This might be the start of investment in a highly fractured network which does not have the redundancy that the internet was originally designed to provide.
thats what happens when you let monopolistic, politically manipulative corporations like at&t and similar to run critical infrastructure - you end up having to lay your own.
People mature with age after they find out that screwing people in business isn't what life's all about. You are stuck smoldering over past wounds.
first, screwing people in business is unethical, regardless of whether 'it is the norm' in the business world or some subsection of it or not. we can not exonerate bill gates for evil deeds, just because others did that too. and when he is trying to portray himself as a charitable person, in contrast of others, who are still openly bastards, and are not hiding any of their agendas behind 'charity' veil.
as for standardization, i think it would have happened without ms too. lets take ibm pc. how did it became the de facto computer for the entire world ? ibm licensed it, and let relaxed usage. today all we know is pc, and ibm does not have us locked in.
the same would have happened if gates and co havent locked the market into a fascist standardization. any other dos that was in use then might have employed the same practice of ibm, and today we might have had something resembling linux in spirit, but much more standardized and also modular, unlike windows.
modular, because license relaxation of ibm pc resulted in modular hardware, with components interchangeable. same might have happened with the os that might have taken msdos's place. a core kernel, modular structure, much relaxed much easier to customize and code for. why, this is the way microsoft declared that they were going to take with windows 7, just in the past week. they are going to get there, just 20 years later.
People mature with age after they find out that screwing people in business isn't what life's all about. You are stuck smoldering over past wounds.
with same logic you can just defend that we should forget holocaust and the lessons we learned as well. life is not all about what you speak, life is all about taking lessons and NOT repeating same mistakes.
bill gates, microsoft and windows were mistakes. no company should ever be let to have the entire world in lock-in.
more of the same from stallman, is much better than more of the same from bill:
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
noone is offended when george w. bush is talked about as 'bush', or jean jacques voltaire as 'voltaire', thomas jefferson as 'jefferson', but you get offended by bill gates, a mere man, (he is just a mere man compared to the names i mentioned here), being named as 'gates' ?
from what holy see did gates get the sainthood bestowed upon him ? and when ?
ideology in modern western capitalistic world already ?
the right to retirement, weekly vacation days, daily working hour limits, job safety are all modern concepts that were only possible by pressure the socialist and communist revolutions of early 19th century, but especially 1848. still for these to come to fruition we had to wait until the advent of 20th century, and we are only able to have a civil working environment just for the last 60 years or so. before that, especially in 19th century, corporations were using people virtually as slaves - a few hours off for sunday mass, rest of the week hard work with pathetic pay for 10+ hours with no safety or guarantees and any retirement rights.
all the concept of preventing monopolies so there could actually be equal rights to compete comes from the socialistic ideals of late 19th century. yet still it took 2 presidents (theodore R and franklin D R) to get this important precondition of life to become a reality and liberated usa from the hands of 4 to 5 big robber barons you can easily name, even now.
i really detest people who put forward prejudices about stuff without knowing history.
The cost of actual software is very little compared the cost of support, which is still a significant cost when using "free" software.
a bullshit of the first order. you can get free, sometimes unprecedented first hand help from open source communities. just do a test by going posting a question on the oscommerce forums about some odd, out of the way tax implementation for out of state sales from ontario, in canada.
open source support comes generally much faster than shitty proprietary support. while the former comes free, the latter generally comes with a cost associated and outsourced to people that are not quite in the know of what they are saying you. you get passed from department to department and have to allocate half a day's work to getting an answer for the question you have, leave aside solving it.
else you will be burdened with the snarkiness of your comments in lieu of the millions who are made to suffer through bill and melinda gates's 'charitable' acts. to get a grab of whats going on, read the below:
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
yes the analogy may seem a bit exaggerated but, you get my meaning.
you wont be able to persuade these companies to be more open to open source, and therefore freedom of the masses. because, their business depends on people not being free, depending on their software by lock ins.
what you propose is just like trying to promote the merits of equality for all, egalite, eternite, fraternite, to the aristocracy in france in 1789. its basically saying "hey, you are enjoying unjust privileges now, but would it not be better if you just forfeit them, and be equal with everybody else ?"
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
i would really like to see what kind of 'charitable' act this one is. ah, also below too :
and read comments here citing cases in which bill gates used his foundation to get open source switch projects scuttled by donating 40 million boxes in mexico, on the condition that they run microsoft windows, for example.
if that is what it means to hold 'a position of importance', hell, world doesnt need any of that kind of important people, or that kind of charity.
very well put facts you have in there. especially this part:
The yuppie generation, which these people are a part of, should get a good kick in the teeth, starting with government, considering they're in charge and blowing it for the rest of us. George Carlin described you people right. And much of this giving smells more like tax evasion and after mid-life guilt. If you want proof, just ask if you would donate if the financial/emotional gains didn't exist.
Gates on the otherhand, is a money grubbing horse thief, that has screwed a long list of people and companies on his way to becoming a billionare. His company is a convicted monopolist.
i dare anyone who will be chanting praise about bill gates, to debunk the bold fact, and the especially underlined fact, before they even start their chanson.
to be able to comment on whether another organization that intends to help the poor actually does so or not.
if put into plain logical terms, you dont need to be doing the same thing, be in the same place, experience the same thing to be able to comment, speak, or even do research or put legislation on them.
lets provide examples :
you dont need to be a survivor of the holocaust to be able to say that holocaust has happened and it was a horrible thing, because we know from verifiable data that it was.
you dont need to have actually been on the moon to be able to say moon's surface is covered with mostly fine grained sand/dust.
you dont need to actually be someone in the bush administration to criticize their actions.
you can name other examples.
therefore if stallman, or any other person, thinks that some other group/party is not delivering what they promise, from their observance of proceedings, not only what they do in real life, what their foundation does are irrelevant, but they are entitled to their opinion just like every other asshole around the world. not that stallman and others are assholes though. but you get my meaning.
Your simply wrong on this. Suppose the will of the people was to get rid of every evil business and by definition all business is even, If they followed that will, none of the people would have jobs, no jobs mean no income which means no ability to pay taxes. Now with the businesses gone, there is no tax revenue from them which means no fire, police, or other government services and everything goes to shit.The public is not just the people who vote either. It is the businesses who have the jobs, It is the environment in which needs to be kept clean enough to be minimally safe for the people and so on.
corporations are organizations founded by people. they cannot hold more weight than how many voters are involved in them. anything to the contrary is against the concept of plural democracy.
When the less informed but popular will of the people is detrimental to the society, our republic shines by allowing the politician to not follow along.
the trend we are seeing to the opposite however. the corporations there are always steering your senate and house and administration to their will, regardless of consequences.
i really defy that age old lie that says 'corporations provide jobs' also. what i see is that, today's corporations never provide comparable jobs in proportion to the business they are doing and profit they are generating. neither do they do new investments as expected. majority of profits are hauled into swiss banks and stays there. the bigger a corporation gets, the smaller its employment force compared to its size (in ratio), the bigger profits they make.
only exception is initiatives like in italy that pushes small to medium businesses. at that growth stage, no individual business or a group of 4-5 of them are able to affect the outcome of an election out of their specific agenda, and also at this level they provide more jobs in comparison to their sizes. all the small and medium businesses as a group, levies a sufficient lobbying power, yet, due to the number of companies involved (thousands of similar size companies, not 4-10 mega corporations h aving all the weight), it becomes a more or less democratic process and the impact of incessant specific interest lobbying is reduced.
collaborating with something that is not righteous, just, acceptable to the society is in itself a violation of morality. imagine the germans who fled nazi germany out of ethical reasons. they might have stayed (in 30s) and just lived on. yet they left their homeland. their change didnt do any impact. but, morally, they didnt stay on and become a contributor to some unethical scheme.
its a matter of moral values. the way things are going, the intellectual property industries (especially music, tv, movie) have become a hulking dinosaur that is preventing progress of mankind. a lot of laws that are violating privacy of people, and installing dangerous mechanisms to monitor communication have been passed in a number of countries recently, and some of them are due to international pressure from media cartels.
these are very dangerous. because a monitor and control mechanism that is there for some purpose, can be used also for another purpose. we had it here in turkey. supposedly to combat terrorism and crime, monitoring of all communications traffic has been exploited by the ruling party to shame opponents and take them under pressure - opposition party, non party government officials and so on.
the proceedings of the media cartels to preserve an age old (18th century, specifically) business method are not only hurting development of new distribution and business methods, but also creating dangerous grounds for implementation of such control and monitor mechanisms.
yes, my choice may not have too much impact. yes, noone may notice if i dont buy cds anymore.
yet, i wont be a part of the above, and i'll know it. this is important.
Slashdot Mirror
and instead start the Net Doublecharge on bandwidth already paid for at the other ends
thats the reason they are trying to scuttle net neutrality in the first place. it shouldnt let happen.
This might be the start of investment in a highly fractured network which does not have the redundancy that the internet was originally designed to provide.
thats what happens when you let monopolistic, politically manipulative corporations like at&t and similar to run critical infrastructure - you end up having to lay your own.
is there anyone among us who has been subverted by Silverlight ? I'd rather be subverted by my living room light bulb than Silverlight.
read carefully. costs with open source are negligible compared to ms vendor lock ins.
People mature with age after they find out that screwing people in business isn't what life's all about. You are stuck smoldering over past wounds.
first, screwing people in business is unethical, regardless of whether 'it is the norm' in the business world or some subsection of it or not. we can not exonerate bill gates for evil deeds, just because others did that too. and when he is trying to portray himself as a charitable person, in contrast of others, who are still openly bastards, and are not hiding any of their agendas behind 'charity' veil.
as for standardization, i think it would have happened without ms too. lets take ibm pc. how did it became the de facto computer for the entire world ? ibm licensed it, and let relaxed usage. today all we know is pc, and ibm does not have us locked in.
the same would have happened if gates and co havent locked the market into a fascist standardization. any other dos that was in use then might have employed the same practice of ibm, and today we might have had something resembling linux in spirit, but much more standardized and also modular, unlike windows.
modular, because license relaxation of ibm pc resulted in modular hardware, with components interchangeable. same might have happened with the os that might have taken msdos's place. a core kernel, modular structure, much relaxed much easier to customize and code for. why, this is the way microsoft declared that they were going to take with windows 7, just in the past week. they are going to get there, just 20 years later.
People mature with age after they find out that screwing people in business isn't what life's all about. You are stuck smoldering over past wounds.
with same logic you can just defend that we should forget holocaust and the lessons we learned as well. life is not all about what you speak, life is all about taking lessons and NOT repeating same mistakes.
bill gates, microsoft and windows were mistakes. no company should ever be let to have the entire world in lock-in.
but if there was nothing as ip, there wouldnt be a need for gpl either.
Discovery channel have been showing those stuff in live usage out the coast of scotland for 2-2.5 years now.
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
also : :
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,4205044,full.story
Also, as an earlier poster mentioned :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Criticisms
also this
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4103.htm
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
also : :
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,4205044,full.story
Also, as an earlier poster mentioned :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Criticisms
also this
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4103.htm
noone is offended when george w. bush is talked about as 'bush', or jean jacques voltaire as 'voltaire', thomas jefferson as 'jefferson', but you get offended by bill gates, a mere man, (he is just a mere man compared to the names i mentioned here), being named as 'gates' ?
from what holy see did gates get the sainthood bestowed upon him ? and when ?
ideology in modern western capitalistic world already ?
the right to retirement, weekly vacation days, daily working hour limits, job safety are all modern concepts that were only possible by pressure the socialist and communist revolutions of early 19th century, but especially 1848. still for these to come to fruition we had to wait until the advent of 20th century, and we are only able to have a civil working environment just for the last 60 years or so. before that, especially in 19th century, corporations were using people virtually as slaves - a few hours off for sunday mass, rest of the week hard work with pathetic pay for 10+ hours with no safety or guarantees and any retirement rights.
all the concept of preventing monopolies so there could actually be equal rights to compete comes from the socialistic ideals of late 19th century. yet still it took 2 presidents (theodore R and franklin D R) to get this important precondition of life to become a reality and liberated usa from the hands of 4 to 5 big robber barons you can easily name, even now.
i really detest people who put forward prejudices about stuff without knowing history.
The cost of actual software is very little compared the cost of support, which is still a significant cost when using "free" software.
a bullshit of the first order. you can get free, sometimes unprecedented first hand help from open source communities. just do a test by going posting a question on the oscommerce forums about some odd, out of the way tax implementation for out of state sales from ontario, in canada.
open source support comes generally much faster than shitty proprietary support. while the former comes free, the latter generally comes with a cost associated and outsourced to people that are not quite in the know of what they are saying you. you get passed from department to department and have to allocate half a day's work to getting an answer for the question you have, leave aside solving it.
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
also :
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,4205044,full.story
Also, as an earlier poster mentioned :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Criticisms
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
also :
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,4205044,full.story
Also, as an earlier poster mentioned :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Criticismsplease explain this oil connection and the windows pushing in terms of investment and charity.
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
also :
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,4205044,full.story
Also, as an earlier poster mentioned :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_and_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Criticisms
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
also :
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,4205044,full.story
yes the analogy may seem a bit exaggerated but, you get my meaning.
you wont be able to persuade these companies to be more open to open source, and therefore freedom of the masses. because, their business depends on people not being free, depending on their software by lock ins.
what you propose is just like trying to promote the merits of equality for all, egalite, eternite, fraternite, to the aristocracy in france in 1789. its basically saying "hey, you are enjoying unjust privileges now, but would it not be better if you just forfeit them, and be equal with everybody else ?"
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
also :
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,4205044,full.story
Yes, many will not concur with Richard, but the truth is that the foundation IS Bill Gates PR arm. I give you the example of Mexico's enciclomedia project (which was an absolute failure): with the simplest menace of the country's strategy of including linux as a base platform for millions of computers for elementary schools, the B&MG foundation (after a lightning trip of ballmer and gates to personally talk to President Fox) donated 40 million dollars worth of boxes with a simple, little string attached: it HAS to run Microsoft Windows.
i would really like to see what kind of 'charitable' act this one is. ah, also below too :
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,4205044,full.story
and read comments here citing cases in which bill gates used his foundation to get open source switch projects scuttled by donating 40 million boxes in mexico, on the condition that they run microsoft windows, for example.
if that is what it means to hold 'a position of importance', hell, world doesnt need any of that kind of important people, or that kind of charity.
The yuppie generation, which these people are a part of, should get a good kick in the teeth, starting with government, considering they're in charge and blowing it for the rest of us. George Carlin described you people right. And much of this giving smells more like tax evasion and after mid-life guilt. If you want proof, just ask if you would donate if the financial/emotional gains didn't exist.
Gates on the otherhand, is a money grubbing horse thief, that has screwed a long list of people and companies on his way to becoming a billionare. His company is a convicted monopolist.
i dare anyone who will be chanting praise about bill gates, to debunk the bold fact, and the especially underlined fact, before they even start their chanson.
to be able to comment on whether another organization that intends to help the poor actually does so or not.
if put into plain logical terms, you dont need to be doing the same thing, be in the same place, experience the same thing to be able to comment, speak, or even do research or put legislation on them.
lets provide examples :
you dont need to be a survivor of the holocaust to be able to say that holocaust has happened and it was a horrible thing, because we know from verifiable data that it was.
you dont need to have actually been on the moon to be able to say moon's surface is covered with mostly fine grained sand/dust.
you dont need to actually be someone in the bush administration to criticize their actions.
you can name other examples.
therefore if stallman, or any other person, thinks that some other group/party is not delivering what they promise, from their observance of proceedings, not only what they do in real life, what their foundation does are irrelevant, but they are entitled to their opinion just like every other asshole around the world. not that stallman and others are assholes though. but you get my meaning.
Your simply wrong on this. Suppose the will of the people was to get rid of every evil business and by definition all business is even, If they followed that will, none of the people would have jobs, no jobs mean no income which means no ability to pay taxes. Now with the businesses gone, there is no tax revenue from them which means no fire, police, or other government services and everything goes to shit.The public is not just the people who vote either. It is the businesses who have the jobs, It is the environment in which needs to be kept clean enough to be minimally safe for the people and so on.
corporations are organizations founded by people. they cannot hold more weight than how many voters are involved in them. anything to the contrary is against the concept of plural democracy.
When the less informed but popular will of the people is detrimental to the society, our republic shines by allowing the politician to not follow along.
the trend we are seeing to the opposite however. the corporations there are always steering your senate and house and administration to their will, regardless of consequences.
i really defy that age old lie that says 'corporations provide jobs' also. what i see is that, today's corporations never provide comparable jobs in proportion to the business they are doing and profit they are generating. neither do they do new investments as expected. majority of profits are hauled into swiss banks and stays there. the bigger a corporation gets, the smaller its employment force compared to its size (in ratio), the bigger profits they make.
only exception is initiatives like in italy that pushes small to medium businesses. at that growth stage, no individual business or a group of 4-5 of them are able to affect the outcome of an election out of their specific agenda, and also at this level they provide more jobs in comparison to their sizes. all the small and medium businesses as a group, levies a sufficient lobbying power, yet, due to the number of companies involved (thousands of similar size companies, not 4-10 mega corporations h aving all the weight), it becomes a more or less democratic process and the impact of incessant specific interest lobbying is reduced.
i take it you are a republican.
collaborating with something that is not righteous, just, acceptable to the society is in itself a violation of morality. imagine the germans who fled nazi germany out of ethical reasons. they might have stayed (in 30s) and just lived on. yet they left their homeland. their change didnt do any impact. but, morally, they didnt stay on and become a contributor to some unethical scheme.
its a matter of moral values. the way things are going, the intellectual property industries (especially music, tv, movie) have become a hulking dinosaur that is preventing progress of mankind. a lot of laws that are violating privacy of people, and installing dangerous mechanisms to monitor communication have been passed in a number of countries recently, and some of them are due to international pressure from media cartels.
these are very dangerous. because a monitor and control mechanism that is there for some purpose, can be used also for another purpose. we had it here in turkey. supposedly to combat terrorism and crime, monitoring of all communications traffic has been exploited by the ruling party to shame opponents and take them under pressure - opposition party, non party government officials and so on.
the proceedings of the media cartels to preserve an age old (18th century, specifically) business method are not only hurting development of new distribution and business methods, but also creating dangerous grounds for implementation of such control and monitor mechanisms.
yes, my choice may not have too much impact. yes, noone may notice if i dont buy cds anymore.
yet, i wont be a part of the above, and i'll know it. this is important.