I wasn't disputing you at all, I was merely adding unneeded snark.

Come on, this is Slashdot, and the common wisdom here is that global warming (or climate change, if you wish) is a hoax perpetrated by greedy scientists. By that metric, this article simply represents the EU finally coming to its senses.

I'll go no farther, other than to point out the oxymoronic use of "common wisdom" and "Slashdot" in the same sentence.

I would like the same outcome as you... I like the lifestyle of ST:NG, and would like to live in The Culture, though most of them are a bit hedonistic for my taste.

I just think that TPTB enjoy being TPTB, and aren't about to surrender their positions of privilege willingly. It will have to be by force, subterfuge, or obsolescence. Oh, and TPTB also own more guns, more information technology, and the means of production. That doesn't say it's impossible, just very difficult.

> I am fairly sure we're going to be looking at two very different classes of machine: One, the AI, isn't going to be "owned" by
> anyone other than itself, just as you aren't owned by anyone. It may, or may not, have some obligations, but ownership of an
> intelligent being... probably not going to happen again. I hope.

All through history we've had people doing their best to own others, as many and as thoroughly as possible. Sometimes there is out-and-out slavery, perhaps more often economic slavery, and there are other, more subtle forms of ownership. All too often these ownership-obsessed people are also in powerful places. (no surprise there) If we so commonly treat ourselves that way, there's not a snowball's chance of recognizing A.I. rights until Skynet smacks us upside the head.

But the robots will be owned by someone who does want payments.

Years ago "they" talked about how in the future machines would do the work, and our problem would be figuring out how to handle our leisure time. What appears to have happened is that the machines do the work, the machine owners capture the revenue, and all of that "free time" essentially translates to lack of income.

I'm under the impression that with KMS the display-side of X no longer needs root, but that there's something about input handling that still does. As you say, non-KMS drivers would still need root.

I would expect that privilege separation could be used here, a small root stub to do the root-only things, and the rest of the server running with dropped privileges. In that situation, could the server even run as "nobody"? After all, content comes through the socket.

Come on, this is Klingon - they should execute him.