"I can't even imagine dumping my kids on my brother without leaving him some life insurance. "

      That's what 'wills' are for.

"RNC should finally shut up and go back to eating his toenails."
"Oh, wait."

      That's cruel even for the worst detractors to RMS.

" Democrats are only for wholesale violation of constitutional rights as long as it can be used to keep them in office."

        Like the Republicans weren't any more angelic when they were in charge. In fact they created most of the programs that are currently pissing everyone off at the moment.

"I too want most experience of government to come from the state and local levels, like the Founders intended."

      We did that. It didn't last ten years. The uncorrupted version of current mess is what the founding fathers intended. They even anticipated some of the problems by writing about whether we'll be able to keep it or not.

"This was when I still had some faith left in America as a country and in Americans as a people. "

        Maybe early on Snowden did too. Eventually you reach a decision point. Why did you volunteer for a war you knew was unethical?

"I dunno about you, but I’ve never had any code I’ve written pass a Turing test then demand emancipation."

    It seems most humans including yourself haven't passed it either. The GPL is about benefiting society(you know, the public) by guaranteeing the keeping of knowledge(code) available(free) to be developed upon by anyone instead of locked away to be forgotten(non-free) and thereby creating no benefit to society. Like copyright and patents were supposed to do before business self-interest twisted the intent of those laws beyond all recognition. GPL doesn't affect a developers freedom to choose at all. Don't like it, develop your own code instead of using the GPLed version. All you're whining about is not being able to use the convenience of using someone elses code without the price of giving back.

"Some developers prefer to favor the freedom of the people who get code from them, over the freedoms of people who might (or might not) get the code from someone else, second hand. That’s BSD licensing. I give you my code, you do what you want with it, including telling other people they can’t do the same."

        Except that's only freedom for developers and explicit freedom at that. I does little for the users or public at large especially if a business takes the code and sues the creator to prevent his/her independent publication. It's happened. Code is locked away and lost to everyone.

"RMS’ claim that LLVM is somehow a “setback” because its developers choose to favor their immediate users’ freedoms is offensive. Stallman is in effect saying that developers *shouldn’t* have the freedom to decide how other people can use their code."

          No, he's arguing that you're ignoring the long term cost for short term returns. A very common disease that has proven to be extremely costly over the last several years. Remember Apple owns and is in the drivers seat on LLVM and it's currently in their interest to keep it open. Interests change.

"Based on what I’ve read of RMS’ writings, I don’t buy his assertion that it’s about freedom of the code. It’s about undermining proprietary commercial software and moving towards a communism of software."

            So? Read the implementation of copyright law in the constitution. As for communism, what are you a redneck? How much energy has been lost re-inventing the wheel in proprietary software not to mention knowledge lost due to being forgotten behind the locked door of proprietary copyright? RMS hasn't wavered in his views, it's the rest of us that changed.

"I really don’t have very much tolerance left for people claiming you can only be free if you do it their way. You keep using that word, but I don’t think it means what you think it means."

          Your way, my way, whatever. Looking long term, you obviously don't either. Freedom if you can keep it.

We're all missing the big picture. -- Harry Wolper.

The GPL is about keeping code free. Basically it makes copyright law do it's job of benefiting society by preventing the hiding of knowledge which is something copyright law hasn't been doing so well the last fifty years or so and BSD has allowed to happen on several occasions.

If something is forgotten by the world before it falls out of copyright it's forever in copyright. Just because it's forgotten doesn't mean it can't be useful or interesting at another time but since it's dropped from memory it's gone forever and a total loss for everyone.

Will you guys take your self-serving business shit somewhere else.

"If Apple did in fact actually improve CUPS, it's very non-obvious."

      Improve!! Hell they broke things with 1.5. It was wonderful when I upgraded CUPS for an employers network and found all the machines wouldn't auto-recognize the xerox printers anymore. Of course I did it a month or so before anyone else so there was no information about the change or how to fix it. I just ended up dumping CUPS and using lpr with some scripting of needed adaptations and then teaching the employees how to handle lpr. In some ways it was easier than dealing with cups.

"Antiwater would explode if it came in contact with standard matter.

    I do not immediately see trolls."

          Then lets find some trolls and test that antiwater idea out.

"Actually, I think it was the perjury about the BJ that was the proximate cause for impeachment. "

      Actually he was tried for being a lawyer by trying to get around the truth. Getting a BJ from a subordinate(common in DC and everywhere else for that matter) really doesn't qualify as high crimes in anyone's book and that's why the whole impeachment fell flat. The whole thing was politically driven by republicans blowing something relatively minor out of proportion to keep the president and democratic party weak through the elections. Remember republicans were trying to get Clinton on something ever since they won congress in '94. Or does any one remember years wasted investigating a little failed bank in Arkansas.
    I challenge you going through the same thing on national TV where your wife can see it. After all you would only have to face the congress and the public during the day but you have to go home to her at night. It was just a few years after the John Bobbit incident and I bet it wasn't far from his mind. And I remember a big chunk of congress coming out with all their sleeping around games after the impeachment and they made Clinton look like a saint. And taking the fifth wouldn't have solved anything as the republican congress would have tried to find a way around it and declared him guilty anyway. It was a giant show trial over a low-crime meaningless incident that is a well known operating behavior in DC and everywhere else.

"but often between AMC and not going to the movies."

      Then don't go to the fucking movies, moron. There's thousands of other things to do starting with looking at the clouds, read a book, etc. Damn braindead babies.

"The government can collect and store digital information about me."

      No the government can't. The constitution makes it quite clear on that. It the gov. suspects something they can make it clear to a judge with the accused being there to challenge it.

"And you don't have the argument that "they're only using small parts of it". In fact, according to TFA itself, they are using most important parts of it."

      And what happens if Google decides they're a annoyance?

" C and C++ do have a superior compilation and linking model, limiting the inclusion of unused code.

- C and C++ do offer huge performance benefits over Java, Ruby, and JavaScript.

- C and C++ apps don't require huge runtimes like the JVM, a Ruby interpreter or a JavaScript interpreter.

- C and C++ do offer superior portability. Their code runs just about everywhere you can imagine."

      Replace 'C' with tweety and 'C++' with foghorn leghorn and you get my views. They aren't the same. And I haven't heard anything about the long C++ compile times yet.

"Meanwhile she makes money investing in military related stocks, and builds a portfolio based on insider knowledge (as is legal for all Senators) and retires much wealthier than when she entered office."

    Actually it's not legal but people in power ignore laws when convenient and do everything to hide that the law is being ignored. Now they just believe they have the public so disinterested that they don't have to hide it anymore. It was a conflict of interest then it still is.