The idea is to promote visibility and unity.

How does something that separates them from the rest of the company promote unity?

Either way, wouldn't something like a different style for the id badge do the same thing more cheaply and without resentment?

This reminds me of the record industry's attempts to past legislation to kick pirates off the internet without explaining how it will increase sales.

If there is some relationship between a lawyer and a judge, how does it help anyone to hide it? Hiding it doesn't make the relationship go away.

But what about the idea that information MUST BE FREE?

Information wants to be free. The claims refers to any and all of the following facts:

• When information is shared, the sharer loses none of the information.

• The cost of sharing information information is next to nil if not nil. It is an infinite good. In a free market, it's price WILL go down to zero (regardless of whether you think it SHOULD or not).

• Information sharing almost always benefits society.

But must information be free? No, not always. There is value in privacy, for example. So while your DNA information "wants to be free" doesn't mean you should "let it free".

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You might be wondering how there can exist privacy if information wants to be free.

Notice that I said the cost of information will drop to nothing in a free market. Privacy can exist by hindering the market for information deemed private. One means of achieving this is through the creation of laws that (artifically) raise the cost of the information (by imposing penalities for inappropriately sharing and using the information).

Unfortunately, the legal landscape has not yet dealt with DNA sharing in any serious manner. For now, all you can do is hide your DNA. Once it's known by someone else, it's outside your control.

Seems to me it would be easier to convince my sysadmin to simply run a program of my choice.

This would be an interesting to include in a released program. The rate of infection will be low, but those infected are likely to be admins and power users. It would also provide some deniability. "I didn't change the loader! What does that even mean?"

all Internet users must keep their connections 'secure' and are responsible for what happens on them.'

That means ISPs are legally responsible for their clients misbehaviour!!!

If Copyright had a limit of five years, the 5 year old version of the software would become public domain, not changes done since then.

I feel that software would still be created at the same rate with a five year limit as it does with the current insane copyright lengths. That means that Copyright has fulfilled its purpose of promoting progress.

Not at all.

CafePress isn't responsible for someone using McD's trademark on a t-shirt (whether that's a trademark violation or not).

Google isn't responsible for someone getting an ad on someone else's trademark (whether that's a trademark violation or not).

Nokia isn't responsible for someone uttering a trademark over the phone (whether that's a trademark violation or not).

That's not Perl. That's a regular expression. They are found in Java, C, Python, and so many more, and their popularity is gaining. I don't see how that's possibly an argument against Perl.

It's also bad code. The coder is trying to parse HTML or XML himself despite the availability of many libraries and tools.