The overall compile-link step is roughly the same (although LTO changes it a bit), but the compilation process has changed hugely in the last 20 years. Dealing with code 'hand optimised' by people who still have a mental model of how PCC compiles code is a constant source of pain.

Why would they do that? If you're a cosmetics company and you can buy a startup that owns the patents on a technique that actually works, then you'd be stupid to keep competing on a level playing field when you could be the only company that's selling the real thing. Even if you multiply your normal profit margin by a factor of ten, you're still going to be selling huge quantities and raking in the money.

The problem with these conspiracy theories is that they assume that people with large entrenched interests and lots of money somehow have an aversion to turning their big pile of money into an enormous pile of money.

Any law has to be tested and evaluated. Never follow any laws blindly for this is what makes dictatorships possible in the first place. And don't think "I was just following orders" will eventually save you.

Laws must not be an excuse to do what simply is not right.

Just out of curiosity, how do you identify voice data when it's encrypted?

You might want to enlighten us what system you would present to replace CAs. It should at the very least solve this problem: How do I verify the identity of the other end?

In this case there would have been nothing easier than create a new company out of thin air that sells the service that is no telco. It's not like creating a new virtual company is hard in this country.

That's the new democracy. You keep voting until the outcome the aristocracy wants happens. But you have the total choice, provided you can be available at 2am at the bottom of the ocean where the free election is going to be held.

Rather unlikely after this revelation.

People who don't care about a secure communication line won't buy it because they don't care about having a secure communication line.
People who do care about a secure communication line won't buy it because they do care about having a secure communication line.

Any backdoor is by definition available to everyone. Some may have a key, the others have lockpicks.

Maybe, but so far the only case that I know of that has gone to court was found in favour of the buyer. Now in this case it was an expensive yacht bought for a mere 20000pounds from what I recall, but I imagine that for smaller difference the cost and effort to go to court would likely exceed the value of the item.

I got my 90% accidentally off harddrives under consumer protection laws (someone complained that the HDDs weren't delivered and the company was forced to honour all purchases), but under contract law I'm sure if you get the right priced lawyer you can argue your way out of anything.

Back then there was no Snowden, and the companies thought (correctly) that nobody gave half a shit about privacy.

This changed. Big time.

I think you need to first lean what a market monopoly is, and then secondly learn what anti-trust laws are. If you did you'd find that Google does not have a monopoly on search, and not cross-licensing to allow others interoperability (as in this case being discussed) would not fall afoul of anti-trust laws even if a monopoly position was in play.

Your experience is very US-centric.

If you lived in Australia you'd find it hard to find anyone who spoke Spanish.

Chinese doesn't even have a word for "no", to give you an idea of how fundamentally different it is.

This is common amongst Asian languages or at least Asian cultures.

When communicating with contractors and businesses in many Asian nations it's often an exercise to figure out if "yes" means "yes we can" or "yes we cant"

It gets even funnier. That "~ski" ending of the family names is actually Polish, not Russian. Pole-ish, get it?