It's funny but not a real quote.

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/bush.asp

$2.7 billion even. She is very pro open standards and open source. She seems to know her stuff.

Assuming of course that piracy equals a loss. Which is not proven.
Getting your software pirated means more people know about and use your product.

According to Bill Gates: "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Source: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropiracy9

"Eroding copyright laws hurts small companies the most."
Do you have any evidence of this or is it just the usual propaganda?

Copyright was created to enforce censorship. it was created to stop people from criticizing the state and the church. Copyright was a monopoly granted to printers in exchange for only printing what the government approved of. It was much later reformed to consider the rights of authors and such. Since then it has degenerated into this so called "intellectual property" that implies that you can own ideas. It is stupid.

Yes, it is in the interest of the public that writers and musicians can make money of their trade so they can provide the public with new works. It is not in the publics interest to give an artificial monopoly on copying works for over 100 years without getting anything in return. It is not in the publics interest to be extorted into paying thousands of dollars for sharing music with each other. When you consider the economic profit of doing something you consider if it will be profitable within 10 years. Maximum. The current situation is ridiculous.

If you sell something to someone, normal property right tells that the buyer now owns said property. He can do with it as he pleases. Including making copies of it and distribute. Copyright is an artificial infringement of the buyers ownership that prevents him from distributing copies of it.

Copyright is not property right. Is it so hard to understand the difference between stealing and sharing? The point of copyright is to ensure the publics access to new and old books and music. It is not for making media companies rich. Learn your history.

Poor, poor Microsoft crying and complaining when they get punished for breaking the law.

Youtube is pretty much the only reason I need Flash. If it was possible to watch Youtube videos without plugins it would be great. No more choppiness or Flash using 100% CPU. Playing some videos from internet shouldn't be rocket surgery so this is really about time. Flash seems almost purposefully bad on Linux.

Just google "old porn",

It is a bit strong for Americans to accuse the French of being cowards considering that USA never gets involved in a war that you don't are completely and massively military superior in. France fought brave and well in WW2 but still lost. USA wouldn't know anything about fighting such a war where you risk losing your country. I guess you know that since you keep repeating that lame meme about France. It was old years ago and now it is just embarrassing so watch.

/Not French

</RantMode>

Sweden doesn't have any kind of oil assets. US does.

It might have something to do with them behaving like shameless assholes and that they keep breaking the law again and again. If Microsoft was a person they would be in prison and unemployable.

It would be so nice to be able to use Ruby instead of Javascript.
It is so much easier to write clean code in Ruby and since I use a lot of Ruby on Rails it would be great to be able to use the same code in the backend and in the browser. Go Ruby! :)

Exactly, the rest of Scandinavia has no oil and the standard of living is very comparable to Norway. Of course the oil helps but all about politics. Norway prioritizes the common good before private profit. That is why you are likely to have courts that doesn't look upon copyright infringement as to be so serious as to need special treatment. That's why they have free health care, nice prisons (criminals are also people) and strict laws on alcohol. /Swede

What kind of elitist crap is that? I love Asimov's books, I have read most of them and they probably helped shape me in a way. I say that if someone wants to have a go at some sequels the go right a head. I don't think that they will be even comparable but I might enjoy them anyway. The worst thing that can happen is that they are not worth reading.