I'm not saying the whole of England should have this (although see a nearby comment about how they do this in the Netherlands even in rural places), but I'm pointing out it's feasible technologically and there's no excuse why city centres don't have this yet.

It is great news, but it's shameful that it's taken this long.

I knew someone would say this...

I'm sure some parts of NYC must be as dense as my area in HK, and even in London there are very wealthy areas which could easily afford this.

The trial will be in *Kesgrave*, for goodness' sake! Why!? I lived in the UK for decades and had never heard of it!

In Hong Kong it's easy to get 1Gbps FTTP, e.g. with HGC (aka Three) for HK$198 a month (about US$25 or 16 GBP a month): http://www.threebb.com.hk/eng/broadbandoffer.html

More details, please...

Haih a!

100% correct, and exactly what I was going to write.

Isn't HK great? ;)

The catalyst was actually The Copyright Act of 1976 which brought software under the copyright regime, and Stallman's travails at the AI Lab at MIT with Symbolics. A good source is the well-written and fascinating http://www.faifzilla.org/, and particularly Chapter 9 (http://www.faifzilla.org/ch09.html).

"Let me make the argument another way. Say your wife is sleeping with another man. Obviously, they are having an affair. However, you never agreed to such things, and never endorsed them. You can't sue for breach of contract, as that's not how marriage works. Such a thing is obviously wrong and unethical. Thus, there is a law intended to prevent such things."

A car analogy is also needed but I'll let someone else do that.

> Some of the comments on TFA are completely off the deep end, and I (foolishly) hope we don't end up with the same.

And then you join them in the very next paragraph!

This idea that China is a super-villain and the US is a superhero is based off of myth, nationalism and ignorance,

Correct.

we are no better than the Chinese.

Wrong (and hence a non sequitur as a bonus).

> That is of course assuming the increased number of users using alternative OSes do not do stupid shit like run as root or change login users to have root level access.

Which was grandfather's point. [My ol' gramps always was a smart one].

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002021.html

I am lazy :) http://everything2.com/title/A+good+programmer+is+a+lazy+programmer

Anyway, I did look up the Monsanto article on wikipedia (more laziness). The Indian suicide claims have been debunked by the International Food Policy Research Institute. Hence, FUD.

[citation needed], otherwise it just looks like extreme FUD to a neutral observer, e.g. me.