Technically yes, both are for human beings that don't wear eye patches, which is basically the same customer base for eye drops.

Winzip vs Microsoft word vs C++, which one is right for you?

Perhaps they should get rid of the ban altogether? Seriously, with the trade deficit spiraling out of control, it makes no sense at all to ban exports.
Rather than question BP for 'getting around' the law, we should question why we have such bad law in the first place.

You realize linux is _just_ a kernel right? There is roughly the same amount of linux in an android handset than in say an ubuntu pc.

Whether you put some GNU components on top, Dalvik, or busybox, it is the exact same kernel: linux. In fact this is the reason why some people advocate calling most distributions GNU/Linux

Thank you for the article, but it does not really address my question.

In that article he tries to convince people to chose GPL over LGPL for libraries. At most, the consequence here is that someone is unable to use the library in question because he does not agree with the terms.

What I am asking is different: I would like to know if he would make it a crime to use a proprietary license.

You argue that it is unethical for someone to distribute software in a way that limits any one of the 4 freedoms to users.

If you had the option, would you make it illegal to do so?

In other words, if you had the option would you make it so that software developers were forced by law to use a free software license? or would you leave the option to the developers and try to convince them (without coercion) that it is the right thing to do?

I am a mobile app developer. I have ios, android and win surface tablets. I have nothing against any of these companies as I want my apps to work on all of them. But the surface is my least favorite one, and one I would never use for me. The usability is just bad over all. Here are some examples:

1. I want to get a game, so I click on the store, and it prompts me to create an account. I spend 5 minutes setting up an account, and then it just goes to my account page with no obvious way to install the game, or even go back to the store. Go back to the start screen and click on the store again, and it just reopens the window in your account.
2. Scrolling up and down with 2 fingers on the touchpad is hit and miss, Sometimes it registers as a scroll, but often It thinks I moved my first finger and registers as a moving the cursor ignoring the second finger.
3. The default keyboard that comes with the surface has keys that you don't press, but touch. This means it has a full size keyboard that you cannot touch type in because you cannot feel the keys, WTF?
4. There are essentially 3 desktops: the metro interface, the traditional win 7 desktop, and the full list of applications. It is not obvious how to switch between them, and much less how to move the apps between them. The slide from the borders thing is something you should not rely on, because someone needs to show it to you, there is no way a person would figure it out by himself.
5. Say I want to uninstall an app, well, I would expect to tap and hold an app and click uninstall. I would expect to right click on an app and click uninstall. I would expect to drag it into some garbage can. But no, there is no obvious way to uninstall apps, it turns out you need to open settings and look for the installed apps, and then uninstall it from there.
6. I am not a huge fan of the changing tiles, because sometimes you no longer recognize what they are. Say I am looking for the store, but the tile is currently displaying some information about some app in the store, then it takes longer for me to find the darned store.

I am a software developer (and darned good at it), I design my games with usability in mind, and constantly change them based on usability testing and feedback from users. People underestimate how hard it is to make interfaces that won't confuse people, bad developers will actually think the users are dumb and blame them. Microsoft desperately needs to do some usability testing on these tablets. They did a great job at making the UI look simple and beautiful, only to kill the magic with some really bad UI design problems.

According to Jefferson, the states have the responsibility of defending themselves from abuses from the federal government by using nullification. This is what the 9th and 10th amendment are for.

No. The executive does not have the power until the legislative passes a veto-proof law banning the power. It is supposed to work the opposite way, where a law needs to be approved by both the executive, legislative, and even then the judicial can still strike it down if it deems it unconstitutional. But that still fails because as the patriot act and many other laws demonstrate, the legislative branch passes (purposely) very vague laws that allow the executive to interpret whatever he wants out of it.

As it is, Boehner is Obama's puppet and might as well be on the same party. He even worked with Obama to kill a bill banning of the mass surveillance already. Trying to do _anything_ at all through the legislative branch would be truly pointless. This may not go anywhere, but it still has a much better shot than expecting both Boehner and Reid to even bring a bill to the floor.

This makes no sense. Are you saying that you expect Bush to sue Obama for continuing the mass surveillance?

Perhaps you did not mean to put that "not" in there. In that case, you are confusing Bush with Rand Paul simply because they are republicans. In reality they are as far apart ideologically as can be. Not only that, but Rand Paul was not a senator when the mass surveillance started, and both him and his father opposed the patriot act from the very beginning.

All else being equal, you could argue that GPL encourages more contributions than BSD.
But there are a lot more forces at play here, that I suspect are having a bigger impact than the license:

• LLVM design is more modular and easier to develop for. The barrier to entry for a developer is simply lower
• GCC requires CLA (Contribution License Agreement). Linus Torvalds recently pointed out how broken CLA's are, and why they discourage contributions

The whole premise is just ridiculous nonsense. They are comparing a product that people voluntarily get and continue using willingly, to an infectious disease that people actively try to avoid and cure.

Just because the two prosper due to social interaction does not make them follow the same patterns, especially since everything else about them is completely different.

Facebook might die one day, sure, but it won't be because people develop immunity, it will die because something better will come along, whether that follows the same pattern as an infectious disease would be coincidental at best.

I am guessing this department is located next to the Astrology department at Princeton

I did not even mention the word "state"

No. I don't even disagree with the parent, spying is wrong either by government or private entities. However Capitalism is not about government spending money in research instead of spying as the GP implies. Capitalism is about the government not spending money at all. That was the point of my post.

I would not say china is full fledge capitalist. And I agree the government still owns a lot of enterprises. However, in the past 20 years, China has been privitizing a lot of them, and have deregulated the economy to the point that it is easier to start a business in China than in the US. As a result, go to walmart, pick up any random item and see where it is made. The US turned its back on capitalism a long time ago, to the point that _even_ China is more capitalist than the US.

Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of capital. Ownership means control, and capital means anything that can be used for production.

When government spends money, it takes public control of capital. Spending money on research, welfare, spying, bailouts, printing money and stimulus are anti-capitalist when done by governments. At this point in time, even China is more capitalist than the US (thus why they are growing and we are sinking)