I've been threatened by a criminal before. That was easy - they wanted something and were going to get it.

I've also been threatened by the police before. They were armed, I was not, and I hadn't committed a crime, yet they had their hands on their guns throughout, and threatened to at various times make sure I didn't want away, through "resisting arrest" though they had nothing, and to ban me from all public transit (I was in a terminal at the time) for life.

The criminal threatened less, was more polite, and wasn't being funded by my tax dollars.

Yes, I'd take criminals over cops; as if that was a distinction. At least citizens can make a dent in criminals - cops are "for your own good" even if they're busy framing and threatening you.

Of course, if we'd bring back hanging for corrupt public officials I might come around.

Are you paid to lie?

The Collateral Murder site has had the full video available from the beginning. I viewed both, from that site, the day it was announced.

Wikileaks actually went above and beyond the accepted standard by providing the full file. Most news organizations edit heavily and don't provide the original.

frankly speaking most of them were boring drivel

Wow, and yet you slogged through to be able to deliver your critical insight.

[and most] didn't reveal any kind of criminal activity.

I'd hope most of them were mundane...

But, the issue is criminal actions at all. And criminal coverups of the criminal actions. And the video and the response to it prove that clearly enough for anyone outside the USA.

Vote Bradley Manning for president!

You only read the first half of a message? Sheesh.

Are you seriously claiming that the company *just* heard about the project? That nobody knew what was going on? If they knew of his dealings, as the company, and didn't act to correct them, and indeed went further to accepting patches predicated on these licensing terms, then they accepted it. If they didn't, what other arrangements have they made for the use of this third-party contributed code their project uses?

This wasn't a leak it was a marketing move. And a successful one from the sound of it. But even if in retrospect they wish they'd done things differently, they didn't. Consequences. For everyone.

Sorry, but a huge company that can deliver cross-platform products to international customers and paychecks to its employees can't claim such ignorance. And if they could it would be called negligence.

Copyright doesn't work like that. Only the owner has the right to do that.

And he's the company's agent. They knew of and accepted his actions.

Additionally, they have the right to revoke it at anytime even if they let it go for a while.

They can revoke an offer of a license at any time, yes. But if the code was released by them, and it was, they can't rescind the licenses of those who've received it. They merely don't lose rights for not acting quickly like with trademarks.

Lastly, about accepting patches... Well that might muddy the waters some, however, nothing prevents the company from exerting its right to the copyright able portions of the code base.

Accepting patches proves they intended the release under the Apache license, or the code they were given back wouldn't have been usable by them. If they hadn't meant to open-source the framework there'd have been some confused emails when they got contributions and they'd have straightened this out.

It has to be this way, or they're using code they don't have a license to. If they don't want to go there they have to accept the validity of this grant.

How many devs would start using a non FOSS framework these days? The freeing of the project is why it's a success.

Two different issues here. The first, how many would? I'm going to assume you are in the FOSS bubble and haven't looked outside it.

Sure, if your manager drops something on you... But people in those positions don't pick anything. And they certainly aren't contributing patches. To get open-source benefits you need to interest open-source devs and to interest them you need to offer them source.

Secondly, about why the project is a success, also not relevant to who owns the code.

It's their motivation.

Sure, they own the work; and he freed the source on their behalf.

How many devs would start using a non FOSS framework these days? The freeing of the project is why it's a success.

They knew this and let it happen. They kept accepting patches (also under the APL), which they couldn't do without upholding the original offer. Otherwise the code their employee was taking wouldn't be usable by them.

It's the duty of every citizen to judge the morality of everything they're ordered to do, or in covering up anything they see. Joining the military obliges you to keep mundane things secret, like troop positions, but nothing legal or moral can justify, let alone obligate, murder or covering it up.

We all (mostly) agree that if it's us or the other guy, it'll be us, and if we have to throw sand in his face to win, so be it. All's fair when he's trying to kill us. But in the real world there are innocent bystanders and bad intelligence. Things we did that would have been okay if they'd been done to a card-carrying enemy were done to innocent bystanders, and often thoroughly unrelated people at weddings, and we've stepped into the realm of politically motivated murder.

Perhaps a subset of the information leaked would have proved this as well, but when blowing the whistle on murderers don't risk them destroying evidence if you've got the chance to get it out. It'd suck to have failed to leak enough to build a case.

If we want a country worth having after this we've got to stop killing wantonly, and torturing, and imprisoning based on rumors. We're ridiculously close to our worst enemies, and getting closer. To change we've got to start punishing law-breakers and that means we've got to find out about them which means encouraging whistle-blowers.

I urge you, as someone who seems to care, to recognize that in a fucked up system crazy things have to be done. It's not a shame someone leaked classified documents, it's a shame that only one did. The cult atmosphere in the armed forces prevented proper moral behavior in everyone else there.

Accessibility for the disabled is hardly the same thing as race or gender-specific rules.

The first helps people in need. (Well, anyone can use the wheelchair ramp, but the able get nothing extra from doing so.) The others are a matter of birth not need and they unreasonably benefit some people who don't need help, but they also ignore other people with equivalently bad situations over things we're supposed to be ignoring (race, sexual preferences, etc).

The obviously correct way to handle this is to offer non-discriminatory benefits to those in need. Don't offer a racial scholarship, examine what perceived thing you're trying to fix (for instance that a minority child will be poor and thus unable to attend school) and adopt a scholarship for all children in a similar situation. Crack-head parents are crack-head parents regardless of race and all of their children are going to need the same types of help. All abused and now single parents need the same help. Imagine an admittedly rare majority-race child being adopted into a minority household and being denied a scholarship that was available to their new siblings.

It's a fundamental right to not be excluded on the basis of "protected" statuses, so it's clearly a violation of the rights of everyone to have any of these exclusionary policies.

Thankfully the non-discriminatory way is far better for society. Educating everyone isn't at all unreasonable and the poorest and most disadvantaged are great to start with. And everyone deserves rescue - from a dictator, a crooked mining town, blackmail/coercion, or an abusive spouse.

Imagine how much simpler a scholarship form and process would be if we spent the time and effort we do in caring about the protected statuses and just helped those who apply. We drop million dollar bombs on people who weren't our enemies, we can trivially afford to educate anyone who asks.

At that, the USA could just end the "illegal alien" "problem" by a one-time ten-year aid package to Mexico providing first-world health, nutrition, and education. By then the country would have a far-higher GDP, and growing too as children raised this way got jobs, and nobody would want to leave home. And it'd cost far less than the ongoing permanent border/fence/humanitarian disaster costs and will keep costing, and the aid package would actually fix the underlying issues.

Religious people can't be moral.

The bible makes sense? Sure it does. And so does the Koran, so they say. In fact, pretty much any ridiculous belief has a ton of supporters.

Never anyone reputable though. I mean, look at the people who say that - idiots who say things like " ... science falsely called, and ...".

I know you get brownie points for trying to convince people of the existence of the sky fairy, and most-importantly you feel like it validates your belief, but it's crap. The book, the teachings, and the institutionalized ignorance required for faith.

Because of the nature of ego I'm sure this post will just drive you to your chosen delusion with more fervor but hopefully it helps someone on the fence decide to investigate more, and with non-cult sources, before ruining their life with it.

No, he means any tablet.

In your world there are only two classes of people

1) Those who think that all tablet devices are iPads and all touchscreen phones are iPhones.

2) Apple haters.

Yeah, Western government pay more lip service to justice.

95%+ of police officers in Toronto took their badge numbers off when kettling and illegally arresting protesters. Despite the extreme number of infractions not a single police officer, RCMP or local, recalls seeing ANYONE without their identification.

This was done specifically so that charges couldn't be laid and sure enough police have been found not guilty for reason of lack of evidence in many beatings, not because nobody beat the person, but because no officer is willing to rat on the rest and they all appear identical in black riot gear. (Amazingly, just like the Black Bloc, who they condemn.)

I think we should have a sting and throw every police officer who refuses to rat on a fellow officer in jail till they die of old age.

If they sold it to someone they should have known would use it for illegal purposes, yes.

It's legal to sell your car. It's not legal to provide the vehicle for someone who's told you they're going to drive over someone - even if the sale would otherwise be legal.

It's obvious that doing anything with a dictator only legitimizes and enables the dictatorship. So yeah, if Cisco sold equipment to Syria, even if that equipment wasn't for censoring, they would be at least partly to blame for censoring in Syria.

Lobbying for favorable laws opens up markets, and part of getting favorable laws is doing whatever you're asked. So to get those #1 customers they'll do anything, even provide them a cut-rate service by allowing warrantless wiretapping, etc.

And they'll bow to whatever special interest makes it more profitable to deal than fight, from government to church groups.

There's no risk for the companies that do this. If someone was discovered to be in the KKK they might get beaten or killed, but build a product that allows Syria to make prisoners and slaves of its people and you're an A#1 citizen.

Following the law needs to be a minimum standard, not a free pass.

No we don't. We get to elect people but I've never been asked by a politician what I want them to do and they few I've offered my opinion to have ignored it.

In an open market I wouldn't pay them a penny. Here they cost millions and we can't get rid of them when we catch them lying.

Heh. Thanks.