no, originally copyright was put in place to censor content the king did not want spreading. The author is now and has always been an afterthought.

Seriously? Just stop it. Mono is never going to make the mountain of C code obsolete. Linux will never be dependent on Mono. If Microsoft somehow stopped distribution of Mono on the internet (HAHAHHAHAHAHA) and everyone simply had to do without, you just port the application to Java, C++ or Go!. GNote proves this isn't that big of a deal. Your concerns have no merit.

Does Netcraft confirm that?

If they didn't care about selling in Europe they could just ignore them and cease operations there. I don't see it being worth it to either oracle or sun for that to happen.

I bet if you looked statistically at the operations of a computer, you would find that almost none of it is random. This is why they sell entropy devices.

to quote wikipedia:

Laboratory experiments have produced effects that are visually similar to reports of ball lightning, but it is presently unknown whether these are actually related to any naturally occurring phenomenon.

Now, other than what is most likely something I saw on "In Search of" I have nothing that tells me that it exists. Your barking up the wrong tree. I don't imagine that a plasma could retain it's shape for any meaningful duration in our atmosphere.
I am simply pointing out that irrational beliefs are persistent because those who believe them are as well.

Given that they have actually produced them in the lab, I am going to have to say a while. Given that there isn't a shred of any kind of scientific evidence for alien visitations, bigfoot, loch ness monster, santa clause or the tooth faerie, their should be no one who actually thinks they exist. Yet there are those of us amongst the rest of us who believe in the existence of those things.

Last time I had moderator points, it was 15. But then again /. also blocks ads for me for all my dedication to there site.

Ford says no.

This, of course, assumes that the majority linux developers have a goal of seeing linux everywhere. I doubt that is true for the majority of linux developers. Red Hat has said many times that linux on the desktop is a red herring. It isn't so much that it isn't their fault as it is that they don't care. Linux doesn't need mainstream adoption to be relevant or successful. Linux has already won the hearts and minds of those that matter to it, developers.

Unfortunately, this system is not realistic and poses some massive privacy concerns. While it may be feasible to create the network of cameras described in (a), it is substantially difficult with current technology to implement the optical character recognition required to implement part (b).

The post office begs to differ.

BTW, X being a legal signature, I don't ever sign on those pads. I don't even get strange looks, since the sophisticated system is just hunky dory with the whole thing.

There's also non-US contributers to factor in, just because the US economy is sliding into the crapper doesn't mean the rest of the world is following suite.

Um... this isn't a US downturn. This is a global recession. Please spend five minutes investigating this before you pie in the sky comment.