You can purchase an 18 wheeler for private personal use and drive it as a camper. The problem is the federal law designates anything with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 10,000 pounds as a commercial vehicle or if the vehicle is designed to seat more than 16 people including the driver. There are exceptions for private non-commercial uses. Some 3/4 ton pickup trucks and almost all 1 ton or better pickup trucks fall within this category. The state however does the licensing and can be a little loose with these definitions pertaining to cuts in highway trust money from the feds. But they don't have much wiggle room and it's easier to just include everything. This is the reasons for the pickup truck license issue and it is likely the same in most states.

What I find interesting is that many of these people, and probably most of the people upset over the laws and rules trying to be enforced, are the same people who think businesses need strict regulation and so on. Most of these people got what they wanted and are now realizing how much what they wanted sucks. People like me who hold that this excessive regulation makes it harder to competition to start and compete, that think this excessive regulation benefits not hurts the established businesses, who think less regulations but more proper and enforced or effective regulation would be the best solution, are called racist conservative libertarian kooks who know nothing. And even when those who do the calling get ensnared in their own traps, they will not admit they were wrong or even the opposing views were the slightest bit right. It's just the man putting their boots on their necks with little to no lessons learned.

You can't even tell what the argument is.

Good. About fucking time.

Blame Ballmer and his "Herpa de derp, gotta ape everything Apple does herpa derpa" bullshit. Its part of a pattern, along with MSFT Kin, rushing the 360 to market, Surface RT being released with no software and a half assed market....its really not surprising, history will judge Ballmer as the MSFT version of the Pepsi guy at Apple.

So what, the drivers don't work with the new kernel or something?

Very much a troll as AMD has been paying for open source developers to speed the turn around of the FOSS drivers in the hope to get them to parity with the proprietary release and eventually replace it, and when it comes to GPGPU its not a secret Nvidia pushes CUDA while AMD pushes OpenCL (which this ask Slashdot is specifically asking for) so the choice seems to be pretty cut and dried.

I think you're looking at this from the wrong angle, myself.

Someone deciding to make some extra money on the side driving for Uber doesn't need a "commercial license" from the DMV! What they probably DO need is a special car insurance policy or rider that covers the situation.

Just like if I upgrade my car with a fancy, multi-thousand dollar stereo system -- I can't expect my auto insurance to cover its replacement cost if it's stolen. They're going to say, "Sorry buddy. We insured you based on the standard equipment we know comes with the particular make and model of vehicle you insured with us." They WILL however, let me pay extra to itemize what's in it and get that covered as additional coverage.

The auto insurance company who starts marketing a reasonably priced insurance rider specifically for folks doing "ride sharing" will find it very profitable and popular.

Wow! Really?!

That's just one more argument against living in California then.

IMO, the *real* reason for commercial licenses was the concept that commercial drivers are driving much larger vehicles that require special training/skills to operate safely on the roadways. (Your average licensed driver can't just hop into an 18-wheeler and operate it. They'd likely not even be able to figure out the transmission with as many gear as it has!) And the ability to properly back one up into a loading dock isn't something that comes without training either.

A vehicle anyone buys at a regular car dealership and uses as a "daily driver" for things like commuting or trips to the grocery store should NOT require a commercial license.

The states ALL want tax revenue, but there are ways to go about it that make relative degrees of common sense to citizens. When they start making unreasonable, illogical demands, it's time to get that changed or consider moving to a more reasonable place.

No, but money changing hands (commerce) impacts whether it is "commercial", and requires a commercial license.

"Impacts", perhaps. But it's not definitive. Especially in California.

For instance: I bought a pickup truck, to use as a tow vehicle for my camper and my wife's boat. Then I discovered that CA requires pickup trucks to be tagged with a (VERY pricey) commercial license, regardless of whether they're used for business. (You CAN petition to tag a particular pickup truck as a personal vehicle - but are then subject to being issued a very pricey ticket if you are ever caught carrying anything in the truck bed - even if it's personal belongings or groceries, and regardless of whether you're being paid to do it. (Since part of the POINT of having a pickup truck is to carry stuff home from the store this would substantially reduce its utility.)

The one upside is that I get to park for short times in loading zones.

If we aren't going to require commercial licenses for commercial driving, then why even have them at all?

And if we ARE going to require them for clearly personal, non-commercial vehicles that happen to be "trucks", why NOT impose this requirement on putatively commercial vehicles that happen to be cars as well?

The real answer to your question is "because the state wants the tax money, and the legislators and bureaucrats will seek it in any way that doesn't threaten their reelection, reappointment, or election to higher office" - in the most jerrymandered state in the Union. The Uber case is one where an appraent public outcry arose, bringing the bureaucrats' actions, and public outcry about them, to the attention of elected officials.

The full form of the so-called "Chinese curse" is: "May you live in interesting times and come to the attention of people in high places."

Jelly? WTF?

Whiskey.
Let's get adult here.

Yes, I agree.

I don't have to show this, it's common knowledge. We've discussed the fact here repeatedly.

But it isn't, because of the massive loads they carry, and the extremely hard tires which are designed pretty much exclusively for tread life and reducing rolling friction.

Ok, so I RTFA, and I see "One right that all creators have is to undo copyright transfers and licenses after thirty-five years have passed, under some conditions." [...] "Copyright termination means that any license, including a perpetual public license, can be revoked." But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about making a promise not to sue for use of the work, which is not the same thing as offering a license for the use of the work. If you make an explicit and public promise not to sue, separately from any licensing, that's different from offering a license and then revoking it later. Licensing something for any use is not the same as placing it in the public domain, and promising not to sue for any use seems the only way to effectively actually do that otherwise.

This is a threat to the GPL, the MIT, and other [F]OSS licenses. But it's not a threat to the public domain.

I do think that we should have a public domain registry, where we can explicitly give up our right to a work in perpetuity. But why should we need one? We already have a legal concept which should permit accomplishing the same thing.

Right, and the question is whether that is actually justified, or whether it's just a revenue generation scheme.

No, a proliferation of taxis does that. See, under the current system, I can't get a taxi in a timely fashion, so I can't reasonably not have a car.

The purpose of all these regulations Uber and Lyft have been running into isn't safety or liability or anything like that; those are the excuses. The purpose is specifically to keep everyone inside the box.

A prius exerts more force per square inch on the pavement than a large pickup, because of the reduced contact area and the increased hardness of the tires. Meanwhile, OTR trucks do vastly more damage than either — as it turns out, passenger vehicles affect the road very little (even hybrids, with their high weight carried on LRR tires) while OTR trucks do pretty much all the road damage.

In conclusion, if the basis for the fee is road damge, then a Prius should pay more than an F-350, but neither one should really pay anything compared to an OTR truck.