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Comment Re:I'd certainl yhope so... (Score 4, Insightful) 64

Under what legal theory would it be forbidden to offer a product that blocks shitware? Even if we grant that this 'freemium.com' must be tolerated as legal-but-sleazy, rather than dragged out and hung from a lamp post; is there some sort of 'right to be installed' that software possesses that nobody told me about?

Oh, that's no problem. Freemium claimed (and likely has the numbers) that their income from sleazy installs against the wishes of the computer went down, and that it was due to Avira's software (which they probably also can prove). So Avira _did_ interfere with Freemium's business, there is no doubt about that. The question was whether they interfered in a legal way, or in an illegal way. And the judge said it was legal. I suppose if Avira put up an alert saying "Don't install this, this software will cause cancer" they would have lost.

Comment Re:Precedent (Score 1) 64

While true, judges tend to follow the ruling on the table. If only to appear consistent and not wanting to contradict their peers.

It's also a lot less work to find a case that is quite close and copy what the judge in the other case found. Instead of figuring all the details out himself, which is hard work, the judge just needs to check that all the details of the other court case match.

Comment Re: Oracle is GPLd now, then. (Score 2, Insightful) 181

Actually, he might have a valid point. If an api is subject to copyright, wouldn't that make a whole bunch of closed source things in violation of the gpl? For example, the closed source nvidia drivers include some of the kernel api, so are they now subject to gpl?

I suspect that (1) there is a license allowing the inclusion of header files, for example the GPL license terms might allow this, (2) NVidia is merely using, but not copying the header files (unlike Google), and (3) if someone insisted that NVidia can't include kernel header files to build its drivers, then instead of a GPL'd driver Linux users will end up with no driver. And if the same thing happens with ARM / AMD, then good night Linux.

Comment Re:Good design, eh? (Score 3, Insightful) 152

You think when they put the battery in at the factory they are just going to inject pure battery 'juice' into the phone??

Have a look on Apple's website at the design of the batteries in newer MacBooks. It's not quite "battery juice", but the batteries do come in shapes that fill the smallest gap, something that would be impossible with a removable battery.

Comment Re:I have an iPhone 1 (Score 2) 152

The only people who care about removable batteries are the people who want to have multiple batteries so that they can replace them in order to maintain a more or less continuous duty cycle for the device.

I thought the only people who care about removable batteries are the people who love Android and haven't figured out yet that the latest Samsung Android phones come without removable battery. Oh well, and some people who love Android and figured out that the latest Samsung Android phones come without removable battery can complain about that as well :-)

Comment Re:Give me a break (Score 1) 818

It's a god damned piece of colored cloth. People who claim it means something more than that are either mindlessly parroting other, louder people, or they have an agenda of their own. The idea of outlawing a piece of colored cloth is about as logical as outlawing a plant.

If it's just a god damned (I fully agree here) piece of coloured cloth, then what are you complaining about?

Comment Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters? (Score 1) 177

I heard that protesters were flipping cars over and smashing windows. Perhaps they should be the ones cracked down upon? This hasty reaction to appease the angry mob seems like the wrong message you would want to send. Unless France wants to encourage angry mobs...

Your source, which you verified carefully without doubt, is free to send any evidence to the French police which will take care of it. Well, unless of course your source is lying or doesn't exist.

Comment Re:"Other types of electromagnetic radiation" (Score 4, Informative) 529

Many people are sensitive not to EM radiation, but to seeing antennas.

More precisely: They are sensitive to believing that an antenna is working. There have been studies where people showed symptoms when a button was pressed and a red light went on to demonstrate that an antenna was transmitting, and the symptoms disappeared when the button was pressed again and the red light went off. (Nothing was transmitted at any time during the experiment).

Comment Re:Another Name / Company dispute (Score 1) 272

That one is the ultimate horror story what happens when you get stupid lawyers involved. Short summary: Guy named Uzi Nissan registers and uses www.nissan.com. Nissan car company wants the URL. Lawyers get involved. Judge decides that nobody can use it.

Between reasonable people without lawyers the outcome would have been that Uzi Nissan would have received a generous amount of cash, perhaps a new car made by guess what company, and Nissan car company had used the URL. Instead, everyone lost, except possibly Nissan's lawyers who declared this a victory for Nissan (which obviously it isn't).

Comment Re:Makes sense (Score 4, Informative) 272

"Lush" is a well known brand. If people go to www.youtube.com/lush they would expect to see Lush cosmetics, not some random guy. Similar for www.youtube.com/mcdonalds. Not sure what the issue is here. He doesn't own the site.

People entering www.youtube.com/lush expect to see marketing information from the same guy who registered the name many years ago, not some random company. Not sure what your thought process is here. Lush cosmetics doesn't own the site.

Comment Re:Less suspect than the others (Score 2) 78

IMHO Google remains less suspect than other corporations, when it comes to defending privacy. I would never trust MS or Apple with my data.

And in my own not so humble opinion it's exactly the opposite.

You say that Apple is in it for the money - guess what Google is after? The difference is that Apple produces and sells hardware. Apple's customers are the people buying the hardware. And Apple keeps its customers happy by doing what's good for them, and not what's good for the government.

Google, on the other hand, makes most of its money from advertisements. How you can think that Google wants to defend your privacy, when their biggest source of money is selling out your privacy so that advertisers get adverts directed at you, that is beyond me.

And let's just say that the browser on your Android device is most likely running lots of code developed by Apple.

Comment Non-master (Score 3, Insightful) 345

I recommend this link: http://programmers.stackexchan...

There is someone asking whether 8 lines of slightly clumsy looking code can be replaced with something better. The beginner wouldn't ask that question and wouldn't know an answer. The master would say "your code is just fine", because it is actually straightforward, easy to understand, easy to check for correctness. The first answer on stackexchange adds two arrays, one 20 line function, and a few lines of function calls resulting in code that is hard to understand and verify.

Now where C++ is a bit unfortunate is the fact that once you leave beginner level and think you know it all, you have unlimited potential to create code that nobody can understand.

Comment Re:Am I included? (Score 2) 134

The music was published via an intermediary, Ditto Music, but they're just a publishing service and not a label. In fact, I own the label it was published under and that is the label's sole release to date. What's the situation for musicians like me? Included, excluded, paid, unpaid...?

That intermediary would be like a record company, just a very small one. I would assume that the intermediary should receive some letter from Apple that needs to be signed and returned. Is the contact information still correct? If the intermediary cannot be contacted, I would assume that you will not be included in streaming. If you missed the letter or didn't return it, you will not be included in streaming. If you check "No streaming", you will not be included in streaming. If you check "streaming" you will be included and should be paid.

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