are you seriously suggesting drug companys are going to run out of sick people, or illnesses to treat? No, that's a straw man. What he said was that curing AIDS would make them less money than controlling it would. You appear have no better argument against his line of reasoning than straw men and outrage at the idea of drug companies being so morally corrupt.
I suggest you look into the history of drug companies for a reality check on your moral outrage. You may for instance look into how this very decease got a huge boost from US drug companies that sold HIV infected medicine overseas after it was found to be dangerous: bayer hiv scandal Contaminated haemophilia blood products
Eh, No. It means you get to use a validation component on the included content before sending it to a browser.
You can bet your butt that there will be such components available before HTML 5 reaches any notable market penetration. Open source coders will Likely get them out there before the standard is even finalized.
It reminds me of reading about a famous case of two inventors racing to the patent office on a pro patent website some time ago. The site specifically mentioned that independent invention and races to the patent office was a rather common occurrence. It proposed patenting everything the minute you came up with it, so that it wasn't patented by anyone else first, as the way to avoid such problems. Amazingly, to me at least, the site found nothing wrong with a system "working" that way.
"You forgot to add "poor and powerless" to number 1." I didn't forget. I find it preferable.
It's also a fallacy to believe that this automatically, or even usually, mean worse conditions for the average citizen. The US is one of the most prosperous countries in the world if you judge by GNP or by political and military power. If you judge by infant mortality rate, amount of poverty, standard level of health, crime levels, education etc, then the US is dead last in the first world. This is exactly the type of situation I would expect in the EU in a few decades if the current trend continues. I'll pass thank you.
"Also in my original comment I did not mention that democracy has to be abolished." No, but it was meant as a rebuttal of my critique of the EU as being non-democratic was it not? If not, why where you replying to my post? If you were not saying that democratic considerations should take second place to seeking power, what was your point?
"The problem is that some people in Europe confuse petty regionalism with freedom" Care to show where in this thread that mistake is being made? If you have a critique of the opinions and information voiced here, I suggest you deliver it instead of making vague allusions to how we are misunderstanding what freedom means.
", forgetting that democracy is about compromises." In part true, but if you make compromises that compromises democracy in order to please special interests you will not have democracy for long.
Indeed. With movements such as the one I assume you are referring to: the UK is just a few steps away from protesting being redefined as terrorism in the Orwellian landscape of current political newspeak. The UK will be in dire straits indeed then. Protesters could be legally incarcerated or whisked away to other countries for a bit of friendly torture/reeducation.
I think the basic problem is that people do not want to believe that their leaders could be capable of such acts. Somehow most people disengage their critical faculties when thinking about politics and politicians. On the one hand just about everyone is convinced that corruption is rampant. At the same time the very same people will instinctively insert a huge and powerful it_must_be_just_misguided_good_intentions filter when they observe the actions of politician:
"I'm sure he means well. He truly believes that gradually taking away the freedom of the population will make us safe from terrorists."
"It's to save the children that every single citizen must be spied upon!"
"I'm sure they really thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction."
"I'm sure that the way they ignored all the sites with radioactive materials during the invasion, choosing to go straight for the oil, was an honest mistake. Too bad about the population drinking water from radioactive barrels freely pillaged from the areas that we said were our targets but we failed to care in the least about during the invasion."
"I'm sure they really are planning to leave Iraq. Huge permanent bases? You must be mistaken. We went in to free Iraq, or was it disarm? Or to fight Al Quaeda? Or because they planned 9/11? Well anyway, one of those, it was for a good cause."
How do you describe people that go out of their way to interpret reality in terms of misguided good intentions on the part of their leaders?
Sheeple is a rather offensive term, but it sure does fit the bill nicely.
1. Stay small and democratic and free. 2. Lose democracy and become a small part of a new non-democratic superpower.
I'll take 1 every time. Why would I feel any need to be a powerless part of the the biggest bully on the block? Screw that. I want freedom. Both economic and personal, not servitude in corporatocracies that the US and the EU are becoming.
I hardly believe that those are the only options though. There is no natural law that says that the EU must stay such an antidemocratic entity. That's what the protests were supposed to be about. The anti-democratic nature of the way that the EU works.The individual nations in the EU are still democratic enough that it might just be possible to manage to get the way that the EU works reformed if people wake up and make their voices heard.
I very rarely post vote parent up posts, but this is just too important to languish at Score:2.
Our national democracies is being systematically taken over by this mockery of a democratic system and the mainstream press is all but silent on the matter. The semi-informed Europeans point the finger at the present state on non-democracy in the US and feel superior. The truly informed Europeans are attempting to make the rest realize that we are just a few years behind. The same powers that have almost completely removed any real democracy from the US are hard at work doing the same to the EU.
Please people, wake up and make your voices heard through protests, and through votes before it is too late.
Many that are not capable of installing either Windows or Ubuntu would chose the free alternative if they could do so easily and without fuss. That choice is not available today. That is the big deal.
The problem with this article is not whether or not the threats are real or not. The problem is the way that it attempts to imply that the global warming debate has extremist greens that make death threats on one side and skeptical professors on the other. With an almost unanimous consensus among the scientific community it's an absurd idea, but if you cannot counter the argument; attack the messenger in any way possible. The dirt slinging is in full swing now, and sadly there are those that are influenced by it.
As for buying it; I think it's most likely true. People get emotional when we are talking about probable natural disasters on a scale way beyond any in recorded history. Some get downright irrational. The most common example of this are all the people that stick their heads in the sand and just deny it in the face of the overwhelming evidence and the virtually unanimous consensus in the scientific community.
I would really like to be able to tear you a new one for such an absurd mis-characterization of how the EU is governed. Unfortunately, it is not at all far from the truth. The system is rigged so that the council in practice have far more power than the parliament.
It works something like this: The Council puts together a directive for parliament to vote on. The Parliament rejects or greatly amends the directive. The Council resubmits the original directive verbatim or with some cosmetic changes.
And here's where democracy falls down the rabbit hole; The second time around, the parliament needs a majority of all MEPs, present or not, to reject the councils bill or to push through any of their own amendments. Every single abstention or absentee is counted as voting with the council. With the average percentage of MEPs actually present to vote, this means that something along the lines of 75-80% of all the MEPs must oppose the directive, or the council has it's way. That type of near unanimity is rare, so in practice the Council can push through most directives.Not only that, but in this second reading the parliament cannot introduce any new amendments, only reaffirm those from the previous reading.
If you are anything like me, this information will give you a rather uncomfortable feeling about the democratic nature of the EU.
The point of patents is to benefit the bottom line of the patent holder - doesn't matter if they're big business or and individual.
Actually, that's never been the stated purpose of patents. The government is not supposed to be in the business of enriching individual people or corporations, and they are well aware of it. The rationale for patents, as for any regulation, is to attempt to optimize the entire system. In the case of patents, by encouraging innovation. That's the party line, and pretty much every party around the world toes it.
There's a bit of a problem with it though. There is actually little to no real evidence of patents being beneficial to the economical system. For any technological discipline. On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence of it actually inhibiting progress in a number of areas, the most blatant case being software patents. Patents have become a tool for the large companies that are on top to stay on top, and not to have to actually compete on the merits of their products. The basic tenet in the belief of the beneficial nature of patents is the belief that progress moves along in giant leaps of imagination, or immensely costly research, that is so rare that it needs protecting. For the most part this is just not true. Progress is slow and gradual and constantly builds on existing solutions. Patents are not beneficial in such a system.
The most popular poster child argument for patent proponents is pharmaceutical companies. "If there were no patents, no drugs would be developed due to the great cost, and where would we be then?" they ask. This doesn't hold up under scrutiny though. Analysis of the higher cost of patent encumbered drugs and the research budget of drug companies will show you in no uncertain terms that the state could spend several times the amount of money that the pharmaceutical companies spend on research, and our society would still save money because the price gouging is so brutal on patent encumbered drugs. The state funding drug research itself would also bring with it the not inconsequential benefit of the ability to concentrate on beneficial drugs, rather than drugs that will make a profit.
There are actually few rational arguments for any sort of patents, and very substantial arguments against them. Overwhelming arguments in the case of software patents. However, the companies that profit the most from the oligopoly maintaining power of patents are among the most powerful legal entities, and lobbying groups, in the world. Just about everyone except for patent attorneys and mega-corporations with huge patent portfolios oppose software patents. In spite of this they almost got legalized in the EU, and the proponents of them are trying again from a different angle now. Frustrating to say the least.
OK. So, after a military Coup a major education project under way is canceled along with a reform of the countries IT policies, and teachers in the south of the country start to spontaneously grow bullet holes.
Call me crazy, but somehow I don't really think this new regime is honestly out to create the best education they can.
Last time I checked, the majority of the large software businesses in the world have been very much involved in the Open Source community for some time. They have been stabbed in the back as much as the independent developers by this deal, and I very much doubt that they are happy about it. And if you think the support of enthusiasts and independent developers is not important to Novell you are less than well informed about how a Linux distribution functions. The great great majority of support come from the unpaid community. Also, a large part, likely the majority of bug reports, fixes, and enhancements also comes from the same community. And guess who is running the servers, and advising the management of businesses about FOSS.
If you are a player in the FOSS market, and you figure that stabbing the community in the back in return for short term profit you are apt to find that you've made a fatal miscalculation.
Well, for all intents and purposes, to anyone that really believes in FOSS and is informed about the deal, Novell is now a pariah. I've lost count of the number of people calling for a boycott, or reporting that they have switched away from, or are in the process of switching away from Novell products. I think that it is essential that this is continued. The community is the strength of FOSS. If we cannot stand together against what in essence is a form of corporate blackmail Microsoft will continue to drive wedges into the community. It's classic divide and conquer tactics.
We need to continue to spread the truth about this deal so that people have the information they need to see it for what it is, and shun Novell for he traitor in our midst that they have become. Hopefully Novell will come to their senses and abandon the deal. If not, the boycott needs to be as absolute as we can make it. We cannot allow stabbing the entire community in the back to be profitable. Currently, Novell is the new SCO, and should be treated as such.
The primary purpose of supernodes is to allow NATed or otherwise firewalled skype clients to communicate with each other. In other words, this is one of the many problems for which the major part of the root cause is the lack of IPv4 addresses. It's about time IPv6 was rolled out already. This will largely become a non problem once that happens.
You just don't get it do you. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO REDEFINE WORDS SO THAT YOUR ARGUMENT MAKES SENSE. That's all you've been doing all through this thread.
It's completely pointless to argue with someone who insists that their opinion trumps the dictionary. I'm done here.
When ordinary people hear "regulate the Internet", they think 'government', not 'corporation'. You were attempting to twist that around so that "regulate the Internet" means something the corporations do, not something the government does.
This is the same argument that you just made. The one that I tore to pieces. You do not address any of my points. You do not supply any new facts, nor new reasoning.
Here's two clues about rational argument:
You need to present facts and reasoning.
You must counter the other sides facts and reasoning.
You do neither, you just supply assertions of truthiness. You cannot supply anything more rational than "Yes it is! That IS the way it is!"
Your position is doctrinal. Not based on facts and deduction. It couldn't be. As I have demonstrated, facts and logic contradict your position. I suggest you rethink it.
You want us to believe that these corporations are a big evil cabal acting as one entity with power far exceeding that of a State, all conspiring to deny you access to the Internet.
I never said anything of the sort.
You want to define government intervention as being part of the "free market",
Not part of, protecting. And you've yet to present anything remotely resembling a valid argument against that proposition.
when in fact nothing could be further from the truth.
I never said it, and your hyperbole version of the proposition is absurd. However, if you believe that large corporations are powerless, or that they are inherently benign, or that they will not place their advantage above yours, you have not been paying attention.
When ordinary people think 'regulation', they think 'government', not 'corporation'. You are the one redefining terms. Not I.
Now first, the word I used was regulate. Not regulation. They are related, but not the same.
Second, you are doing it again. First you redefine ordinary people to "people in my social grouping". Then you attempt to redefine the very meaning of the the word "mean". You want it to mean: what those in your social grouping use it to mean. That does not fly. Most of the worlds English speaking population are not Anarcho-capitalists, and use the word as defined in English dictionaries.
-verb (used with object), -lated, -lating. 1. to control or direct by a rule, principle, method, etc.: to regulate household expenses. 2. to adjust to some standard or requirement, as amount, degree, etc.: to regulate the temperature. 3. to adjust so as to ensure accuracy of operation: to regulate a watch. 4. to put in good order: to regulate the digestion.
Notice how government or law is not even mentioned?
1. a law, rule, or other order prescribed by authority, esp. to regulate conduct. 2. the act of regulating or the state of being regulated. 3. Machinery. the percentage difference in some quantity related to the operation of an apparatus or machine, as the voltage output of a transformer or the speed of a motor, between the value of the quantity at no-load operation and its value at full-load operation. 4. Electronics. the difference between maximum and minimum voltage drops between the anode and the cathode of a gas tube for a specified range of values of the anode current. 5. Sports. the normal, prescribed duration of a game according to the sport's regulations, exclusive of any extra innings, overtime period, etc.: The Knicks tied the score in the final seconds of regulation, sending the game into overtime. -adjective 6. prescribed by or conforming to regulation: regulation army equipment. 7. usual; normal; customary: the regulation decorations for a Halloween party.
Note it says "authority". Not government Notice the alternatives after law that gives at least three meanings that have nothing to do with a government, only an unspecified authority?
According to another dictionary:
1. The act of regulating or the state of being regulated.
2. A principle, rule, or law designed to control or govern conduct.
3. A governmental order having the force of law. Also called executive order.
4. Embryology. The capacity of an embryo to continue normal development following injury to or alteration of a structure.
5. Sports. The standard playing period for a timed game, prior to overtime or a shootout.
Once again, several meanings that are not tied to government.
In fact, the only dictionary that even contains a meaning that require a government to be involved is a dictionary specifically about law.
To impose regulation, you need a monopoly of violence that only a state can provide. A private company deciding how to operate the network it owns is not regulation.
Ah, now I see where you are coming from. I've been wondering about something. Maybe you can tell me. Do I need to go through some sort of initiation ritual in order to get a license for operating the Anarcho-capitalist word-redefinition-machine? Or can I just go ahead and redefine any word I wish in order to make it fit my preconceptions?
It just seemes so amazingly convenient a thing to be allowed to do, I'll just ignore any regulations, and practice on your favorite distortions of reality:
Tax -> Stealing. Law enforcement -> Violence. State -> Evil freedom restricting organization that almost completely without exception does things wrong.
Wow, that was fun! Can I go again?
Rich -> Hard working and deserving of absurd abundance. Poor -> Lazy and deserving of starvation and exploitation.
I can see how you can come to like that kind of thing, but you do realize it is a fantasy? Right?
You asked how software was different. I told you. You then served a red herring about what type of software patent you claim is generally granted. I stupidly let you redefine the discussion, but showed that even with that redefinition the problem remains the same. You sidestep the relevant info once more, wanting now to talk about prior art. Once more, I stupidly let you redefine the discussion but still I showed you that this argument is faulty too. You now want to redefine the issue as being about some technicality about the specific patent in question.
This is call disingenuous rhetoric. Continually serving new red herrings, to conceal the fact that you cannot respond to a single one of my points.
You consider him a prominent figure of our generation? I don't. I thought it would be obvious I was not talking about him.
As for their being a shortage of patentable things whlle progress keeps rolling, that's just silly.
Summary, You attack me for misquoting when I was not quoting. You call me a junkie. You make a completely unsubstantiated claim that goes about all experience of how software patents work.
I'm sorry, was that the sound of you scrambling desperately to serve up a red herring, in an attempt to divert attention from the fact that I've demonstrated quite clearly how software is different from physical products?
Slashdot Mirror
You appear have no better argument against his line of reasoning than straw men and outrage at the idea of drug companies being so morally corrupt.
I suggest you look into the history of drug companies for a reality check on your moral outrage.
You may for instance look into how this very decease got a huge boost from US drug companies that sold HIV infected medicine overseas after it was found to be dangerous:
bayer hiv scandal
Contaminated haemophilia blood products
Eh, No.
It means you get to use a validation component on the included content before sending it to a browser.
You can bet your butt that there will be such components available before HTML 5 reaches any notable market penetration. Open source coders will Likely get them out there before the standard is even finalized.
So what you are saying is that the value of patents truly lies in the ability to disarm other patent holders?
;)
What a beautiful example of the fallacy of a circular argument
It reminds me of reading about a famous case of two inventors racing to the patent office on a pro patent website some time ago. The site specifically mentioned that independent invention and races to the patent office was a rather common occurrence. It proposed patenting everything the minute you came up with it, so that it wasn't patented by anyone else first, as the way to avoid such problems. Amazingly, to me at least, the site found nothing wrong with a system "working" that way.
"You forgot to add "poor and powerless" to number 1."
I didn't forget. I find it preferable.
It's also a fallacy to believe that this automatically, or even usually, mean worse conditions for the average citizen. The US is one of the most prosperous countries in the world if you judge by GNP or by political and military power. If you judge by infant mortality rate, amount of poverty, standard level of health, crime levels, education etc, then the US is dead last in the first world. This is exactly the type of situation I would expect in the EU in a few decades if the current trend continues. I'll pass thank you.
"Also in my original comment I did not mention that democracy has to be abolished."
No, but it was meant as a rebuttal of my critique of the EU as being non-democratic was it not? If not, why where you replying to my post? If you were not saying that democratic considerations should take second place to seeking power, what was your point?
"The problem is that some people in Europe confuse petty regionalism with freedom"
Care to show where in this thread that mistake is being made? If you have a critique of the opinions and information voiced here, I suggest you deliver it instead of making vague allusions to how we are misunderstanding what freedom means.
", forgetting that democracy is about compromises."
In part true, but if you make compromises that compromises democracy in order to please special interests you will not have democracy for long.
Indeed. With movements such as the one I assume you are referring to: the UK is just a few steps away from protesting being redefined as terrorism in the Orwellian landscape of current political newspeak. The UK will be in dire straits indeed then. Protesters could be legally incarcerated or whisked away to other countries for a bit of friendly torture/reeducation.
I think the basic problem is that people do not want to believe that their leaders could be capable of such acts. Somehow most people disengage their critical faculties when thinking about politics and politicians. On the one hand just about everyone is convinced that corruption is rampant. At the same time the very same people will instinctively insert a huge and powerful it_must_be_just_misguided_good_intentions filter when they observe the actions of politician:
"I'm sure he means well. He truly believes that gradually taking away the freedom of the population will make us safe from terrorists."
"It's to save the children that every single citizen must be spied upon!"
"I'm sure they really thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction."
"I'm sure that the way they ignored all the sites with radioactive materials during the invasion, choosing to go straight for the oil, was an honest mistake. Too bad about the population drinking water from radioactive barrels freely pillaged from the areas that we said were our targets but we failed to care in the least about during the invasion."
"I'm sure they really are planning to leave Iraq. Huge permanent bases? You must be mistaken. We went in to free Iraq, or was it disarm? Or to fight Al Quaeda? Or because they planned 9/11? Well anyway, one of those, it was for a good cause."
How do you describe people that go out of their way to interpret reality in terms of misguided good intentions on the part of their leaders?
Sheeple is a rather offensive term, but it sure does fit the bill nicely.
If the options on the table are:
1. Stay small and democratic and free.
2. Lose democracy and become a small part of a new non-democratic superpower.
I'll take 1 every time. Why would I feel any need to be a powerless part of the the biggest bully on the block? Screw that. I want freedom. Both economic and personal, not servitude in corporatocracies that the US and the EU are becoming.
I hardly believe that those are the only options though. There is no natural law that says that the EU must stay such an antidemocratic entity. That's what the protests were supposed to be about. The anti-democratic nature of the way that the EU works.The individual nations in the EU are still democratic enough that it might just be possible to manage to get the way that the EU works reformed if people wake up and make their voices heard.
I very rarely post vote parent up posts, but this is just too important to languish at Score:2.
Our national democracies is being systematically taken over by this mockery of a democratic system and the mainstream press is all but silent on the matter.
The semi-informed Europeans point the finger at the present state on non-democracy in the US and feel superior. The truly informed Europeans are attempting to make the rest realize that we are just a few years behind. The same powers that have almost completely removed any real democracy from the US are hard at work doing the same to the EU.
Please people, wake up and make your voices heard through protests, and through votes before it is too late.
Many that are not capable of installing either Windows or Ubuntu would chose the free alternative if they could do so easily and without fuss. That choice is not available today. That is the big deal.
The problem with this article is not whether or not the threats are real or not. The problem is the way that it attempts to imply that the global warming debate has extremist greens that make death threats on one side and skeptical professors on the other. With an almost unanimous consensus among the scientific community it's an absurd idea, but if you cannot counter the argument; attack the messenger in any way possible. The dirt slinging is in full swing now, and sadly there are those that are influenced by it.
As for buying it; I think it's most likely true. People get emotional when we are talking about probable natural disasters on a scale way beyond any in recorded history. Some get downright irrational. The
most common example of this are all the people that stick their heads in the sand and just deny it in the face of the overwhelming evidence and the virtually unanimous consensus in the scientific community.
I would really like to be able to tear you a new one for such an absurd mis-characterization of how the EU is governed. Unfortunately, it is not at all far from the truth. The system is rigged so that the council in practice have far more power than the parliament.
It works something like this:
The Council puts together a directive for parliament to vote on.
The Parliament rejects or greatly amends the directive.
The Council resubmits the original directive verbatim or with some cosmetic changes.
And here's where democracy falls down the rabbit hole; The second time around, the parliament needs a majority of all MEPs, present or not, to reject the councils bill or to push through any of their own amendments. Every single abstention or absentee is counted as voting with the council. With the average percentage of MEPs actually present to vote, this means that something along the lines of 75-80% of all the MEPs must oppose the directive, or the council has it's way. That type of near unanimity is rare, so in practice the Council can push through most directives.Not only that, but in this second reading the parliament cannot introduce any new amendments, only reaffirm those from the previous reading.
If you are anything like me, this information will give you a rather uncomfortable feeling about the democratic nature of the EU.
Actually, that's never been the stated purpose of patents. The government is not supposed to be in the business of enriching individual people or corporations, and they are well aware of it. The rationale for patents, as for any regulation, is to attempt to optimize the entire system. In the case of patents, by encouraging innovation. That's the party line, and pretty much every party around the world toes it.
There's a bit of a problem with it though. There is actually little to no real evidence of patents being beneficial to the economical system. For any technological discipline. On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence of it actually inhibiting progress in a number of areas, the most blatant case being software patents. Patents have become a tool for the large companies that are on top to stay on top, and not to have to actually compete on the merits of their products. The basic tenet in the belief of the beneficial nature of patents is the belief that progress moves along in giant leaps of imagination, or immensely costly research, that is so rare that it needs protecting. For the most part this is just not true. Progress is slow and gradual and constantly builds on existing solutions. Patents are not beneficial in such a system.
The most popular poster child argument for patent proponents is pharmaceutical companies. "If there were no patents, no drugs would be developed due to the great cost, and where would we be then?" they ask. This doesn't hold up under scrutiny though. Analysis of the higher cost of patent encumbered drugs and the research budget of drug companies will show you in no uncertain terms that the state could spend several times the amount of money that the pharmaceutical companies spend on research, and our society would still save money because the price gouging is so brutal on patent encumbered drugs. The state funding drug research itself would also bring with it the not inconsequential benefit of the ability to concentrate on beneficial drugs, rather than drugs that will make a profit.
There are actually few rational arguments for any sort of patents, and very substantial arguments against them. Overwhelming arguments in the case of software patents. However, the companies that profit the most from the oligopoly maintaining power of patents are among the most powerful legal entities, and lobbying groups, in the world. Just about everyone except for patent attorneys and mega-corporations with huge patent portfolios oppose software patents. In spite of this they almost got legalized in the EU, and the proponents of them are trying again from a different angle now. Frustrating to say the least.
OK.
So, after a military Coup a major education project under way is canceled along with a reform of the countries IT policies, and teachers in the south of the country start to spontaneously grow bullet holes.
Call me crazy, but somehow I don't really think this new regime is honestly out to create the best education they can.
Last time I checked, the majority of the large software businesses in the world have been very much involved in the Open Source community for some time. They have been stabbed in the back as much as the independent developers by this deal, and I very much doubt that they are happy about it. And if you think the support of enthusiasts and independent developers is not important to Novell you are less than well informed about how a Linux distribution functions. The great great majority of support come from the unpaid community. Also, a large part, likely the majority of bug reports, fixes, and enhancements also comes from the same community. And guess who is running the servers, and advising the management of businesses about FOSS.
If you are a player in the FOSS market, and you figure that stabbing the community in the back in return for short term profit you are apt to find that you've made a fatal miscalculation.
Ah, it's so cute to see the little trolls having fun.
*pats the little troll on the head for a spirited, yet inane and obvious trolling attempt*
Well, for all intents and purposes, to anyone that really believes in FOSS and is informed about the deal, Novell is now a pariah.
0 73628401l l /
I've lost count of the number of people calling for a boycott, or reporting that they have switched away from, or are in the process of switching away from Novell products.
I think that it is essential that this is continued. The community is the strength of FOSS. If we cannot stand together against what in essence is a form of corporate blackmail Microsoft will continue to drive wedges into the community. It's classic divide and conquer tactics.
We need to continue to spread the truth about this deal so that people have the information they need to see it for what it is, and shun Novell for he traitor in our midst that they have become. Hopefully Novell will come to their senses and abandon the deal. If not, the boycott needs to be as absolute as we can make it. We cannot allow stabbing the entire community in the back to be profitable. Currently, Novell is the new SCO, and should be treated as such.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061103
http://technocrat.net/d/2006/11/2/9945
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/20061109a.htm
http://news.samba.org/announcements/team_to_novel
The primary purpose of supernodes is to allow NATed or otherwise firewalled skype clients to communicate with each other. In other words, this is one of the many problems for which the major part of the root cause is the lack of IPv4 addresses. It's about time IPv6 was rolled out already. This will largely become a non problem once that happens.
You just don't get it do you. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO REDEFINE WORDS SO THAT YOUR ARGUMENT MAKES SENSE.
That's all you've been doing all through this thread.
It's completely pointless to argue with someone who insists that their opinion trumps the dictionary.
I'm done here.
This is the same argument that you just made. The one that I tore to pieces.
You do not address any of my points.
You do not supply any new facts, nor new reasoning.
Here's two clues about rational argument:
You need to present facts and reasoning.
You must counter the other sides facts and reasoning.
You do neither, you just supply assertions of truthiness.
You cannot supply anything more rational than "Yes it is! That IS the way it is!"
Your position is doctrinal. Not based on facts and deduction. It couldn't be. As I have demonstrated, facts and logic contradict your position. I suggest you rethink it.
I never said anything of the sort.
Not part of, protecting. And you've yet to present anything remotely resembling a valid argument against that proposition.
I never said it, and your hyperbole version of the proposition is absurd. However, if you believe that large corporations are powerless, or that they are inherently benign, or that they will not place their advantage above yours, you have not been paying attention.
Now first, the word I used was regulate. Not regulation. They are related, but not the same.
Second, you are doing it again. First you redefine ordinary people to "people in my social grouping". Then you attempt to redefine the very meaning of the the word "mean". You want it to mean: what those in your social grouping use it to mean. That does not fly. Most of the worlds English speaking population are not Anarcho-capitalists, and use the word as defined in English dictionaries.
Here's the definition for regulate: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/regulate
Notice how government or law is not even mentioned?
Let's have a look at the word you brought up as well.
Here is the definition for regulation: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/regulation
Note it says "authority". Not government
Notice the alternatives after law that gives at least three meanings that have nothing to do with a government, only an unspecified authority?
According to another dictionary:
Once again, several meanings that are not tied to government.
In fact, the only dictionary that even contains a meaning that require a government to be involved is a dictionary specifically about law.
Ah, now I see where you are coming from.
I've been wondering about something. Maybe you can tell me. Do I need to go through some sort of initiation ritual in order to get a license for operating the Anarcho-capitalist word-redefinition-machine? Or can I just go ahead and redefine any word I wish in order to make it fit my preconceptions?
It just seemes so amazingly convenient a thing to be allowed to do, I'll just ignore any regulations, and practice on your favorite distortions of reality:
Tax -> Stealing.
Law enforcement -> Violence.
State -> Evil freedom restricting organization that almost completely without exception does things wrong.
Wow, that was fun! Can I go again?
Rich -> Hard working and deserving of absurd abundance.
Poor -> Lazy and deserving of starvation and exploitation.
I can see how you can come to like that kind of thing, but you do realize it is a fantasy? Right?
Deciding who gets to communicate with whom, and at what speed, is regulation.
Net neutrality forbids it.
What part of that is perverse?
You asked how software was different. I told you.
You then served a red herring about what type of software patent you claim is generally granted.
I stupidly let you redefine the discussion, but showed that even with that redefinition the problem remains the same.
You sidestep the relevant info once more, wanting now to talk about prior art.
Once more, I stupidly let you redefine the discussion but still I showed you that this argument is faulty too.
You now want to redefine the issue as being about some technicality about the specific patent in question.
This is call disingenuous rhetoric. Continually serving new red herrings, to conceal the fact that you cannot respond to a single one of my points.
You consider him a prominent figure of our generation?
I don't. I thought it would be obvious I was not talking about him.
As for their being a shortage of patentable things whlle progress keeps rolling, that's just silly.
Summary,
You attack me for misquoting when I was not quoting.
You call me a junkie.
You make a completely unsubstantiated claim that goes about all experience of how software patents work.
Brilliant argument. Just brilliant.
I'm sorry, was that the sound of you scrambling desperately to serve up a red herring, in an attempt to divert attention from the fact that I've demonstrated quite clearly how software is different from physical products?
Nice try.
Seems the patent officials disagreed.p ute
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_(GUI)#Patent_Dis