Yes, I've been to those places because THC suppressed epileptic seizures I used to have (but only for several hours while it was in effect- it's an extremely expensive anticonvulsant and insurance doesn't cover it). Legal pot is particularly expensive. On what basis is pot cheaper that liquor or alcohol? Per "dose" (whatever that is for any of those three)? Cigarettes and liquor never tempted me to cut up my ATM card.
Plus, you can't survive on a 100% Taco Bell diet... just eating the pot would be more nutritious.

The move to electric is a natural evolution, and will have a significant impact. The economies of scale in terms of pollution mitigation at power plants will utterly dwarf anything cars have ever been able to do themselves, transmission losses nonwithstanding.

Even if they only displace urban drivers (fewer per-trip miles, more population density facilitating more charging stations), the impact will be transformative. Watch the AQI loop around New York, and you can see air pollution rising and falling along the commuter roads into the City in lock step with the morning commute. I can't even imagine a New York with 50-80% fewer gas-powered cars on the road.

But that's still just evolution. Electric is just a natural step.

Driverless cars are the revolution. Electric makes existing car use patterns better. Driverless makes an entirely new paradigm. It may eliminate mass car ownership. It might eliminate parking lots. It might eliminate light rail in suburban areas. Taxis. Deliveries. Shipping. Police reponses.

Electric makes things better in well-projected ways. Driverless changes everything forever in ways we can't yet even imagine.

A lot of smaller towns I have seen change stoplights at night. From 11pm-6am, for example, a stop light with two small streets will turn into flashing red all around, meaning a four way stop. A larger road intersection will get a flashing yellow on the major road, and flashing red on the smaller road.

Makes sense to me, and I doubt this adds any additional crashes.

I think then that you know what Stallman is talking about when he uses the term "freedom" but you are taking the hard way in accusing him of dishonesty when you seem to really mean that he is using the wrong words.

It doesn't illustrate any point, because it is about tangible objects, to which you have ownership rights.

Software is non-tangible and as a licensee you have no ownership rights, and only those rights granted by the licensor (author/owner). This point was not represented at all in your analogy.

You made an argument about a car and manual which you own, which does not correspond to the software situation where you are the licensee, as I described above.

You don't place the restriction on the owner of the car. They place it upon themselves. But it doesn't apply to software because the licensee who receives a COPY is not the new owner.

Less free than what? This is where the car analogy breaks down again. As the new owner of the car they may feel less free because as owner they have obligations that you did not have as owner, but it is not about a car. Your analogy is hindering you because it is fault.

With software where the GPL applies, they are not the new owner, they are just a licensee. They may use the software without owning it! A new freedom! Just as they may use the car but they are not the owner of the software and have no inherent rights to it distribute it. But yet they may distribute it! A new freedom! As long as they follow the license.

But they do not have to distribute it (and it is not theirs to distribute). They can continue to use it without worrying about any of the license terms! They only have to follow the terms as they excercise the permitted freedoms, not as a price of those freedoms but as definitions of those freedoms.

But to keep you your car analogy, if they buy the software (the ownership of the software, not a license) from the OWNER or the OWNER donates the software then they are not bound by the license (do you know what license means? It means "permission") because they don't need the license. They operate as owner, not licensee. And so when we stick properly to your misapplied car analogy we see that freedom has not been restricted at all because the license does not restrict the owner.

You misunderstood the difference between owning the software/car and licensing the software/car.

To stick to your analogy, you cannot sell a car that you only hired. You have the capability - yes, but not the freedom. But its not yours...

I don't know if he argued that it should be put in place or that it should be put in place if the FSF clauses were to remain in force. But I hardly think copyright laws will go away and it's not relevant to your misapplication of the analogy.

Your analogies are not helping you and I can't see how this one does any more than demonstrate your misuse of the terms capability and freedom. I don't think there is any doubt what RMS means by the term freedom, and I don't think there is any doubt that you confused license from the owner to distribute a copy, with ownership.

In fact I suggest you read all of chapter 1 http://static.fsf.org/nosvn/fa...
and then you will be ready to talk about freedom.

I think you need reminding of the origin of the free software movement.

It was in a fight back against loss of previous common freedom, that are not so common these days. Having been born into a greater captivity than Stallman you maybe never had those freedoms and do not feel the loss.

"When Stallman noticed the jamming tendency in the Xerox laser
printer, he thought of applying the old fix or "hack" to this printer.
In the course of looking up the Xerox laser-printer software, however,
Stallman made a troubling discovery. The printer didn't have any
software, at least nothing Stallman or a fellow programmer could read.
Until then, most companies had made it a form of courtesy to publish
source-code files--readable text files that documented the individual
software commands that told a machine what to do. Xerox, in this
instance, had provided software files only in compiled, or binary, form."

http://www.quora.com/What-is-t...

It's also notable that you had to use a car analogy to make a point, which suggests that the point you are trying to make cannot reasonably be made in the software scenario; if it could it would be a more effective argument.

Tip: Analogies are good for explanations but not good for arguments. Often the point in discussion has implications on whether or not the analogy applies. Your analogy may only make sense to people who already take your view.

But in this case your analogy is faulty.

I suggest that the first flaws are that the car and the manual are physical artefacts that can't be in the possession of the donor and recipient at the same time, this alone disqualifies the analogy.

More specifically because your analogy is incorrectly applied.

No-one compels you to give YOUR car with YOUR manual. But you might say to the recipient: I give you MY car and MY manual on the condition that when you pass the car on you must also pass the manual on. Nobody compels the recipient to pass the manual on, he willingly accepts it as a condition of receiving the car.

This analogy as applied means that if you choose to COPY or DISTRIBUTE someone else's copyrighted works, you may only do so lawfully, which means by license or by legal recognized exceptions (e.g. fair use). You may therefore accept the terms of the license, or refrain from copying, or be in breach of copyright.

The license clearly grants additional freedoms that copyright does not grant.

You don't mention what "such laws" you are talking about. Is Stallman arguing FOR any laws?

We have transcriptions for the faster readers. But you enjoy complaining, so we won't let that silly fact stop you.

Thanks for your input,

- R

I didn't say it was proven. I said it was a result. We don't have a formal proof that P != NP, but find me a single practitioner who thinks we'll find a proof of P = NP.

At some level math works on the basis of consensus. Consensus determines whether we accept a proof or reject it for omitting an important step; consensus determines which axioms we accept to be true. And so far, the consensus seems to be "BQP != NP, just like P != NP."

But yes, we're going to keep looking for the proofs. :)