You are making the case against overseas trade. Of course there are cultural barriers, but they can be overcome.

It's a bad analogy.
In your example, the GPL says nothing about your "garden".
The users are not limited in _any_ way. Distributors are limited, in that they need to provide source for the original code, and the improvements, _if_ they distribute the original code.

You can use GPLd software, improve it, and never share anything. The only thing you can't do is distribute GPLd software and keep the source to yourself.

No way.
RMS already warned of the Java trap, and anyone could see that is had issues, ten years ago.
Also, there is not a lot of GNU Java stuff around, so it's not a big issue. Might be for Apache, though.
After all, this is getting irrelevant as we speak. Next generation software is not going to be written in Java, or C#. I don't see trends going that way, but a lot more towards dynamic typed languages, and just plain Javascript.

You sound like a troll, but I will respond anyhow, because there are people who actually think what you say.
I DO IT WITH MY MONEY. I don't live in the US. You can read that in the GP. I don't care that the US falls behind. Living under the US rule, or under the Chinese rule, or the Russian rule makes little difference to Latin America.
About academics, if the US doesn't fund them, someone else will. I was just pointing out the consequences.
Where I live, there is little investment in R&D, it's slowly increasing due to our economy growing steadily for the past 10 years.
The global crisis is good for us in that our exports are more expensive, and we can start industrializing our country. I hope we start investing more in R&D, and I would happily pay a lot more taxes for that. This is already a great country to live in, I would love for it to become more industrialized so it's a great place to work also.

The country that builds the large labs is the country that willl get the super smart scientists to tinker with it.
The world doesn't need the US to fund big science. China will do it, eventually. The thing is that it would give them a competitive advantadge over you, meaning better scientists, better universities and stuff. I wouldn't want to lose my edge if I was the US.

First, I don't think this particular initiative will be any good.
Second, OLPC was not a failure. In Uruguay, my country, it was a great way to push forward the universality of internet access.
I understand that Mexico has it a lot tougher, but even in the extreme case that you are a kid who works on the streets, internet access can help you a lot. For instance, you can improve your reading, learn a few extra English words to get more money from gringos, or know whether a local shelter is open tonight.

Sorry, I missed your title. Without it, your comment didn't make any sense.

Yes, that's why oil companies keep looking for oil deeper in the sea. After they deplete those reserves, there should be something we can use. Fusion would be OK.

You are right about stoning. Capital punishment is unethical, and should not be tolerated anywhere.
The same about torture, governments should not torture their prisoners.
Censorship is always a bad thing.

But the problem here is that the ones who want to overthrow Irans government suffer from the same issues. How are they going to be able to help? By example?

great! thanks!

Where did you get that? link please?

Back in the day, you would not believe a slashdotter could shower weekly.

There are two strategies for that.
One of them is yours, fix what is wrong.
Mine is to just avoid sites that are impolite to me.
Now I will just avoid all /. articles with videos in them.

You don't seem to understand the concept of motivation.
Anyhow, you make a somewhat interesting point. But keep in mind that pilots can also be hacked. After all, an automatic drone does not have a grandma the "bad guys" can kidnap.