Nope. "Bootlegging" has always been a criminal offense. It was even this way before recent lobbying got the relevant bits of the US Code changed.

Back in the day, crackers had really nasty things to say about people that sold pirated works.

Even then, in that context, there was a social convention dictating that selling other people's stuff wasn't cool.

> It sends the message that intangible property is still property.

Except it isn't. It's a temporary monopoly grant. It's a temporary license to violate my rights and standing to sue people.

Real property doesn't have an "expiration date".

How would I feel? Indifferent.

I've been there and done that.

Besides getting the better bonus for the work that was a turkey, I was not harmed by rampant piracy. It was supposed to have killed the entire industry before I was even in it but that never happened.

Good works will prosper. Turkeys will fail. Plenty of people will still pay.

The same was true for "Cute and Stupid 6". The rampant industry killing piracy didn't actually do the studio any real harm. Neither did the one particular example the the perp will do time for.

Incarcerating this person is just an unnecessary drain on my wallet as we collectively all have to pay big bucks for it.

> Sounds like you're a violent sociopath. Maybe we should cane you if you like that kind of punishment so much.

A good beating administered by the authorities in a controlled and relatively safe environment will likely do FAR MUCH LESS damage than being locked up with animals and sociopaths for 3 years.

You simply don't have any clue. You can't relate do doing any kind of hard time. You probably can't even relate do doing a week or a weekend in the local lockup.

> Proof that US slashdotters techies are just sort of OK at best since they don't want high skills immigration. Low skills immigration is fine since it doesn't compete directly with their jobs though.

What immigration?

H1Bs are an indentured servitude program.

It was a stark realization the first time found out that the imported PhDs in my shop were making less than I was. I was in a much better position to negotiate for better salary despite having less education and a more generic specialty.

I had the legal standing to tell my employer to "take this job and shove it".

I happily took advantage of the situation but never forgot the injustice of it.

All government data needs to be open to auditing. Thus any government data needs to be stored in open formats that can be examined and manipulated with tools that can be sourced from multiple parties. Furthermore, the government should not be in the business of helping entrench particular software monopolies.

The nature of the binaries being run is really just a side show.

It's the DATA that needs to be open.

Websites that link in 10 or 20 other domains already make me suspicious enough to wonder if I should avoid them before they avoid me.

Apple's success is hardly a good model for Linux. Despite a great deal of effort, having a GUI platform that nearly predates MS-DOS, having a BRAND that does predate MS-DOS, lots of focused resources, effective advertising, Super Bowl ads, and even dedicated stores they still only managed to eek out a small minority of the market.

Apple's current success is based on NOT being a computing company.

If anything, Apple is a pretty conclusive demonstration of how "doing everything right" will really get you nowhere in the desktop market.

As far as non-technical users go. Apple products are just quirky enough to be annoying and off putting.

> The problem is the GUI. People don't like X

A stupid noisy minority of techno-hipsters don't like X. For the rest of us it's invisible and no more bothersome than the graphics subsystem on any other platform.

The problem with your rant is that the still marginal market share of Apple refutes it. Linux in other forms was able to gain traction because of lack of an entrenched monopoly (or being the monopoly).

Apple demonstrates that applying the "one true way" approach to the desktop won't help you get away from Microsoft.

So there's no real point in sabotaging Linux just to suit some delusion that ignores reality on the ground.

> Linux "won" mobile in the same way Michael Moore "won" the war on anorexia.

So then what's the bit in that analogy of yours that corresponds to Microsoft's failed attempts to dominate? Or Apple's faultering position?

> A stable binary driver interface would help for starters.

No. Probably not. Lack of stable interfaces never harmed the WinDOS market. That's because these kinds of things are driven by market share and have little to do with "platform quality". Either a vendor thinks the market is large enough to bother with or not. The "level of bother" factor is largely irrelevant.

That's why much software is still Windows-only despite there being a mythical commercial platform that's supposed to do everything right.

With only 2G, the OS will still be getting in your ways. This is all a flashback to the 90s when RAM was too expensive and you usually didn't see adequately equipped PCs. Any PC OS beyond DOS ended up getting in it's own way and running like a snail.

The 1st Amendment of the US Constitution is a limit placed on government. It's not a limit placed on the people. It's a statement of universal principle so important that our nation at it's birth was unwilling to accept a written Constitution without it.

It is not some sort of "legal loophole" that justifies everyone else being a tyrannical jackass.

> So any store that only carries Organic foods is censoring?

A merchant has to be able to make money to keep the lights on and pay the rent. A merchant is subject to physical constraints. A merchant is PAYING for the things they present to you.

Why didn't you just make it a bad car analogy from the start?

Trying to deviate from that doesn't make the problem of applying physical rules to the ethereal realm any more senseless.

> Yes but that doesn't make the intestines a sexual organ.

There are plenty of girls that will STRONGLY disagree with you on that point.