Because you realized you made a mistake by entering the discussion in the first place. It's like trying to argue evolution with a creationist who you don't know is a creationist when you start talking. You find out, and then you go "Oh man, this is gonna go nowhere fast. I'm off."

>He/she simply question them.

Common fucking decency would imply that a thread discussing the death of someone is not the proper place to question their accomplishments in life.

An MCP at 9 years old is a big deal. I know it might have been easy for some of you geniuses in here, but this girl was 9.

Just like he (or any photograph with a reputation) is able to set a very high price because of his quality seal, he doesn't have the right to bitch about how much he thinks the picture worths. If you go out in the market then play by the rules. And the rules are: any product is worth whatever amount the consumer is willing to pay for it. That's what an open market is about. If you don't like it, don't get into it. Simple as that.

Ok, using it without permission is a simple legal matter. Bitching about how much he thinks he should be paid... honestly that is no one else's problem.

You don't get to judge Iran as "bad in general" by your standards, though.

You only get to judge Iran as "bad for you", by your standards.

If you want to judge Iran as "bad in general", you'd have to also show that the people of Iran don't want to live like they do.

Because if they DO want to live like they do (which I assure you it's the case in general), then there's nothing bad about Iran. They just live in a way that you happen to disagree with.

They never came to tell you how to live YOUR life, though.

We're not telling them how to live their lives. But if their government has a law in place requiring the Hijab, would you not agree that individual citizens don't have the liberty of choosing how they want to live their life either? (Note: I'm not saying that America should invade and spread Western ideals, but I do take issue with the notion that people want to live a certain way if there are laws in place forcing them to live that way.)

I'm tired of this political correctness, it's so 90's. But it will take more than a couple of downvotes to shut me up. This "everybody has the right to their way of living" is getting old and stupid. Have you ever visited Iran? I find it interesting that when I talk about this subject with people from muslim countries, they understand me very well and mostly agree with me, while most westerns prefer to paint everything with fairy-tale colors and say that they are 'tolerant' to every culture.

Anyway, your comment is almost semantically null. Why wouldn't it be obvious that anyone's judgement has whatever credibility you want to give it? Furthermore, By assuming that everything is subjective you're basically stating that you won't dare to stand for any opinion of yours.

Yeah, it totally still applies. You can find dissents in any country.

And, btw, you are not. Here's an older comment of yours on HN: """I'm from a country way more developed than iran in technological/scientific terms""".

"""This "everybody has the right to their way of living" is getting old and stupid.""""

Really? Sorry, but I don't find the "let's demonize them, force them to our own way of living, and basically use it as a pretext for invading their country and steering their natural resources / political personnel our way" any more modern or wiser...

"""Have you ever visited Iran?"""

No, but I have visited other countries in the region of which the same are said.

"""I find it interesting that when I talk about this subject with people from muslim countries, they understand me very well and mostly agree with me"""

You are probably talking to the wrong persons from those countries. Maybe mainly people that immigrated because they wanted to live differently, i.e huge selection bias?

"""Anyway, your comment is almost semantically null. Why wouldn't it be obvious that anyone's judgement has whatever credibility you want to give it? Furthermore, By assuming that everything is subjective you're basically stating that you won't dare to stand for any opinion of yours""".

I haven't said that "everything is subjective". I said that I respect the right of societies to live how they like over the right of any outsider to force them otherwise, especially if the outsider is a big mean war machine.

In re: objective/subjective etc, I said that you don't liking how people in Iran live just means Iran is subjectively bad for you. I added that if the majority of Iranians didn't like how they live, then Iran would be objectively bad.

""" Really? Sorry, but I don't find the "let's demonize them, force them to our own way of living, and basically use it as a pretext for invading their country and steering their natural resources / political personnel our way" any more modern or wiser... """ 1. For the record I do think 'their way of living' is rather barbarian. Not that all of them would choose to live the way they do if they had the choice. But stoning a women to death because of showing a leg is a rather barbarian thing to do, just my opinion I guess. But where did I call to 'force our own way of living' or 'invading their country'? I don't recall I defended that.

""" You are probably talking to the wrong persons from those countries. Maybe mainly people that immigrated because they wanted to live differently, i.e huge selection bias? """

Maybe that's the case, I won't deny that. But heck, that they had to run away from their country for such reasons, doesn't that tell a bigger story per se? I recall you saying that they have the right to live their lives the way they want. But then you point out people that didn't haven't that right. I'm starting to get confused about your opinion, no irony nor sarcasm intended.

"objective/subjective etc, I said that you don't liking how people in Iran live just means Iran is subjectively bad for you. I added that if the majority of Iranians didn't like how they live, then Iran would be objectively bad." Which is pretty obviously the case. Don't expect very informative surveys where saying "I'm not religious anymore" might be enough to get you killed.

Well, didn't lots of Americans leave the states in the sixties to go to Canada to avoid the draft?

"""I recall you saying that they have the right to live their lives the way they want. But then you point out people that didn't haven't that right. I'm starting to get confused about your opinion, no irony nor sarcasm intended."""

I'm talking majority here. As I said, you can find dissents in any country, if you look hard enough. That doesn't mean you have to change the majority of the society to fit them. It's not like millions of Iranians are struggling to get out of the country. OTOH, after the invasion to bring "democracy", tons of Afghanis and Iraqis ARE.

"""I added that if the majority of Iranians didn't like how they live, then Iran would be objectively bad." Which is pretty obviously the case."""

Rather far from obvious. Western media showcases only the examples that fit that pattern, and westerners have the natural tendency to think "but of course, that's only natural, that's exactly what Iranians would be thinking".

For example:

"""Don't expect very informative surveys where saying "I'm not religious anymore" might be enough to get you killed."""

Well, hundreds of millions of people worldwide ARE religious, and wouldn't have it any other way. And not because they would be killed if they stated otherwise.

Take the Bible Belt for example.

Is there any doubt that the majority of the people there IS both religious AND conservative?

Now, there are also atheists in those parts, and you can find a ton of blogs saying "oh, my fellow Utah/Adelaine/Tulsa/... citizens are bigots and stupid" or such. And you can talk to a lot of folks from there that made it to New York or San Francisco or whereever, and they will badmouth their states and their governors.

The existence of the above does not mean that you'd be correct to say that the Bible Belt majority are atheists and progressive folk.

I have also some doubts about the "get you killed/stoned" thing. I used to get so angry at those stories, you know, them stoning a woman, hangings, etc, and think "those guys should be nuked for doing that".

But then I found out that a lot of those stories are BS, perpetuated as the media sees fit, and are representative of some local barbaric act in some village etc and not the state in general. Like, say, the lynching of some black folks, back in the 20's in the South.

A case in point is the story of this woman in Iran, it circulated a year ago I think, that was to be hanged. All the headlines made it sound like she was to be executed just because she had an extra-marital affair. Only if you read the whole article though, you'd find out that she also conspired with her lover to murder her husband. And even when they admit to this in the article, they bury it under suspicion and irony, as if Iranian justice is de facto faulty.

Compare these pieces for example: http://digitaljournal.com/article/299760 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1315818/Iran-woman-A...

With the much more objective Wikipedia article:

On May 15, 2006 Sakineh pleaded guilty for having an "illicit relationship outside marriage". If a person pleads guilty to adultery under Islamic law, the sentence may be either death by stoning or 100 lashes. The court handed down a punishment of 100 lashes, her son watched the whipping.

Ashtiani had allegedly committed adultery with the man (Isa Taheri) who murdered her husband. Taheri was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Under Islamic law, murder must be absolved by diyya (blood money given to victim's family) or qisas (retributive execution); Ashtiani's children chose to accept diyya. Taheri was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. According to some sources, he is now no longer in prison, although Iranian officials deny this.

In September 2006 her case was brought up again, where she was tried for murdering her husband as well as committing adultery. She was found guilty of murder (qatl-e-amnd) and sentenced to death by hanging.

= = = = =

Now, I'm against the death penalty altogether, but it makes you wonder how reports of such cases are represented in our media.

And how often they are used to justify war/invasion etc, something that inevitably leads to hundreds of thousands more misery, destruction, death etc that some dozen such cases.

Spoiler alert!

Best part of the interview: Journalist: Are you married? RMS: No, I'm not. Journalist: Well, I am, I don't want to be free.

If you keep developing it and charge for access to a privileged access to updates, I'm sure you're sales will keep up. If you're updates are worth it, that is.

People won't pay for it because all of my hard work and updates are immediately shared, for free, by someone that bought it once (allowable by the GNU license). You aren't allowed to restrict the user in the form of a proprietary license.

"f you keep developing it and charge for access to a privileged access to updates, I'm sure you're sales will keep up. If you're updates are worth it, that is."

As long as you are using the GNU license, these changes can be shared for free.

This is why services are the way of the future. No piracy, updates are easy, and you also get to charge a monthly fee.

I also think its crazy that people send you hate mail. That right there exemplifies the sense of entitlement they have. Don't get me wrong, I love free software, use it, and I release code occasionally but I'm not about to starve because Stallman says I have to choose either or. Free or proprietary, you must choose one is the message out of the RMS camp.

He associates evil with charging money for software but not letting the buyer having his basic owner rights. Being that the right to modify, use and redistribute.

Read this on the gnu website and understand how wrong you are: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

When asked that question he usually replies "if you can't make money by doing free software, maybe you can look for another job". One cannot blame him for putting his ethical principles in front of his professional interests. I, for one, think that's the way it should be.

In 2011 in hacker news we still have to clarify this... oh well...

However, one can most definitely blame him for projecting his ethical principles onto others.

Stallman is just doing the same thing as the people commenting on Facebook's practices, just against proprietary software rather than privacy abuses. I think that not only should we not blame him, but we should also commend him for maintaining and arguing for his principles.

Amongst the rights granted to each individual is the right to modify the tools that they use. You restricting my freedom to modify is as wrong (according to Stallman) as you restricting my freedom to move about.

If you take libertarianism to mean "allow anything that is consensual and does not involve externalities", then proprietary software as implemented today is totally fine. The user consents to an agreement that amounts to "I'll give you the output of my compiler, but I'm not going to give you the input. Also, you have to promise not to redistribute it."

Of course, setting up the details of that arrangement for every creative work would be a huge hassle, and copyright is an attempt (in my opinion a failed one) to streamline it. One way to envision copyright in a libertarian framework is a legal presupposition that when I tell you a "creative secret" (copyrighted work), you'll keep it secret (won't redistribute) unless I give you explicit permission (a license).

*Edit: to elaborate on why I think copyright is a failed streamlining of the above framework, I'll just give one example. If I broadcast my "creative secret" out loud (or over the EM spectrum) then I can't reasonably expect it to be secret. The people who listen to it and hear my "secret" have never formed a consensual agreement with me. Thus, copyright as it stands gets twisted into "you can't participate in public communications without promising to pretend that various things you hear are owned secrets"

Before software, this was much less feasible and generally nobody bothered (e.g., this is why they still sell cars without the hood welded shut, and why simpler computers used to come with schematics).

He didn't decide anything, he simply presents his view on such matters and backs it up with solid logic. Anyone is free to disagree with him and to make oneself heard.

....except using it in a proprietary application and not redistributing your changes. Just ask the Thesis theme owner about this.

"He associates evil with charging money for software but not letting the buyer having his basic owner rights. Being that the right to modify, use and redistribute."

The problem with what you said here is that he things its evil to not allow someone to be able to share an application with all of their friends after they bought it once. I suppose he's not directly saying money is evil, but since you pretty much can't make money on an app this way (eventually it will be shared and you will lose any hope of making a profit), he's indirectly saying it.

Sure, you can make money on support, but this rules out most small companies because most simply don't have the support staff.

Eventually, this will catch up with the development community. We've all seen bookstores, newspapers, and many other traditional businesses go under in the past couple of years due to the Internet.

Business owners are getting more tech savvy as the older generation dies off. Why should I hire a college-educated software engineer that can write complex apps when I can get all of those difficult parts for free in an OSS app and hire a less-educated software mechanic for less money?

We aren't there yet, but as more and more things are released for free, we will be. My prediction is that the prevalence of open source software it will devalue developer wages over time.

I've already seen it happening. Not necessarily devaluing, but hiring one developer instead of three because an open source app can be used.

How does that devalue developers? Heck, why would you consider this a problem at all? Do you consider it a problem as well that you can use free libraries as well instead of having to write your own implementation of everything? Or think it is problematic that people can use an operating system that works out of the box instead of having to program their own kernel and abstractions?

Avoiding redundant efforts and duplication is good. Whether that means not having to re-write the same code or not having to hire more developers to solve a problem that's been solved before does not matter.

Maybe they only hired one developer instead of three. But this is a good thing--they were able to create the same value for a third the cost; this is a benefit to everybody.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just warning developers that choose to give all their best code away for free. When they find themselves out of a job in 5 years, they shouldn't complain.

It's not a problem for me. I own a business and I'm a developer. It just means cheaper labor for me in the future.