Those vectors are easily noticeable, though. Malware controlling the computer's electrical usage is so subtle as to be easily missed.

I'm rather disappointed to see that this comment is so far down the list, but it's exactly right, as far as I understand.

The law itself isn't being claimed, but the notes and analysis are. It's the same analysis one could get by going to a library and poring over case history for a few years, but presented in a concise and topical format. You don't really need that information to know the law. You might need that information to defend yourself optimally in a court case, in which case the normal and reasonable expectation is that you'll hire a lawyer (even a public defender) or go to a library and figure it out yourself.

We should try this. For Science!

No offense or hard to you or your head intended... just curiosity regarding the terminal velocity and freefall aerodynamics of a quadcopter, especially when the object below it is rather delicate (like, say, a pool of ballistics gel).

Has such a situation been tested, since the introduction of tiny and lightweight devices?

As much as anything in law, yes. That is to say that it is the general case, but you still get the chance to argue about it in front of a judge* if following the general rule has somehow bothered someone enough to make a harmony-threatening societal problem. Let's break down your example by each fact.

Then you have no general expectation of privacy, but let's go on.

Ah, but now you've provided an indication that you want privacy. Now we have a conflict of general rules.

Sure, because you're in a public place.

No, because you've shown that you do not consent to their search... ...maybe.

It really depends on local precedent and established case law. Pretty much, if this ever comes up in a court, it would be a good opportunity to argue at length in front of the judge. On the one hand, you were in public, and you should be aware that any kid with a $50 toy microphone or $5 radio bug could listen to your conversation. On the other hand, the government is held to stricter rules (namely the Fourth Amendment) than a kid with a large allowance. If you're stopping for everybody, then you can argue that you aren't intending to obstruct justice or hide evidence of a crime (which might be useful justifications to sway the judge). On the other hand, you didn't check the park bench for bugs before talking, so maybe you didn't really care about more organized eavesdropping.

No, the argument is whether it is reasonable to expect that your conversation would remain private. That depends a lot on the extent to which you tried to hide your conversation, and the opinions of judges in the area. Different public places have different standards for privacy.

You can expect a pony, too, but the justice system doesn't need to recognize that expectation. Rather, the key word often omitted (including in my earlier post) is that you may have a reasonable expectation of privacy... and again, that depends heavily on the local definition of "reasonable".

In many cases, yes, and they do.

That is correct. If you don't care enough about your privacy to close the drapes, then why should the court care enough to punish someone who looked in? Now, if your house was very far from the nearest public area, such that it would be unreasonable to worry about someone seeing clearly through that window, then there's room to argue that, as well.

Yes. It sounds like a country where I am free to walk in a park without worrying about violating someone's privacy because I have good hearing, and where I am free to bring birdwatching equipment out to where birds are. I am free to look at my neighborhood houses, and I am free to leave my drapes in whatever state I wish. The price of that freedom is only that I must recognize others' freedoms as well, including their freedom to communicate privately.

It is usually the law of the land, though. Other laws (like the Fourth Amendment) may supersede it, but yet again that's an issue for the courts.

A very good idea. I tend to like "You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want."

It's fairly short, and sums up the entirety of the legal system and most moralities as well. In this context, having an absolutely private conversation in a public place counts as "absolutely anything", and you don't have a right to that. Always being able to eavesdrop on someone else's conversation also counts, and I don't have a right to that, either. With a bit less extremism, however, we can all get along.

* This whole post assumes a judicial process similar to what the United States has, and specific examples are also based on an American perspective.

I once joined a project where one of the core developers had mysteriously disappeared. He had been one of the early designers, and was the only person who actually knew how his areas worked.

It took a small team about a year to fully understand all of his work, but the project survived. To this day, four years after his disappearance (three after his body was pulled from a river), we still find some code with his name on it, and it's a tradition to assign it to the newest team member to read, understand and deliver a report on how it works. It's a rough process, but we got through it eventually.

His legacy on the project is as an object lesson in the necessity of good commenting, and a reminder to management that they must be wary of one-man teams.

Evolution is not working toward anything. Evolution is always working away from extinction.

This is precisely the problem with this sort of thinking.

A vast informational resource will reduce the frequency of things like lying on resumes. You can't just say "I did this" without others to corroborate your claim. However, that can easily lead to a tendency to simply assume the facts are out there. In turn, when someone does want to get away with lying, they can do so by making sure that their claims are either audacious enough that the victim assumes a lie would be impossible, or by fabricating enough support that their claim pass basic scrutiny.

The little lies can be more easily caught, but the biggest lies can be given legitimacy.

I haven't served, but I have a decent amount of experience with the military.

I've met and worked with soldiers in all of the US military branches. They're really good at what they do, but they're not perfect, and they know it. As you so bluntly pointed out, there is exceptional discipline, but you can only beat people so hard before they just stop improving. Humans have limits, and despite what your commanders convinced you to believe, technology is the best way to surpass them, not more pushups.

The soldiers today are given just as much training, and they're just as good on their own as you were. Now, though, they also have better technology and better training equipment, so they're more effective than you could have been. If they need to move further, faster, they'll have a robot to carry gear so they can go the extra distance. If they need to shoot straighter, they'll have the rifle and stabilizing exoskeleton to hit their targets. If they need to watch a building for hours, they'll have a drone do it without putting a soldier in a vulnerable position.

It doesn't matter whether you trust your "good shooting mechanics" or your equipment. You are there to complete a mission, for which you are to use every means at your disposal. That desire you have to be "good with your firearm" should have been a desire to complete your mission properly. Giving up any advantage for fear of being "soft" is not honor or duty. It is stupidity.

That is correct, and normal.

You do not have an inherent right of ownership over his code. His code is a derivative work of yours, and your merged codebase would be a derivative work of his.

By modifying your code, he has created a new work, which is permitted under the terms of the earlier-version GPL. He then releases his new complete work (which includes your parts). That's also permitted under the earlier-version GPL, as long as he releases the source code. When someone wants to use the new work, they're required to have a license to it. He offers the user a later version of the GPL for his new work. Your parts are now covered by the earlier version if the user gets them from you directly, or the later version if acquired from the modifier.

In your case of merging back changes, his changes are part of his new work, which is covered in its entirety by the later license, regardless of the fact that your code is included. It's no different from merging in a bit of MIT-licensed code or even a proprietary routine: you have to comply with the terms of the license. For a later-version GPL, that means your new combined derivative work would have to be compatible with the later-version GPL.

In short, the core idea is that your codebase is a new work every time you change and republish it. To "accept changes back into my codebase" is actually creating a new derivative work, and it must be properly licensed as any other derivative work must be, regardless of your involvement in the work's ancestry.

The primary purpose of a criminal justice system is to keep society functioning peacefully. If a fugitive can hide with freedom for long enough that the statutory time limits expire, then he has demonstrated his ability to function in society. From a philosophical point of view, he has provided solid evidence of his rehabilitation, whether he needed it or not. A trial and further punishment would serve only vengeance, not justice. Similarly, even if the police know where a fugitive is hiding, the cause of justice is still being served. By the time the limits expire, Assange will effectively have served a minimum-security prison sentence. In theory, his unenforced incarceration will be a reminder to him in the future to follow the law.

As far as the law is concerned, someone in Mr. Assange's situation has already tried himself, found himself guilty, and isolated himself from society at large just as a prison sentence would. At this point, the only arguments are ideological: whether the state would give him a fair trial, possibly allowing him to be more free than he currently is. By staying in the embassy, he prevents the trial from taking place. That's why statists (who tend to see trials as being mostly fair) see it as a sign of guilt, and anti-statists (who expect the trial to be pessimal) see his retreat as a last-resort way to escape persecution.

Then you most likely have a population in the hundreds of millions, a very small proportion of which are actually under investigation. While I certainly agree that they should be a "rare" and "extreme" measure, I just don't find it unreasonable to believe that one person in a hundred thousand is under a wiretap-requiring investigation.

Read the license from the perspective of your users. If a later GPL version adds new protections against software patents, API copyrights, or whatever else the legal system dreams up, the users can opt to follow the terms of that license. If, in a moment of collective insanity, the FSF publishes a less-free GPL, the user can opt to use the earlier version your software was originally released under.

That clause actually ensures that the current version establishes a minimum set of rights.

Precisely... the two ideas are independent.

If his investments are publicly-traded, selling his stake does nothing. The companies he's invested in won't lose his money, because he'd just be selling to another individual, so "his money" becomes "the other guy's money". If it's a private investment, where he may be contractually limited in what he can do, then the whole discussion is rather moot. He may be able to sell his way out of the investment, which would reduce the company's operating capital somewhat, but unless he's a major shareholder, the impact on the company will be minimal.

On the other hand, if he keeps his investments, he likely gets votes in how the company operates. Being Bill Gates, he probably gets a few more votes and can bend a few more ears than regular folks can. If the investments do anything, good or bad, that's where it lies... they give Mr. Gates the ability to push the fossil-fuel companies in a more environmentally-friendly direction.