There is still such a thing? I thought they have become a piece of our mythical history. Like work ethics, or customer service.

Ain't they on vacation now? Weld the doors shut and hope for the best.

Of course you have a right to be forgotten. We'll start with your politicians.

entering "Francois Hollande" into google...

searching ...

no results for your request. Did you mean "french hollandaise"?

Actually, peoples being punished for the stupidity of their leaders (leaders that never had to face an election, no less) was the reason why WW2 happened...

In most cases this will have an impact on you inside your country. There, it is filtered.

If you have to deal with foreign parties for some reason, this usually also means that you're dealing with people who know better than to trust some sources just 'cause it's on the net.

Ain't necessary. In France, Google does actually filter the results.

Implementing such a thing would not accomplish anything.

France wishes to enforce its laws outside of France. And that's something they lack the aircraft carriers for.

That's not what the shareholders want. They are in on the pump and dump scheme, the last thing they'd want is to end it.

That's only true because you can't get ANYTHING done anymore. Of course that also excludes the creation of any shitty code. If you can't get ANY coding done, it can't be bad...

Lobbying is, essentially, a necessity. Nobody, and certainly not politician, is an expert in everything. He needs someone to inform him.

The big problem with lobbying in its current form is that this information is, to put it mildly, a wee bit lopsided. At best politicians only get a skewed and one sided point of view on a topic from a lobbyist. At worst they also get bribes in different forms.

What we'd need is a system of experts that act as advisers. That's not really easier to realize either. Because every human being has an opinion. And few have the incredible integrity to argue against their own case just to present the facts of the other side.

Lobbies targeting voters can far easier be countered, especially with something like the internet at our disposal. Since it's unlikely that money could do the talking in such a case (and if, at least for a change everyone would get something out of it), what's left is propaganda.

And that will at the very least ensure that things will be talked about instead of hushed up, which allows us to at least weed out the most heinous crimes like TTIP.

Only if you also exclude "structural". Because our politicians actually have structural integrity.

Unfortunately. If they didn't, fewer would exist.

What's your position on this fad of appliances needing networking and whatnot other connections? Especially in the light of other devices (like routers) usually running something that used to be free software 'til the appliance maker got their hands onto it. It is likely that some if not many or even the majority of IoT appliances will run (allegedly) free software in one way or another, and most likely without any regard of the underlying licensing model.

Would you rather see it as a vehicle for OSS to move into everyone's home and literally become a household thing, or is it just yet another abuse of free software by makers of appliances who just like to cut corners?

Sorry, clicked the wrong article. Someone mod the parent of this one (also by me) offtopic if you have some modpoints to spare. Thanks.

When has this happened? I couldn't think of a single instance right now.

Well, technically, RMS has more similarities with Santa...