Yes his free business model was doomed to fail. Take away lesson: Avoid employer hostile countries from the get go. Outsource as much development to companies like odesk or freelancer.com where you have insulation from draconian labor laws.

To suggest he is a cry-baby is silly. Every business owner or CEO will be emotionally attached to the success and failure of the company.

While a cash-poor company is more susceptible to failure, ALL companies will fail if there is a significant unexpected loss of cash. Defending lawsuits, real or frivolous is extraordinarily expensive. Lessons were learned, and wisdom is being imparted.

Startups involving a free product, launched in a employer hostile (I mean, "employee friendly") and expensive country, and with no expectation of making any kind of profit (or return for shareholders) is probably near impossible. And yes, you can get sued by your employees even if you're following labor laws.

Yah, let me write the code, install it, host it, attract customers, maybe charge for it, give away the source code, watch my market share erode, then try to pay for tech support, or try to add value added features or "in service" purchases. Sounds like fun! Or you could do all of the above and not give your source code away. Hmm.. let me think about that.

That's all I remember.

I use ZOC terminal. Its commercial and worth it to me. Anyone else have a favorite SSH client?

Good luck suing and trying to prove damages. No legal documents or protections are in place. No need to contact or get permission from any developers-- if any complain, they can pound sand.

Neil's works are hit and miss for me. I loved Cryptonomicon and Reamde was pretty good. I'm not into fantasy, so some of his books don't appeal at all to me. I'll get this one on Audible.

Just walk around and meet the neighbors. Ask to run a wireless link to one in exchange for some or all of the network charges. Great outdoor wireless radios are cheap and reliable.

Even if the police make this data private, the general population will jump in to make this (and most) data such as this freely available. A small box located near your mailbox will be able to record every car that drives by and capture video of anyone walking by.

This technology is already available in the flying world-- where FlightAware makes a plane tracker that publishes flight data from the skies to the public.

Take away lesson is your data will be mined. If you think license plate data is a breach, just wait for ubiquitous facial recognition data going to the public domain.

Brave new world!

I'd happily trade a little freedom for more security. slash sarcasm

Check out iNotRacist an app to tell exactly how racist you're not.

Just address the shipping label to "Iran Institute of Centrifugal Studies" C/O Mailboxes Etc.

Muslims that are tolerant and peaceful are welcome in every sane society. But those who want to join ISIS or think Sharia should be applied to Non-Muslims should be encouraged to separate themselves from their kufr hosts and go live in a Sharia compliant country. Win-win.

We can cross that bridge when the Jews (or Amish, or Presbyterians) start murdering people over cartoons. A much bigger concern is the religious minorities already living in Muslim-majority countries. If on the other hand, you're referring to the huge rise in antisemitism in France, 95% of that comes from the Muslim immigrants, which will now have an opportunity to separate themselves from their dreaded boogieman.