In case you didn't get to the bottom of the Guardian essay, that essay comes from "Snowden and the Future", a 4-part talk series Eben Moglen gave on October 9, October 30, November 13 and December 4 2013. It is highly recommended reading, watching, and/or listening. Audio, video, and transcripts are available at his website.

Most countries have legislation providing for permanent incarceration of anyone deemed mentally unstable enough to be of significant danger to others. They don't even need to be sentanced.

While I'm sure that Bundy, Dahmer and Mengele would agree with you that it's not wrong to kill people you think are subhuman, most of the human race has grown beyond the point where we think we have the right to decide who is human or not. It's not an excuse used by people you should want to be associated with.

If you're using OpenStack for general virtualisation I'd say you're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. The OpenStack feature set shines when you actually need things like on-demand scaling, completely API driven infrastructure, instantiation of servers with lifetimes of minutes to hours, etc. To be used in the way it's designed for it pretty much requires applications written to function that way.

If you're just virtualizing traditional workloads you're better off with using RHEV or VmWare or some other ordinary virtualization platform and automating it with added orchestration.

Yes, apples and oranges in that personal taxation is really beside the point here, the main point is corporate taxation.

But no, the US isn't that unique in taxing non-residents, most countries seem to. I have several friends working in various European countries, and they have to file taxes both in their country of citizenship and in their country of residence. Due to the tax treaties they do not have to pay taxes on the income earned but they do have to report it, and the exemptions from taxation seems to apply only to wages.

I'll agree that the US rules certainly seem more complex than the other examples I've seen, but it is in no way unique in taxing citizens wherever they are.

The default for pretty much all states is to tax extraterritorial incomes. Some countries have treaties specifically for personal income that exempts workers employed in a different country from double taxation. I have never heard of any non-tax shelter country allowing repatriation of tax-evaded profits once they're finished with the picking and choosing where to claim the profit 'happened'.

And no, the accountant and the janitor at the Caymans office does not count as significant amounts of 'jobs pushed overseas'. Nor will lowering corporate tax rates increase collection as the tax rate achievable through these arrangements is zero which means that any non-zero tax rate still will not result in profits being taken anywhere but in the tax shelter.

At least the double Irish may be getting fixed, but frankly, barring legislation that creates a significant risk for accountants, CFOs and CEOs of actually landing in jail permanently for tax evasion, it will probably be followed by some new structure followed by whining about untaxed profits being stuck in some other place they decided to put them in.

Let's not also forget two other particularly powerful points made in the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) essay:

• "We understand that Mozilla is afraid of losing users. Cory Doctorow points out that they have produced no evidence to substantiate this fear or made any effort to study the situation."
• "More importantly, popularity is not an end in itself. This is especially true for the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit with an ethical mission. In the past, Mozilla has distinguished itself and achieved success by protecting the freedom of its users and explaining the importance of that freedom: including publishing Firefox's source code, allowing others to make modifications to it, and sticking to Web standards in the face of attempts to impose proprietary extensions."

Brad Kuhn builds on these points in his essay discussing Mozilla's announcement: "Theoretically speaking, though, the Mozilla Foundation is supposed to be a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity which told the IRS its charitable purpose was: to "keep the Internet a universal platform that is accessible by anyone from anywhere, using any computer, and ... develop open-source Internet applications". Baker fails to explain how switching Firefox to include proprietary software fits that mission. In fact, with a bit of revisionist history, she says that open source was merely an "approach" that Mozilla Foundation was using, not their mission."

Speaking of how people criticize the FSF without reading what they say, the FSF is not an "open source advocate" despite /.'s insistence to the contrary such as is stated in this story's headline. The FSF and the free software movement predate the developmental methodology known as open source, and the FSF fights for values the open source movement sets out to deny, namely software freedom. The FSF has published more than one essay on this topic (1, 2) and RMS includes a clear and cogent explanation of this point in virtually every talk you'll hear him give. Archives of these talks are readily available online in formats that favor free software. Mozilla's choice here is another example of reaching radically different conclusions given different philosophies: Mozilla's open source choice versus a free software activist's choice to reject DRM for many valid reasons the FSF points out.

Bending over and adding DRM might not exaclty be a good thing, but I can see how it might be necessary if they want to stay relevant. Though I have to say they really should have waited with that until DRM actually becomes relevant to the Web, jumping on the DRM train this early is really sending the wrong signal. Anyway what they should have done it also just ship the anti-DRM messures right in the browser as well. Add a function to screen capture videos of your browser interaction isn't all that difficult and would have nicely shown just how pontless the whole DRM thing is.

With the number of times /. posters point out how RMS arrived at some conclusion well before so many other people, and wrote something illustrating the point and his rationale, I would hope /. posters would recall that.

More DRM isn't going to play out well for the public as it has already failed for those who enjoy leveraging their fair-use rights, reading/viewing something in another way, and more. RMS's ethics-backed rationale against DRM and nonfree software (as opposed to a developmental methodology that accepts practical convenience at the cost of our civil liberties) is simply invaluable. Snowden's revelations bring RMS's long-held objections to nonfree software into sharp focus all the more.

Addressing both your comment and the grandparent comment: this distinction of allowing non-free software is part of what distinguishes the older free software movement from the younger open source movement. RMS has been talking and writing about this critical distinction for years.

Consider the following from "Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software":

The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program that is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users' freedom. Free software activists and open source enthusiasts will react very differently to that.

A pure open source enthusiast, one that is not at all influenced by the ideals of free software, will say, "I am surprised you were able to make the program work so well without using our development model, but you did. How can I get a copy?" This attitude will reward schemes that take away our freedom, leading to its loss.

The free software activist will say, "Your program is very attractive, but I value my freedom more. So I reject your program. Instead I will support a project to develop a free replacement." If we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it.

In other words, open source won't endorse software freedom for its own sake. That movement was designed to never raise the issue of software freedom in order to promote a developmental methodology thought to lead to more reliable, more powerful programs. That methodology is fine as far as it goes (everyone likes powerful robust programs) but as we're seeing with the Snowden revelations, that methodology doesn't go far enough. RMS realized this very early on and has been providing ethical counterarguments since the open source movement began (older essay, newer essay).

This difference explains what we're seeing in the very different approaches taken in Linus Torvalds' fork of the Linux kernel versus the GNU Linux-libre fork of the Linux kernel. Linux-libre's distinction is that this fork removes the blobs that come with the Torvalds fork of the Linux kernel. Torvalds includes nonfree code meant to make the kernel run on more hardware which places a high value on convenience at the cost of software freedom. Linux-libre values software freedom instead. As a result, Linux-libre doesn't run on as much hardware and might not take advantage of everything modern hardware can do, but one gains a system they are allowed to fully inspect, share, and modify—software freedom. Linux-libre lets users make sure the software does only what that user wants that program to do. RMS, as recently as his recent responses to /. questions, encouraged readers to reverse engineer hardware in order to fully document hardware ("The parts of Linux we need to replace are the nonfree parts, the "binary blobs". [...] The main work necessary to replace the blobs is reverse engineering to determine the specs of the peripherals those blobs are used in. That's a tremendously important job -- please join in if you can."). This work leads to increased support for fully free operating systems, including fully free support in Linux-libre.

Increased security is one of the things you get with the pursuit of software freedom for its own sake. I think RMS very much recognizes the security enhancements that come along with Linux-libre and why his organization won't recommend a system with nonfree blobs in it. I'd expect that Stallman would say security isn't a goal unto itself, but a feature of a more important concern: software freedom.

The objection you seem to have missed is that proprietors treat users badly without the user's ability to effectively improve the program for their own needs (even by hiring someone to do this work on their behalf). So better to rejecting non-free software on ethical grounds. Whether spies have used the power of a proprietary Angry Birds is a weak response compared to asking whether anybody should have to choose a potential loss of privacy to play a videogame. Tracking users (no matter how) without their explicit knowledge is something people don't know about and, when they learn about it, don't like. It's a shame you have such personal anger toward Stallman that you refuse to convey understanding his points. Your namecalling ("bearded zealot", "mooching") and lame counterarguments like "There's more effective ways for snoops to get info than through angry birds" run the risk of reading as tacit acceptance of RMS's points without giving him due credit for bringing those points to the public.

We don't know who can get data from RMS's Loonsong MIPS machine but paying attention to these issues and using what's available to practical effect is leading by example; a far more respectful approach which complaining and namecalling just can't beat.

It's so convenient to argue against yourself isn't it? No need to ask him what he actually thinks (his email address is readily available) or read any of his many essays. You might be particularly interested in a list of surveillance examples found in proprietary software including one pertinant description for a program you just mentioned—"Angry Birds spies for companies, and the NSA takes advantage to spy through it too.".

how absolutely boring it is to read essentially the same message ("all software should be free and you should refuse to use any software that isn't free") repeated about 15 times with 15 minor variations. Surely RMS isn't this one-dimensional. I wish there had been some more interesting questions that weren't just prompts to repeat the free software mantra over and over again.

It's not RMS's fault that he was asked similarly un"interesting" questions that each came with the repetitive prejudices (asking about the younger movement he didn't start instead of the older movement he did start, framing issues in terms of amorality and not questioning what non-free software entails). Looking at the questions, it's clear that they were asked by people who didn't bother to read the essays linked to in the original /. story soliciting questions for him. I remember when /. used to criticize behavior like that. A lot of what people bump into are issues where software freedom has a practical response that can liberate users from dependency on untrustworthy programmers, but thanks to an amoral stance on these issues the public is never taught to see how a technocratic/developmental stance (open source, focus on features and price, focus on slick interfaces) can run contrary to their interests (preserving their privacy, retaining and exercising their civil liberties, not being beaten or killed). It's convenient to see a movie when you wish, but certainly not as important as avoiding being spied upon everywhere you go.

Now 15 years later I read his responses to these questions and it all feels very much the same. He's apparently super paranoid (worried about the government eavesdropping on your cell phone calls and tracking you? Wishing for a pager so that you could perfectly control how much tracking information you give when you answer your phone? Jesus christ, get over yourself!) and thinks everyone else should be too.

That's probably because you haven't been paying much attention to what Edward Snowden has been telling us, nor have you been thinking deeply about the consequences of those revelations. I suggest watching Eben Moglen's insightful talks on this topic for some historical perspective on how "one-dimensional" your take is and how much under threat the entire world is these days. That is, if you're not too busy dismissing Moglen for being an FSF lawyer and former FSF board member who deeply appreciates software freedom for its own sake.

I never learned exactly his feelings on the matter because when I tried to ask for some clarification I was immediately shouted down by his cronies who thought I was trying to hassle him or something (I assure you, I wasn't; I just wanted to understand his position better since I had never heard of someone refusing to use passwords and didn't understand why).

I'd be more likely to believe you on this claim if the rest of your opinions were better defended. But it's awfully hard to take someone too seriously when they're so easily dissuaded by stylistic matters over substantive examination of pertinant issues.

You're right, of course, the assistive technology will be handicapped by driver expectations. Personally I expect the full blown automation to be less subject to that as it reverses the pattern of interference. The reluctance to interfere with a driver unless you're certain he's missing something goes both ways, and 'passengers' in a fully automated vehicle won't be more prone to back seat driving than anyone usually is in a taxi or a bus or other vehicle they're not themselves in control of.

A self-driving car doesn't have to anticipate stupid drivers, it can keep appropriate distance and planning needed regardless of the inferred skill of the drivers. For example, why is anyone not exiting the freeway even in the lane that you know will get 30% bad mergers 500 meters ahead?

And frankly, yes, it's not hard to spot the stupid drivers and you could probably have algorithms for that. But the obvious stupid drivers aren't the danger, it's the good ones missing something as you won't be expecting them to do something idiotic. It's the biker you see slowing down and classifying as 'smart' who then rams straight ahead when you're looking in the other direction. It's the merger who perfectly accelerates up to the right speed, starts blinking, and then just doesn't see you. It's the guy who's stopped at the same red light a thousand times, but who's brain played a trick on him the 1001's time and had him think the green light for going ahead was the one that applied, not the red one for the left turn he just blew straight through.

A smart car will assume that everyone is stupid and that it, itself, has to be capable to counter any physically possible action. We should, as well, but the fact is that we're constantly hampered by our intelligence, assuming things that fit the general rules, anticipating based on experience, projecting states and emotions onto everything else. We shorten distances as we know that will make the driver ahead of us remember that he's forgotten to get out of the passing lane (or get uncomfortable enough to move out of the way). We maintain speeds that are usually ok, even in rain, when its dark, and our visibility is half of our stopping distance. If there's a stupid pedestrian about to pass we'll notice on the bump-bump. When we're the fourth car about to merge in to the freeway, do we stop and wait for the three idiots doing the bumper-to-bumper merge to get onto the freeway? No, most of us will at best give them a slightly wider berth, but most likely we'll see if we increase distance a bit and plan a higher acceleration and cut two lanes and get past them as fast as possible.

A well programmed smart car should know better than to get into a situation where an accident is inevitable, and it would at least theoretically be better at that. And the fact is, when the choice comes and it is inevitable I'd rather trust the car, because frankly, I've never, _ever_ been in that situation and I have absolutely no idea what I'd actually do or any time to think about it. The car, at least, might have knowledge of the statistics, its own capabilities and the physics of the situation.