Nah, it's the insurance rates that really killed that project.

Has Facebook or the Yahoolicgans taken over Slashdot that such a simple thing, an elementary procedure that no one who considers themselves as knowing anything at all about computers is now considered something informative, something that apparently at least 5 pro Windows shills with mod points were able to process and place into their little book of amazing windows secrets? That's more sad than snarky.

It was a joke. This comment isn't Its merely taking pity on the less abled among us. So you just go ahead and mark this post as troll too, Y'all will feel better for it.

A few speed bumps should take care of it. Get the people on both ends of the block to vote against the people in the middle who have to pass each one every time. Tyranny of the Majority trumps Tragedy of the Commons.

But then freeway drivers could organize and prevent the speed bumps.

Ummmm... And then come winter the gorillas freeze to death.

And sometimes the chips are even genuine!

As per the Chinese government, even if the Australian government went all communist and banned everything they cannot stop it, it is not technically feasible. China spends billions trying to do it and fails, yet you somehow believe the Australian government with a fraction of the resources, far less legal authority to do so and no direct control of the links will do it. seriously you need to see someone, it is not normal to have such insane levels of paranoia.

Not only are they not posted here because they are not relevant to the story, if they were, they'd be yanked by the mods in seconds.

The press are owned and controlled by people who probably play golf with the heads of Sony, and keep their yachts in the same marinas. So, you decide if that means the press will do a damned thing about it or not.

It's long past the point where the press will focus on honest and objective reporting, and instead focus on corporate interests and policy.

You really can't take that out of this equation.

Everyone likes to pretend there's still a free press. But, that's not 100% true when corporate policy dictates the news as much as anything.

Well, think of it as "in order to protect our interests and make this go away we are going to hold you legally accountable".

The trick will be if they have a legal basis to say anything about it, or if this is just bluster from a legal team.

You don't lawfully have the information, but is it illegal for you to have it? And, is it actionable that you have it?

Would the lawyers for any large media outfit fight this? Or since all of the large media outfits are owned by companies like Sony and Time and the like, would they decide that they don't want to push the issue too far in case it happens to them?

It's not like we have a media which is in any way objective from what their corporate overlords tell them to do ... so the legality versus the will might be a different issue.

This might come down to a back room agreement between the CEOs of some multinationals. Or the media could grow a spine and say "fuck it, we don't care what the board says, this is news-worthy".

At the end of the day, I bet this will be as much about what Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner want, instead of what the law says. Because that's who is really calling the shots.

We responded quickly and were able to cancel the vast majority of orders placed on these affected items immediately and no costs or fees will be incurred by sellers for these cancelled orders.

So, once the order has been placed, haven't you effectively entered into a contract for sale or something?

At which point you the seller don't really the the option to say "Ooops, we didn't mean to do that, we're cancelling your order".

Maybe it's different in the UK, but I thought they couldn't change the terms of sale just because they want to.

If I had made the purchase, I'd be pissed, because this means they can change the terms of sale after they've been offered.

Your website/pricing stuff broke .. NMFP, you offered it 1 penny, I expect to get it for that price.

The creators will tell you what it was intended to do and what it actually means within that narrow GPL context.

No, they won't.

What the creators will tell you amounts to "if we were in charge, these would be the rules of the GPL and what it means". They can tell you their intent, but intent may not equate to any legal weight.

The problem is that ignores the rest of the legal system and copyright law which gives the GPL its teeth. For that you need an actual court to rule.

Nothing at all which is told to you by the creators, proponents, or guys who have read the GPL actually corresponds to the legal interpretation of that license except that it is an opinion.

They'll tell you what they think it means, what they want it to mean, what they believe and hope it means.

None of those, however, is legally binding nor does it establish legal precedent.

No. And THAT is why we have the GPLv3, to head off patent problems (among other things)

Great, at this rate it should be, what, another 15-20 years before that gets tested in court?

It upsets me that this question will be answered by those who [probably] know nothing about software and code. Why won't they ask those who created this GPL? Wouldn't they surely know better?

Because, the GPL is essentially a contract written in the framework of contract law, which says "you have a copyright exemption under the following circumstances".

There's been tons of confusion about what it actually means, and if it legally means what people think it means.

Until a court actually rules on this, everything else is an opinion based on someone's interpretation.

But, from there, if it stands and the court says "this is the impact", then we'll know and there will be legal precedent.

It's within the realm of the possible the court could invalidate the whole damned thing. And the court could also provide an interpretation which narrows the scope of it. The court could also expand it.

So, it may upset you, but the foundation of the legal system is more or less until a judge rules on it, and until there is a legal precedent ... you don't really know if it holds water or not.

Those who created the GPL may not know as much as they think about writing a software license. Or, they knew an awful lot and the court will agree.

At the very least, this should remove some of the ambiguity and confusion.

Implementing it isn't a problem really, just so long as it's not abused

The problem is it will be abused. It will be used for things beyond the scope they claimed it will be. It will essentially suffer from the same kind of scope creep all of this surveillance shit does.

What they say now as "oh, we'll only use this for national security stuff" becomes tomorrow's "well, we had to invent parallel construction to conceal what we do with that stuff we promised was only for national security".

This stuff is designed to give law enforcement unfettered access to anything, while keeping that access secret from the rest of us. And in the case of Canada, this pretty much bypasses privacy legislation

I'm pretty much convinced that all elected officials voting in favor of this crap have forfeited all right to claim any of their information is private while saying they have access to all of our information.

These clowns have been undermining some of the basic premises of Western societies.

Worthless bastards.