference between China's government controlling speech and a US company choosing to to transmit speech by another.
That being said, it is important for the internet to include access to all sites. Companies providing access should not make access content dependent except under extreem circumstances (Phishing, child porn, etc.) Internet providers should be required to provide access to all sites while individual sites should have the right to restrict speech as they see fit.
If the means of production is entirely in the hands of the robots what makes you think they will want to produce food and water and housing to keep the silly humans alive that are only producing inefficiencies within the system. Humans would be considered vermin.
The first computer I programmed was a Monroebot XI (circa 1964).
The first computer I owned was a Heath H-8 (circa 1977).
He is still a fully tenured professor at the University of Kansas. He only resigned as Department of Religion Chair. The resignation apparently has more to do with a police report he made of an alleged assault that has some serious inconsistancies in it. Some think he made up the assault story, some think he embellished it and others believe him. He now claims he was forced to resign but the other people involved dispute that.
In general I think there is no doubt that Linux has a lower TCO. However in some shops that are heavy into development the great productivity increase in development work that .net offers may make Windows more attractive. Luckily (I am a Linux proponent) a lot of the world has not discovered the benefits of .net and just look at it as another bunch of Microsoft fluff.
To put my experience into numbers, I found that Java was 5 times more productive for my development team than was C++. I have found that .net is twice as productive as Java. That almost makes up for all the costs and problems associated with Windows. For some situations where a great deal of development is being done for a critical but lesser used solution I have the staff develop in .net and host it on a Windows server instead of Linux. The skill set needed for .net is so much less than the skill set for Java that the staff does not suffer much lag from the use of lesser used tools. At first thr staff resisted use of .net but now they want to switch all development to it. They, of course, are not considering the TCO of the whole package and are only looking at development efforts.