Oh, come on. Surely we will make an exact replica (aka backup) of the portions we destroy *before* we do any experiments, no? I mean, if we can achieve a machine of N nodes, just wait 18 months and we can have one with N*2 nodes!

You confuse anarchy and chaos.

Maybe you should see this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5371442/does-interix-implement-fork

.NET was released in 2002. How did you get 16 years experience in it?

So, why not put the source code in git and let the OS download, compile, and install the updates from source [automagically]? Or maybe even have the entire operating system be an interpreter (a la BASIC, erlang, smalltalk or LISP machines).

It has nothing to do with whether the direct licensee is interested or disinterested in their freedom. The argument for GPL being 'more free' is that it forces the direct licensee to be at least as free as it has been to him.

You have heard of a BIOS virus apparently.

I believe you misunderstood the phrase 'Paul people'. The delegates your parent referred to are Paul supporters who stayed around long enough to get elected as delegates.

Femtocell.

Not if it's running on the 'cloud'. Come on man, get with the times.

That's only true if the machine running the simulation is not powerful enough. Given a local high-order maximum which exceeds the average 'reality' surrounding it would be enough computing power.

That would be true if C# and C++ (as multi-paradigm languages) didn't have quite good support for functional features.

And, of course, the design goals are appropriate for this particular instrument.

I didn't make any comment on the quality of the design. However, it is my personal belief that it is in fact a good design given the design goals.

The fees are quite low (on the order of a fraction of a percent [as opposed to 3-4% for VISA/MC or higher for Western Union). You can choose to submit transactions with no fees but depending on the load on the network and the amount of miners, difficulty of mining, etc, it can take quite a long time for them to clear. For instance, my zero-fee transaction from 2 weeks ago took a week to complete.