It's more than that. This is the Republican version of Public Campaign Financing. Corporation bribes, that is, makes campaign contribution to politician. Politician arranges sale of public property to corporation at discount price, or finds other ways to ensure windfall profits in excess of contribution. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This happens over and over again. Politician steers public property or tax dollars to corporation, corporation contributes part of that money back to politician. Yes, Democrats do it too. The difference is that Democrats are willing to talk about real public campaign financing, while the Republicans rail against it. Rail against spending tax dollars on campaigns, while making sure that tax dollars go to their own campaigns, suitably laundered through corporations.

You've misread that first part. It states that the SFC has asked for source code unrelated to Busybox, and makes no statements about the license of such non-Busybox code. Perhaps they asked for other GPL code, such the Linux kernel. Perhaps they asked for proprietary code that's covered by an NDA.

Lawyers like fishing expeditions against their adversaries, and oppose them against their clients. It's their job. But I'd be happier if they stuck with their own client's code, not looking through all code trawling for potential clients.

Read again. Sony doesn't want to infringe the terms of the license. Other companies do not want to infringe copyright, either.

Pretend that you work for Sony. Your project uses the Linux kernel. You're sure that you comply with the GPL, so there's not much risk in using the Linux kernel. You want to comply, you're taking steps to comply, and someone on your project screws up, you know that the kernel developers just want the additions to the kernel source code released. That's what you want, too, so no big deal.

Then there's Busybox. The lawyers involved with Busybox might use your use of it to demand a look at all of the code for your project, not just Busybox. They might want to look at other projects, too. They might want an open-ended fishing expedition into all projects in all divisions of Sony. Even if everyone, including suppliers, is clean, that would cost too much time and manpower to be worth the risk. The amount of time it saves your project to use Busybox is not worth risking every project in the entire company to an audit.

The GPL has advantages for businesses. Companies can collaborate on software without violating antitrust law. But there are risks, too. No one likes audits. Not by the IRS, not by the BSA, not by SFLC. Audits cost you time and money even when you did nothing wrong. Some people think that the risks of using Busybox are higher than the rewards, even if you fully comply.

Some people are too annoying to buy from, to sell to, to work for, to deal with in any way. Yeah, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD each have a slightly different focus, but personalities also enter into why there's more than one BSD project. Yeah, XFree86 introduced an unnecessary, unacceptable change to their license, but when you get down to it, Xorg forked because of personalities; people in control were holding the project back.

I like the GPL as a license. I like most of the developers who choose the GPL. But in any group, there are bound to be some assholes. I don't know if that's the case with Busybox, but I'm open to the idea that assholes can choose the GPL.

Game companies do get paid when the company sells the game. Now that copy belongs to someone else. That's what 'sell' means. No company deserves to be paid when someone else's property is sold. But that's what they want. They want to be paid for selling it once, and then get paid again when the original purchaser sells his own property. It ain't your property any more after you sold it. What's hard to understand about that?

There are other business models that would keep money flowing to the game company. They could lease or rent games. They could sell under a contract that governs resale. But if they want to make a simple retail sale under state laws following the Uniform Commercial Code, then the terms are simple: once you accept value in exchange, what you sold no longer belongs to you and you have no say in its resale.

Game companies, if you don't like the terms and conditions of retail sales under the UCC, then don't sell your games that way. If you like the simplicity of sales under the UCC, then suck it up accept that purchasers have the right to resell when they no longer want your game. Maybe you should figure out why purchasers don't want to keep your games. Maybe you should stop worrying that someone else made money from reselling something that you already got paid for once.

Making used copies worth less just proves that you're control-freak assholes. Sales of used copies does NOT lower the initial sales; people will pay more when they know they have the option to sell their copy later. Anything you can do to reduce the value of a used copy reduces the value of the first sale. Car companies advertise the high resale value of their brands as a good reason to buy. Why do you guys have this backwards?

I don't see anyone claiming that all accidents can be avoided. Some can be avoided, others can be made less serious.

When I drive, my eyes are always moving. I was taught to use all three mirrors. When I get in an unfamiliar car, such as a rental, I adjust all of the mirrors before moving. This seems to be unusual; most people jump in, adjust the seat, and leave. I know women who seem to think that the center mirror is for applying makeup. It's not hard to be more aware than the average driver, and you can avoid accidents if you are.

No, you can't avoid all accidents. I was rear-ended in city traffic, a friend's car was hit in his driveway by someone who jumped the curb and drove across his lawn. But I've avoided being hit by someone who suddenly changed lanes into me, avoided a crate which fell off the truck in front of me, avoided the car that passed me in the rain and then spun across all four lanes.I slowed when the rain came down harder and the road went from wet to standing water, I knew he was going too fast for conditions, and didn't panic when he spun. I braked hard enough to avoid him, but not so hard that the guy behind me hot me. Situational awareness is critical.

There are good habits and bad habits. They make a difference.

No, Universal does not have copyright to the music involved, which was what made it newsworthy.

"They're saving quite a bit of money by not printing and storing a physical copy of the book in question."

That's not true. It's not even close to true. Printing and shipping are a minor part of the cost of a book. The major cost is editorial and marketing, which are the same for printed and e-book versions. Authors need to be paid. Editors need to be paid. Cover artists need to be paid. Proofreaders need to be paid. Book designers need to be paid. Books rarely sell themselves; marketing is important, regardless of the book's physical form.

You can skip some of these steps and related expenses if you self-publish. Conventional print publishers won't let you make that mistake. It's easy to find e-books that show how big a mistake it is, but the difference is not between print and electronic formats, it's between standard publisher-financed books and self-published books.

What I miss with electronic delivery is time-based pricing. Print disguises this with different physical forms - hardcover, trade paperback, mass market paperback - but the essence isn't the form, it's that early adopters pay higher prices than those who wait.

If the contention is that money spent on Firefox is yielding poor results, what does that suggest about money spent on projects that most people can't remember?

Of course people complain about change. But there's more, and you've dismissed it.

There are tasks which can be done with the old version which cannot be done with the new version. It's not a question of learning a new way to do it, it's that there simply is NO way to do it.

Sure, people complained about the ribbon interface in the new version of Word. That's what you are talking about. What if it couldn't open old documents? That's what I'm talking about. What if the new version couldn't print? Those are the type of issues some users are complaining about. If all you ever did was business letters, maybe you wouldn't miss opening old documents. If all you ever did was email documents, maybe you would never miss printing. Those people are happy with the new version, which is better in other ways. But the new version is not usable by businesses which must provide printed documents, or revise old documents, and so on.

Yes, professionals is too broad a category. But the article does have a point; Apple is moving away from software that scales. They are very good at delivering products that meet the needs of single users. If you have one copy of FCP, you'll probably be happy to switch to the new version. If you have 20 copies, you not only won't be happy, you probably can't switch. The new version isn't designed for multiple people working on the same project. Multiple independent projects? Try it and see.

It's not just the software. Apple does a great job of providing service and support to one user at a time. Home user or business user, you can take your MacBook into an Apple store and get it fixed. Need some training? Same deal - works great for one or two users at a time, if you are near a store, and during business hours. But Apple doesn't scale to enterprises. I'm talking about 24/7 on-site repairs, on-site training for large groups, and so on. That's OK, it may be better for Apple to elect to stay out of certain markets rather than do it poorly.

Apple is focused on consumers. There are professionals whose needs match those of consumers, so Apple serves them. Other than tools, developer's needs overlap home users, so you shouldn't worry. Other professionals are finding that Apple no longer serves them. The more your professional workflow differs from that of home users, the more you should worry.