*If* such a mechanism was coded in, the nature of open source would mean it would be found by others. This in turn would compromise the trust of the ENTIRE kernel. That trust can take years to build up - but be detroyed in a heartbeat.

For the supply chain to hike the prices that is .....

I can confirm. I have seen where cables were laid, and while they are busy trying to terminate - 2 kilometers down the road, they are busy digging it up. So at the end of the day, despite wireless being slow, it still becomes the data delivery method of choice. Also, there is a single entity that realy "owns" the majority of cables (Telkom), and they are resisting pressure to reduce pricing.

So the private firms use wireless, because it frees them from having to rely on a state owned enterprise that controls all hardwired connections outside of your building(s).

Coming from South Africa, I am disappointed that the Rasberry Pi is so expensive. Hopefully these boards will be better priced here ..

I had a ticket in the "queue" to order an RPi. When my turn came - would cost R 650-00 (Dollar was around 8.42 at the time so close to $ 80 USD) - I passed.

There are really a *lot* of distributions to choose from. It really boils down to what you want to do with the desktop. Ubuntu (I use it, but not overly happy with the unity interface), fedora, SuSE, even the "lesser known" distributions all have pretty intuitive installers and interfaces.

But I cannot stress the benefit of joining a local Linux User Group. There are a lot of guys that will help you gain a better understanding of what you are actually doing - instead of copy/paste/panic (what the hell did I just do ??). You need to know WHY things work the way they do.

It surprises me that there is no inquest into DVD charges as well .. They have more control over these than with software, and they strongarm their way into the supply chain, pretending that there is a compelling reason to have to charge more :(

So how many people are gonna wanna tag this to the landing site ??

Sorry about the typo in the subject ... Teamviewer. I can go and sleep now

Not too sure if you have hear of teamviewer ?

http://www.teamviewer.com/

There are clients for Windows / Linux and Mac ...

I think this is where the actual rights of an employee, are never really understood by said people. There are probably many other examples where companies have violated laws regarding their workforce, because of what I perceive to simply be insecurities on the part of the company.

In short - companies get scared that their name will be tainted from the inside, and so they are willing to go above (or below) the law to try and "protect" their image. So it's good to see that lawmakers are standing up and taking note. Now, just to educate those who don't read tech sites :)

Having read lately about the attempts to change the US patent system to a "first-to-file", would mean that the result would go a different way here. So does this not highlight the flaw in the "first-to-file" system ?

I agree ..
The OP spoke of 5m pieces - not too sure on width, but I would think that you would need some serious space in an inspection room.
Overall, it's still quite fascinating :)

Depending on the material used, surely upon delivery - the weather would be the final measuring factor ?

A few degrees could result in shrinkage or expansion over that surface area which would exceed the specification. Well, in my mind anyway.