All right. This appears simple. Now *is* it simple, i.e., how do you go about implementing this in practice?

This would imply that net neutrality can be easily defined in simple terms; what, according to you, are those terms exactly?

... and you'd end up with an alphabet the size of the Roman alphabet, no less. After all, it *is* the result of what you describe (the set of letters being rather constant across all countries using it, but the rules for 'decompressing' back into sound varying for each country, of course).

I have already reviewed both the French law and my contract, and both allow me to host a SMTP server -- Free even provides explicit support for it, which makes their action toward Trend even less acceptable.

BTW, the European directives specifically mandate that end users be able to use and provide services as they so decide.

Let's not get too excited here. Free does good things indeed, and I have a good overall opinion on them otherwise I wouldn't be their customer any more; but there are times where they fuck up pretty heavily, such as a couple of months ago, when they provided all of their customer IP ranges to Trend Micro's MAPS for inclusion to the DUL. In essence, they told a major provider of spam rejection lists that no Free customer is allowed to host their own SMTP server -- which is plain wrong: Free customers are allowed to host whatever service they want. But now, many recipients systematically reject their direct mail deliveries as spam. By providing these IP ranges to Trend, Free essentially worked *agaist* their contract with their customers -- and worse yet, it seems Free is unable to have an IP removed from the DUL.

Are you sure? AFAIK (and even though IANAL, I do think I keep myself well informed in this domain) your statement is simply false.

Pay attention too, to the fact that what the users are alerted about is *not* that they are counterfeiting works; it is that they have not secured their connection. And there lies the bigger rub: how exactly are users supposed to secure their access? The plain answer is that they can't, short of terminating said access. In practice, they can't avoid someone breaking in their DSL box Wifi (or any Wifi); so the law basically amounts to "shut your Wifi down, and so much for all those wireless gadgets". In practice, they can't ensure that their wired computer (or printer, or NAS) isn't compromised; so the law basically amounts to "don't use that". But the law does not define how one should secure an access; this was deferred the definition to a decree which is still to come -- and will not solve the question when it comes, I wager.
That's the basic flaw, both in the law and its application by the Hadopi: the law defined the new offence ("not securing one's access") by indirect indication at most; and the Hadopi notices, which provide *no* details on the exact facts, amount to "you have done something bad, but we won't tell you what".
I expect it won't take long before someone receives a notice and challenges it to court on the basis, at least, that the law imposes obligations which cannot be met.

Package management for a router makes good sense for some reasons:

- I can remove functionalities I don't want and add those I want and still fit in the available (usually scarce) flash, all while running.

- it also allows easier, faster, and finer-grained upgrading of apps for bug and security fixes -- that's something one might also consider an important quality.

- bonus: removing unused functionalities reduces the exposition to attacks.

Run-time package management is way faster and efficient for getting an optimal config than build-time selection and configuration.

Granted there are only allegations, and they are most certainly biased. However, as the fact they allege is central to their claim, I would tend to think that they are factual regarding the capacity of defendants to control the webcam at least--and such a capacity is anything but ludicrous.

It would seem ridiculous from the viewpoint of the family or students or observers with an objective grasp of the legal situation. This does not mean that it seemed so to school PHBs who would probably tend to know, and take into consideration, school-related laws and regulations more than any other law. They may have considered that i) the school has authority on the kids and ii) the laptop is school property which the school has a right to retain control on. Doesn't make the school PHBs right, mind you; but they might well have simply missed the legal unsoundness of their idea because of the apparent soundness of the two arguments they relied on.

Well the class action complaint (yes, I did Read The Filed Material linked to by the boingboing page) explicitely talks about remotely activating cameras, so the hypothesis that it would only be the kid taking pics and then leaving them on the laptop clearly doesn't match the available facts at this time.

In TFA, Lennart P does explicitely explain that he does not pass blame, and details the causes and implications of his statement. But of course one needs to RTFA to realize that.

I don't think I've made a broad statement; rather, I gave a specific counter-example to the broad statement that 'a separate legislative power makes people less likely to be abused by the legal system' by showing that France, at least, was a case with a separate legislative power *and* abusive laws passed by this power.

I understand your point, but I'm afraid this is a false sense of safety you're relying upon. The question of translations aside (as translations are not a legal tool per se) the EUPL has indeed been carefully designed so as to be legal in any european country--or more precisely, as legal as it goes. As for the GPL, I fail to see how, as you seem to imply by comparison, it would "not consider the european legal systems", since it has been tested in French and German courts during actual trials, and found legal -- a feat that, ironically, EUPL cannot claim :)

Yes, they could, and then what? The fact that this license would be written or endorsed by the EU would not make people using it any safer than any other license on a legal standpoint.

As someone living in France, where law is created by representatives and not judges, I would like to respectfully disagreee on the 'people being less likely to get abused by the legal system' when law come fro the legislative power. You just look at what's going through our reps at this time, mostly dealing with intellectual property. Basically, the HADOPI laws are designed by the executive power, with tacit acceptance, if not approval, of the legislative power, to actually evade control by the judicial power; and this is not because the judicial power would be unfair to the citizen: that's because the judicial power would bar the administration (thus the executive power) from assuming citizen guilty and stamping on their right for fair trial, freedom of speech and privacy. And this is not a dangerous activist saying so; this is the Conseil Constitutionnel, the very institution whose mission is to ensure that french laws respect the french Constitution.