Before I really dive-in, I would love for guys like you to push-out guides, outlines, warnings, "read this, ignore this part," type material. Or at least to link them. ;)

I cordially dissent.

What they may call "defend [...] their client through vigorous means", others call intimidation under colors of authority. It's a crime that just isn't prosecuted anymore, and everyone BUT lawyers know better--that saying it's just vigorous representation is to ensure they aren't being unethical when it is a threat, veiled or otherwise.

I have spent time around various lawyers--even who think this way, who can say "we did used to have some serious standards, even that lawyers weren't allowed to advertise, but they're pretty much all gone to legalism now." The last guy to actually say something like that, by the way, was one whose only loss was overturned upon finding the judge in bed with the other side in a case. Most of his career he acted as a lawyer's lawyer and these days he actually advises and counsels other lawyers on exactly how the system is most rigorously gamed.

Substance being over form, threatening to drag someone through the legal system over a perceived wrong regardless of it being rigorous for the fear of not being seen to defend you IP when the damn instance under review is, by virtue of not obtaining to the same mechanisms of the IP, not the same process and mechanisms, sounds plenty like an unlawful threat to me--that lawyers threw-out their metaphysics books laughing how stupid everyone is to believe that it was worthless while openly embracing legal "realism" (by which they mean, "cyncism," or "will to power") in the law schools largely tells me what I need to know about that "judgement" regarding ethics. (That a bunch who espouses along with other intellectuals the uselessness of philosophy while openly practicing a particular kind meshing realisms, authoritarianisms, statisms, and monisms also evinces that we're degraded quite badly.)

I am not saying they shouldn't be vigorous. I am saying, however, they need to be rigorous and about more than appearances--but then, with the judges we get and the quality of their peers, it isn't surprising why appearances become more important. :( Actually, I'm working (besides typing this) on going through judicial reviews by lawyers to vote between judges.

Beyond that, I really do appreciate the information on the more technical terms and the contemporary-stance. Please feel free to enlighten me (and the rest) any way you know. A lot of my understanding is pattern-matching and picking-up intel and insight from others in these fields and I know the phenomena and understandings are not universal.

Regards.

They should know that IP doesn't cover educational or research uses even of intellectual property. My response would be to call upon the bar of any lawyers involved to dis-bar the lawyers, as well as sue for mis-use of their credentials in unlawful threats, among other things--how to actually label the crimes depends on the jurisdictions involved. They get complacent when we say "this is just a normal/standard tactic by an entity attempting to stop activity/exposure it doesn't like, but it's safe to ignore" rather than "this is an attempt at unlawful suppression of information and threats of harm for lawful activity under colors of authority and in the name of the law" and responding appropriately to threats with action.

?

Christ hedges calls MSNBC "the mouthpiece of the Democratic party." I am not a socialist (as he) but I respect the hell out of the guy's work (even if I find flaws in the "managed democracy" theory) and advocacy. MSNBC on the other hand?

I'm blowing a mod point for this but my reply below (a) comes from personal experience, and (b) is why you don't drop stages in the development of medicines:

Even if a treatment gives them cancer, or HIV, or leaves them with something like chronic fatigue syndrome, they're still going to enjoy quality of life better than they would if they're dead.

How about an immune system that attacks its own body endlessly such that treated subjects balloon every day to twice their normal surface area, losing enough body heat to go into shock; but in addition, this feels like being stabbed and burned--everywhere--at the same time, and nothing really stops it? In addition, there is no posture in which a recipient can place himself for relief? In addition, ...

There are worse things than death, fatigue, and aids--and practically all of them happen to be related to the fact that the body can auto-attack using (literally) chemical warfare.

Don't sever the cable--depending on the configuration there might be power running through it. You might also kill the connection to some other household/s (though it should not be set-up that way), and without knowing it the prior owner may have signed-away certain rights to permit them to run the cable on/over/through your property (even without State legislation). It's basically just a mess in these regards, but don't go touching cables you don't know about***. (e.g. guy at [company big] decides to wire-up cables outside one day when ZAP...theoretically safe position and activity wound-up not being so due to inserters-of-power running through cables and killing the poor bastard outside because they were still live: I was at meeting for [company big] the following day when we were informed about the misfortune being found a few hours later out in the back yard by the household owner going "where'd my technician go?") So I repeat...don't go touching cables/configurations that you do not know about***. Just don't do it--power could be coming from somewhere on your property, or from their unit outside. (***Unless, of course, you **really** know what you're doing but, then again, so did that level X--where X is the highest number we had but not a roman numberal--technician.)

Interestingly, I knew a guy whose high school conductor began screaming "stop" one day, pointed the baton at him, and said, "you will never amount to anything." His reply (in his head, he didn't want to get some teeth knocked out) was, "I'll show you, you son of a b!*ch." Fast-forward maybe 20-25 years later, and not only had he played in the Navy band designated for the president's events, but opened and purchased Jazz clubs throughout New York, which he eventually sold for so much that, by the time he was teaching us in middle school, he walked-in every day with a few thousand dollars in equipment, repairs, and sometimes additional in music for the library he was building ("stamp it all with the school's stamp", he would tell me--I was also his assistant). A couple of years later in high school, I heard he was retiring to his yacht--the whole district knew as apparently he was a huge driver, all on his own, of the music programs, funding, etc. Did I mention, he could pick-up even instruments he knew nothing about, fiddle with them a few minutes, then begin to play them like a pro?

Why is this rated to 0? It's a true statement--not something to downmod. Downmoding such a comment, I'm sure, actually bespeaks ignorance or violation of the terms of modding! And while that's not new for /., it's still something to have the actual admins take a look at. It's especially problematic, though, since it's a true statement.

While it is preferable to follow certain rules of grammar for use of Latin phrases, that is within the confines of acceptable English practice. "Profesora" has not, in fact, ever been used--as far as I am aware--in the English language, as an English term. Not, at least, enough to be conventional rather than eccentric. These days, perhaps all the more due to it being Spanish (though being in the Western US where we have a lot of Spanish speakers, perhaps I'm just reinforced given that perception; the east coast, on the other hand, tends not to know jack about Spanish from our POV). I am okay with it to the extent someone would have a Latin or Romance background, but the significations associated with "professor" vs. "profes[s]ora" aren't quite the same, so from that POV I would avoid it myself since it would seem to be a mis-communication, therefore an error.

And "-a" isn't even a solid indication, in English, that a term is actually a feminine for Latin. ("-a" isn't even just feminine in Latin, depending on case!). It *frequently* is in Spanish, but not enough for someone without the prior knowledge. For the last three or so centuries, however, even when Latin was widely taught, been acceptable to mix Latin forms as properly understood or most likely to be, rather than force correctness based on the classical Latin forms (and I have critiques on usage dating back over a 100 years in my personal library), so I don't get the hostility: oversensitivity to "correctness", to me, bespeaks being a poseur--as is often the case in English grammar.

It all seems like the pedantry of correct for case with "I and me" without regard for the actual use-intentions of the personal speaking English, given that the complaints are often applied to usages which antedate the oldest grammars and indicate a different mode of thinking altogether--i.e. evince a feature of English-speakers' mind that doesn't even exist in other classical languages. (Even modern, simplified English, possesses pre-classical features, and actual mixtures of features that span several language families, that ante-date the periods of major influence by Romance and Latin upon the Teutonic, e.g. altering mid-vowels to change tense, not just endings). It's the...gilded age of English armchair philology and grammatical-wishful thinking by the sophomorically over-read and over-credentialed, regarded only for being critics and clever...just not "right."

But in general, critiques of English usage typically proceed out of posing rather than expertise. It's a long-standing tradition in Anglophonic countries, and unfortunate for all the confusion has bred. e.g. I was recently standing in line at a post office and literally stood next to two old women, one who had been warned against the horrific error in saying "dug" rather than "digged", and the other warned contrarily about the error of "digged" over "dug." Both were also pissed I wouldn't take their side...or amused that I could explain the history of that "issue" though a young man, and that the other was so stupid to prefer a "non-word" they had never encountered. I actually found myself in disbelief that either could have suffered such limited exposure.

Ouch! Those kind of errors aren't simply superficial, they're indicative of jacked-up plumbing. It's like sewage going into the freshwater pipes at several points. Poor KDE users. :(

Go away agitator. These are tactics right out of Stalin's regime.

Is this irony or sarcasm or just some other kind of fun that is meant?

The issue you're complaining of is one that isn't resolvable within English without either (a) awkward or unwanted redundancy or (b) a significant modification to add markers to the grammar. Consequently, the grammar here is classic in form; besides the fact that, psychologically, the meaning is understood, the rule is that the pronoun takes as its antecedent the closest noun; a supporting rule (that for purposes of avoiding ambiguity actually frowns on the spoken grammar's usage in speech where "they" is employed as a singular--not it's a dumb rule if one is using writing to imitate speech, such as in dialog) is that the pronoun and antecedent must match in number--thus no "use of 'they' to avoid SEXIST!!!(F***ING PATRIARCHCAL BIGOTS, RAAAAAR!!!!) pronouns" made-up "RULES!!!!" by the insane imposed on the usage of everyone else. (I say that despite using 'they' all the time in speech--in writing, nay!) For the prep. phrase "of them" we know "average baby" is singular and therefore "of them" must apply to the earlier "diapers", likewise for "they/'ll" which does not need follow the phrase nor would be--if the writing is any good--taken as applying to "baby."

How so? Hubris meant an especial sort of ignorance for imagining one is godlike, like the gods, may ignore the gods...it's use as mere insolence, overconfidence, or neglect of the dangers one may encounter, is to empty the word of any special meaning and make it superfluous--but people then proceed to use it because it SOUNDS educated and special. :\

If by "plenty of areas to improve" they meant the code and interfaces, then I agree with your statement: the end-users need something stable, minimum for 1-2 years. THAT DOESN'T MEAN SEPARATE VERSIONS CAN'T BE MADE! largely relying on the same codebase, it's just that when a large groups signs-up at first they need to be able to learn and keep a solid set of expectations.

If by "plenty of areas to improve" they simply meant the documentation for business use, however, then it just means they need the documentation improved.

Obligatory, https://xkcd.com/793/

Always keep in mind that physicists operate on a different plane in their own world dealing with quite different formal objects (or aspects) of "things" but they don't know it.