Treefinder Revokes Software License For Users In Immigrant-Friendly Nations 578
dotancohen writes: The author of bioinformatics software Treefinder is revoking the license to his software for researchers working in eight European countries because he says those countries allow too many immigrants to cross their borders, effective 1 October. The author states, "Immigration to my country harms me, it harms my family, it harms my people. Whoever invites or welcomes immigrants to Europe and Germany is my enemy."
What a dork (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, that's ironic (Score:5, Funny)
Racist gene sequencing software.
How racism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nationalism, yes.
But wanting to stop the flow if illegal immigrants is not racism, because you don't care what color they are - just that people should immigrate legally, so that they can come in at a rate that they can mesh well with existing society.
That is merely realizing that a national identity has value, and is worth protecting...
Mind you, I disagree with how they are trying to protect against immigration - what if some of the people they have blocked are supporters of their cause? Perhaps instead t
Re:How racism? (Score:5, Insightful)
But it is legal (Score:5, Insightful)
just that people should immigrate legally, so that they can come in at a rate that they can mesh well with existing society.
Say the body responsible for setting a nation's immigration policy has decided to admit refugees on the basis that emergency evacuation from a war zone outweighs the difficulty of "mesh[ing] well with existing society". In that case, they are immigrating legally.
Re:How racism? (Score:5, Insightful)
National identity is the kind of thing that stuffs the world up.
I can't understand those that feel proud of a geographical area they happen to live in, especially when they simultaneously destroy the environment that makes any place great to be.
The concept of patriotism is in my opinion, absurd.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't understand those that feel proud of a geographical area they happen to live in
Really? That's quite sad you grew up in some kind of dictatorship shithole; but that's not true of everyone.
I'm pretty proud of free speech, the ability for women to drive and vote (or even voting in general), and that people can marry whoever they like.
All of those things are going to go away with a large enough migration from a people who support none of them.
The future belongs to the people who show up, the future does
Re:How racism? (Score:5, Informative)
And, interestingly enough, nationalism is a recent invention. We are taught that there are distinct countries and the implication is that this has always been the case. If nothing else, people are either told or simply assume that before nations there were tribes and that tribalism preceded nationalism. But it isn't true.
There is a related problem, that of language. We like to pretend that languages are distinct and have clear boundaries. Someone speaks English, or German or Spanish or... But this notion of language is fairly modern and isn't even true. This is tacitly acknowledged by adding labels to indicate region, recognizing that American English is not the same as British English. Nor is the English spoken in India the same as either of those. Egyptian Arabic is a mix of Arabic and British English with some older Egyptian vocabulary thrown in.
Being a dead language, Latin was fairly defined as a language circa 800 AD, but the people inhabiting what we now call France did not refer to themselves as French, German or in fact any national or tribal identity. The term "the Franks" is more modern than anything else. Historically membership in a tribe was a hand wavy group identification, not about ethnicity or heredity. If you asked a Frank about his identity as a Frank you would have confused him. If you asked him what language he spoke it would similarly have confused him.
Linguists have labels for dead "languages" but the truth is there is no hard definition for what such a language was or who spoke it. If you started on the west coast and traveled east the spoken language would shift from place to place with generally increasing differences. The closest you get is a sort of civic identity where someone felt attachment to the city of his birth, but it is reading too much into it to regard it as a precursor to nationalism.
When King Harald set out to unite Norway there was no strict geographical boundary. People who lived in what we now call Norway didn't identify themselves as "Norwegians". They lived in familial groups, households, and identified with their relatives though certainly not in a tribal sense. Individuals who didn't like King Harald's requirement for land ownership left, mostly for Iceland, where family continued to be the most significant group identity and there was certainly no national identity.
No, nationalism was consciously invented as a tool to rally the mass of people behind a political figure or organization. Nationalism, and its sister patriotism, are tools to control a population. It is nationalism that encourages xenophobia. Despite a popular modern conception that primitive peoples were distrustful of outsiders, by and large what we have observed is the opposite. At least, those groups that survived with a primitive lifestyle to more modern times have failed to be adequately suspicious of foreign intruders.
It is modern nationalism, not primitive tribalism, that leads to xenophobia.
Re:Oh, that's ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh, that's ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
Thus giving them a particularly pressing reason to escape before one warlord or another drafts them. Or do you perhaps think ISIS/Boko Haram/whatever are staffed entirely with volunteers?
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And what side is that? There are two main factions but many groups: There is the government of Syria and the opposition. However, the opposition is composed of many groups including ISIL and other terrorist groups. I find it ironic that GOP members complained that Obama hasn't supplied arms to the opposition; they were complaining that Obama didn't arm terrorists.
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"How about we relocate some ISIS scumbag next to your house or apartment?"
According to TFA, Jobb not only hates European countries for letting those "refugees" flood in, but he also hates the US for fighting back agains the same set of forces.
Re:Oh, that's ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll bet about 75% of Slashdot readers are military age men.
Makes you think.
Re:Oh, that's ironic (Score:5, Informative)
No, only 21.8% of the refuges are fighting age men [unhcr.org]. Try again you racist troll.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The petition to cancel Oktoberfest is a fake created by someone attempting to aggravate tensions against the refugees which gathered far more attention than it deserves.
Re:Oh, that's ironic (Score:4, Interesting)
[citation needed]
I never heard anything about that Octoberfest story from any serious sources.
Re:Oh, that's ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
Sources, you racist idiot?
There will be crimes and misconduct among refugees for sure. That is a statistical certainty when you have hundreds of thousands of people. But considering the hardships and unimaginable emotional stress that refugees have had to endure, I would say the vast majority of them are remarkably peaceful and calm.
Almost haf of Syrian refugees have high school or university education. Also the vast majority of them are not interested at all in fundamentalist Islam, but are progressive and simply want to lead a free life of opportunity, like the rest of us. That's why they are coming to Europe. If they agreed with fanatics like ISIS they would join them and not walk over to the "enemy".
The problem of morons like you is that for you every muslim is a fanatic, because all you hear in the news are associations of terrorism with Islam. In reality, the majority of muslims are normal people like you and me that want to live and let live. The Islamists are a much bigger threat and pain in the ass to them than they are for us, because they are the ones being killed and driven from their homes.
Re:Oh, that's ironic (Score:4, Insightful)
Sources, you racist idiot?
I'm curious, what did the AC say that's racist or that suggests that they are?
Stop throwing around emotionally loaded terms to try and avoid debating real issues.
Re: (Score:3)
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
http://m.snopes.com/ban-oktobe... [snopes.com]
Re:Oh, that's ironic (Score:4, Informative)
The second hit is a piece in the Wall Street Journal.
The piece mentions nothing of immigrants, Muslims, or anyone else filing a petition or calling for a ban.
It does mention that Christian Conservatives want to exclude all immigrants from festivities and Bavaria in general.
Having read ALL the first 20 links, it appears that the petition to ban Oktoberfest was submitted by the same Christian Conservatives and that all names and signatures were fraudulent. But I guess since these fraudsters aren't brown, we can now pretend the petition never happened.
Re:Oh, that's ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
Only a complete fucking moron would think that this mass immigration is anything but a future crime and terrorist attack in the making.
Yep, mass immigration - that's what America is founded on. And look how it turned out.
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Pretty bad, I'd say.
But then I am a Cherokee.
Re:Oh, that's ironic (Score:4, Interesting)
No they aren't. "Native American" doesn't have the same meaning as adding the individual meanings of "Native" and "American".
In any case, I guess it's too late and we're stuck with you. We should have sent your ancestors back to Poland, Ireland or wherever as soon as the bastards landed.
P.S. How many Syrians do you think we should take?
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Sending them back to their nation of origin would work fine, and requires no killing.
Of course, they are leaving their nations of origin largely because of killing there, But that is the problem that should have been solved.
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If you are talking about the author of Treefinder, hew is not German, he is Danish.
And obviously he is an idiot as he claims his job is in danger by Syrian super coders with extraordinary knowledge about plants, genetics and trees in particular.
Who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA it looks like Jobb is a racist asshole and his Treefinder software is outdated and has plenty alternatives.
Looks like a drama queen thing.
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason is simple: the fears and objections of Europe's citizens have been completely ignored. If a refugee center opens up in your neighborhood, you will experience an increase in crime and nuisance. The people in a village with 500 inhabitants fear the influence that a nearby center for 6000 refugees will have on their community. And a sizable portion aren't refugees or even from Syria; they left their own save homes to find a better life, and look for countries with generous welfare packages. In the Netherlands, the refugees already have had a serious impact on housing. Municipalities are obliged to give priority to people with an asylum status, which means they jump to the front of the queue for social housing. The waiting time for a regular family without priority is now 7-8 years I believe, with some larger cities having a waiting list of 14 years.
Some of the fears are unfounded and the objections unreasonable, and the harsh reality may be that we will have no choice but to put these migrants up somehow, somewhere. But the problem is that in the political climate it is impossible to even begin that discussion To ask what the cost of this immigration is, what the impact is, to question the motives of some of the immigrants, to demand that we finally get some sensible and well organized way of dealing with the immigrants instead of pancking at the last minute and putting them up in tents, or to demand that along with a generous welcome for the true refugees comes a program to actively screen and evict people who have no business here and to deter them from coming in the first place. Those questions get you branded as an unfeeling nazi, a racist, or worse. This discussion is carefully avoided by politicians and the media alike. Instead, we hear only the good news: these immigrants bring important skills, they bring wealth instead of costs, they will not alter our society for the worse, they are not terrorists, and they will generate jobs for us too. Meanwhile the actual problems are unacknowledged and thus not addressed.
An increasing number of people are starting to feel the pressure from increased immigration firsthand, and they are completely abandonded by their representatives. Immigration in the face of an emergency doesn't have to be a problem for the locals: when the government organize things well, are open and honest about what is going to happen, do what they can to alleviate any nuisances, and take complaints seriously, then you see the locals putting up with any troubles that remain. If however you ignore valid complaints, and brand any naysayer as sub-human white trash, then desperate people will lash out. In increasingly violent ways. And they will lash out against the refugees as well, which is the last thing they need.
That is my main worry. Not the immigration itself, but the unbelievable way that my government and Europe are handling this, or rather: not handling it.
Re:Who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
The fears and objections have been largely ignored for both those wanting to accept refugees and those not. A refugee centre opened up in my neighbourhood (our city of ~275k has about 6 the last I heard) and nothing happened. Sure, you see a few people walking around, but that's it. No crime wave. No disturbances. You might want to demote your "will" to "might", as clearly it's not a certainty.
Claiming economic migrants just want good benefits is a disgrace, as you are attempting to cast them all as acting in poor faith. Most want to work, just as most people who are born in Europe want to work. Some will want to sponge off and do nothing, just as some Europeans do. Generalising so much about a group of people you clearly don't know much about is pretty much the definition of a xenophobe.
I think it's perfectly suitable to brand someone making horrible, vague statements about foreigners as a xenophobic muppet, as that's what they are.
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Claiming economic migrants just want good benefits is a disgrace, as you are attempting to cast them all as acting in poor faith.
I am not casting all of them as acting in good faith, only some part of them. By the way, that statement was an example of the fears about migrants, not a statement of fact, though there is a lot of historical data to back up the idea that many of these refugees will not end up working. And immigrants from some countries, arriving under much the same circumstances as others, do much better than those others, so their joblessness is not just a matter of "white man keeping us down". And some of them do not
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The fears have NOT been ignored, rather, the pro-immigration standpoint has been completely ignored in mainstream media. Voicing that opinion leads not only to being called 'naive', or 'traitor', but also to physical threats. The problem is the rise of the extreme right, but that is not a problem that you are allowed to point out in much of europe, including the Netherlands where I live. I had a refugee center in my street. I did not notice a difference when it opened, and did not notice a difference when i
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By the way, you are right about the rise of the extreme right. As I said, ignoring the real and imagined complaints and obj
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It's not only the housing but costs for providing social security is unsustainable with the current flow of asylum seekers. It doesn't take more just few years and even 100 % taxation wouldn't be enough to provide social security for these asylum seekers. Although some of the asylum seekers may be able to find jobs, the traditional levels of employment have been very low for many of these groups (for example, the biggest asylum seeker groups in Finland are Iraqis and Somalis and even during better economic
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
In my opinion this migration will be a massive drain on the EU and especially on the countries that support the immigrants. Perhaps countries like Germany and Sweden can afford to house, feed and support these(almost) millions, all while maintaining their current expenditures for citizens and pensioners already there. Time will tell.
However, I can imagine one thing is for sure, the internal security services tasked w
Re:Who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
He might be an asshole, but I'm not surprised to see reactions like these to the immigrant crisis. I see them more and more often around me as well (I am from Europe). And it might get a lot worse, already we're seeing arson and threats of violence against refugee centers.
The reason is simple: the fears and objections of Europe's citizens have been completely ignored.
Because clearly, if you feel the government isn't listening to you, arson and violence is a valid response.
I'm a big fan of civil disobedience when you feel your rights are being trampled, but in that case you should protest against the government, preferably by voting but if that fails then protests, work stoppages, etc seem a valid thing. Violence against immigrants don't show patriotism, it shows small-minded fear and hatred.
Here in the US we also have a "yooge" anti-immigrant movement. As far as I can tell, most people wish the US had closed its borders the day after *their* immigrant ancestors arrived here.
Re:Who cares (Score:4, Insightful)
He's not defending arsonists and violent people, he's stating the fact that people will do it when they're not heard.
You know this is true. This is how people explain riots in Baltimore. A group of people feels powerless, and eventually something boils over and they lash out. Whether this group of people is not heard about their objection to millions of unasked for new neighbors or police brutality, the result is the same.
The answer is not to suppress or ignore these people, but to address their fears and concerns. But just scorn them as racists or xenophobes and dismiss them, and eventually, yes, the more incensed and morally questionable members of that camp will do bad things.
Re:Who cares (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Informative)
I worked for a few years at a Max Planck Institute (not the same one as Jobb), and I remember he sent occasionally racist rants to all email recipients in all institutes, in which he lamented that the foreigners were taking his job [youtube.com]. The rants were so logically inconsistent they looked like a crossing of Time Cube [timecube.com] and the Unabomber Manifesto.
More than racist, which he is, the guy is psychologically unstable; the archetypal mad scientist.
he probably deals a lot with end users (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Interesting. I'd like to mod you up, but instead I'll add that this is another argument against DRM'ed software: It could be administered by a racist asshole who will revoke your license because your country's government did something he didn't like.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm scared that these quotas won't stop coming. Instead of the variety in the races, in the long run, we'll only have a single EU race, where the origina
Hmmm ... (Score:5, Informative)
So basically he's a batshit crazy idiot who is ranting publicly and acting like a whiny bitch?
Congratulations, Gangolf Judd ... you're an idiot, and a moron.
And largely irrelevant, from reading this.
Everything about this article suggests some raving idiot sitting in the dark lamenting how the world won't adhere to his bullshit beliefs.
Whatever, and nothing of value was lost.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Everything about this article suggests some raving idiot sitting in the dark lamenting how the world won't adhere to his bullshit beliefs.
Which probably means he has a low user ID number on /.
Re: (Score:3)
Which probably means he has a low user ID number on /.
It's not that low.. :-(
Re: (Score:2)
No, he would be posting AC.
Re:Hmmm ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Basically he's still under the same mistaken ideals about economics [wikipedia.org] as the Founding Fathers.
Re:Hmmm ... (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. To quote from his statement:
"Immigration unnecessarily defers the collapse of capitalism, its final crisis,"
So he sounds more like a communist or anarchist.
Re: (Score:2)
It seems somewhat inconsistent for an anarchist to complain about countries "allowing" people to cross national borders, and socialism - including communism - is traditionally international in nature... so I guess that leaves National Socialism as the "traditional values" he was referring to. Which, I suppose, would explain why he has trouble finding work in Germany.
In any case, if nothing else this affair goes to show the necessity of using only FOSS-license
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So basically he's a batshit crazy idiot who is ranting publicly and acting like a whiny bitch?
+5 Informative.
Welcome to /.
Re:Hmmm ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I don't give a fuck about some guy who wrote a piece of software, and his personal manifesto. I don't need to validate his position, or evaluate it for merit -- that's not my problem.
See, I'm not committing a logical fallacy, since I'm not refuting his points ... I am dismissing him out of hand as an irrelevant, whiny little twat who wants to take his ball and go home. He's more than welcome to do that. He can do it for any stupid reason he chooses.
And the rest of the world is free to dismiss him as a crackpot and not give a damn about his crazy rantings.
The reality is, he isn't withholding anything nobody can't live without, and while he's free to do as he chooses with his software ... everyone else is free to not give a fuck.
We certainly don't need to acknowledge, validate, or give credibility to his temper tantrum. That's his damned problem.
If someone said tomorrow I can't use a piece of software because I'm not a Christian, I'm also going to conclude that person is a moron and an asshole, and be equally dismissive of them. But I'm not going to coddle or validate his feelings because he needs to act like a moron and an asshole.
The edge of reality (Score:4, Insightful)
Who gives a shit? (Score:2, Interesting)
Movement within the EU is legal for those with an EU passport. How about addressing the Islam extremists that cause 90% of these cowards to run like little girls to alternative nations? Yes, that's right. It's not families leaving shit-hole arab and African countries, it's the very men that would be defending it had they been born in Europe or the US.
Re:Who gives a shit? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who gives a shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
But of course! Before the West got involved in the Middle East, it was a peaceful paradise, where unicorns grazed under rainbows, and peoples of all different religions lived together in blissful harmony! It's not like these people ever occupied large parts of Europe, oppressed non-Muslims, or abducted millions of Europeans into slavery, oh no, nothing like that ever happened!
Re: (Score:3)
We might not be in this mess now, and it might not be with these belligerents, but we would still be in much the same mess, as it dates back to the dawn of recorded history. Any "stability" is simply a nice political way of saying "we're resting between rounds".
The short version is that the nice relatively-fertile land we now call the "Middle East" was a convenient destination for refugees and conquerors from the kingdoms to the north, east, and west. As each group settled, they called the area their home,
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1630 is closer to the peak of the last Muslim Empire right before it started to go into decline and disintegrate.
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Islam relies upon the revelation received by Muhammed around 610 and 632. Islam can be considered established around 622, when Muhammed emigrated to Medina, where he was accepted and his teachings adopted.
From then on, Islam has conducted a continuous campaign of political, social, and military dominance, with the stated goal of total dominance and control worldwide.
You doubt this? Read the Qu'ran, or any respected commentary on it.
Re: (Score:2)
"I read a long post earlier that quoted Islam as being created in 1630."
The accepted start date for Islam is 622AD
At least that is when the Islamic calendar starts, when Mohammad fled from Mecca to Medina
The Islamic calendar is based on a lunar cycle, so the years are shorter than Gregorian.
Re: (Score:2)
You know that Google does not fact checking?
According to wikipedia Mohammed started preaching in 613, so some digits may have been flipped here.
Re: (Score:2)
US actions in Libya were requested by the surrounding Arab countries.
Syria fell apart without any US help.
All 3 were brutal tyrannical regimes that had no problems using weapons of mass destruction on their own citizens. All 3 were countries that bleeding hearts thought we should undermine or shun.
Re:Who gives a shit? (Score:4, Insightful)
"But Christianity had a 500 year head start on Islam'
Yes, Christianity was this bad once. Today we call that time the Dark Ages.
Re:Who gives a shit? (Score:4, Informative)
"If the West had not propped up tyrants for economic ends, we would not be in this mess."
No, the present mess began when we deposed the secular tyrants.
Re: (Score:2)
Movement within the EU is legal for those with an EU passport
There is no "EU passport".
The right to move and reside freely is granted to any citizen of the EEA (EFTA plus Lichtenstein) and Switzerland, and a passport is not required if you have another national identity card.
Or a residence card showing you are a family member of a citizen of one of these countries, and are either travelling with or to the family member.
And that is the case for many of the asylum seekers, who want to travel to specific countries like Sweden and Germany, where they have family. The pr
Re: (Score:3)
Now many immigrants are accused of not assimilating, but these are setting up councils of their own who try to act as an independent government within the boarders of the USA. A Somalia, JR. of sorts that "the losers" decide to set up in a different location.
I ask you, how can we welcome something like?
What are you stoned? We as Americans have ALWAYS welcomed this kind of behavior, hell a fair argument could be made that we actually endorse it. Why don't you read up on the history of the Five Points, Chinatown or Little Italy in New York city. Try taking a tour around the different neighborhoods in cities like Chicago, Cleveland and Philadelphia; then try saying with a straight face that no immigrant population has ever done exactly what you are describing.
Sorry to ruin your mastibitory end of the world f
Now we see what copyright run amok hath wrought! (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted, chances are the guy doesn't actually have the right to cancel people's purchases like this. However, the fact that it's halfway-reasonable for him to think he has that right is yet another illustration of how ridiculously overreaching copyright has become.
Again and again, we're seeing a thing that is (a) a government-granted monopoly, not a right, (b) only supposed to be temporary, and (c) not designed for the benefit of the author, but rather for the benefit of society, perverted to the point where people think it trumps actual property rights!
This guy's attitude is fucking sick and disgusting, and that's before I even take the bigotry into account!
Re: (Score:2)
Much depends on what the license actually says. If there's a clause that says that he can revoke your license at any time for any reason or for no reason at all, then this might possibly be legal. Why someone would want to pay for such a license is beyond me.
That said, this guy is cutting off his nose to spite his face.
And this bit, "I want to stress that this license change is not against my colleagues in the USA, but against a small rich elite there that misuses the country's power to rule the world
Ok, who wrote the tools (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
BULLSHIT!
The copyright holder only has limited permission (not a right) from the government to limit distribution only for so long as that arrangement is in the public interest. The government is free to revoke that permission (i.e., cause the work to enter the Public Domain) at any time. The only people with actual property rights to be considered are the people who bought copies.
Everybody has to believe in something (Score:5, Interesting)
Too few people nowadays (and politicians en masse) are willing to speak from a core belief set for fear of {horrors} offending someone!
Even ridiculous courage is refreshing these days.
Re: (Score:2)
While I agree with what you are saying. find that this guys action were done with improper customer timing. IF ( and it's a big if ) the current user base Paid for the software, then he should not ban them ( the bought it ), But he should stick to his core beliefs and ban those which he feels are doing him harm.
Now I want to get tricky, I am rather sure that if he tried this in the USA, he would be in the courts already. I don't think we are legally capable of stopping a purchase within the USA ( unless of
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Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
While I agree that people should state their beliefs and stick by them, business is not the place to do it. Most places have laws that require businesses to treat everyone equally, regardless of the personal beliefs of people working in or owning that business, for example.
In any case, this is suicide. Even if people agree with him or don't care, they won't risk building software around an API that the owner will arbitrarily cut them off from.
Re: (Score:2)
Trump 2016! /s
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I harbor a bit of empathy for anyone willing to put personal beliefs on the line for principle.
Too few people nowadays (and politicians en masse) are willing to speak from a core belief set for fear of {horrors} offending someone!
Even ridiculous courage is refreshing these days.
I would normally agree but historically a few German racists have gone on to become mass-murderers.
Re: (Score:2)
It says that Slashdot's principles have been compromised. Rather than stand up for free speech, the users of Slashdot would prefer to not enter into the fray and be attacked by these bigots.
It is sad - Slashdot used to be full of free thinkers. Now it's full of prejudice and hate.
And for those politically correct bigots who think they are just standing up for what's right, look at how you do it. You're no different than the racists and homophobi
Barking up the wrong tree? (Score:3)
Problem: Immigrants are destroying my life!
Solution: Prevent people in some countries from using some niche software very few people care about, least of all politicians, "big corporate" or said immigrants.
Pure genius!
quoting the man (Score:4, Informative)
"I have not yet been rewarded for my work.
I think we need a completely different political system.
Nobody should depend on employers and landlords.
Nobody should be profitable for someone rich.
Nobody should have to pay rent, have to migrate.
Most of all, we must limit private property.
We must expropriate the rich.
Free land for all!"
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder whether the first sentence is supposed to be a complaint or a badge of honour.
And if a complaint, who is it addressed at? Some rich guy who realises his genius and dumps a ton of money on him? Wait... oh snap!
citizens start taking action (Score:2)
Blindness (Score:4, Funny)
He can't see the forest despite the treefinder.
schadenfreude (Score:2)
Its what I feel when I see these Europeans griping about what most of them deride the US for. It may be wrong but it is funny.
This quote sounds almost like the Moo Cow AC... (Score:2)
The guy is desparate - mainstream media are biased (Score:3, Insightful)
The guy is simply desperate to get some attention.
I live in the EU and the mainstream media are totally biased pro-immigrant. Comments on the immigrant issues are usually turned offed, polls are not published, articles are 100% immigrant-friendly.
If you do not follow this pattern - you are racist , xenophob etc.
However if you talk to people - people are 80% anti-immigrant.
We do believe we should help the poor people but the help should go to camps in LIban, Turkey, Jordania, to women and children who are there, not to young fit guys coming here. We should also increase military help to stabilize situation in Syria.
The number of immigrants coming is way over the assimilation ability of Germany and other popular countries.
Re:The guy is desparate - mainstream media are bia (Score:4, Interesting)
The immigrants themselves did, by (literally!) voting with their feet. After all, they could have headed in any direction -- the Caucasus countries, Iran (and points east), the Arabian peninsula, Africa -- but they picked Europe.
There's little ethical difference between immigrants trying to import their culture and imperialists trying to export theirs. If you think the latter is wrong, then you should logically think the former is wrong too. The right of the newcomers not to have the existing culture forced upon them is trumped by the right of the existing people's right not to have their culture supplanted by the newcomers.
That said, I'm not at all convinced that (a) there are too many refugees to be assimilated or (b) that "but they might not assimilate" is a valid reason for refusing to accept refugees in the first place.
You go dude (Score:3, Insightful)
Immigration is an important economic issue. It's lowers wages. It's a way to balance economic forces but if unchecked it gives businesses an unfair pool of low wages employees. If you don't respect parts of your country for it's economic impact on your then I don't see anything wrong with what your doing as a "statement of protest". You have the unalienable right to express your dissatisfaction. But being realistic it just won't have an economic impact.
Licences (Score:3)
And this is why I like freedom in my licences as a consumer.
Sorry, pull this and lose my custom.
But I certainly will never give you a way to pull this on me retroactively or on a product I currently have and rely on.
The door swings both ways - you can't impose your political beliefs on me, and I can't stop you selling the software in your homeland either (unless you're doing something illegal there, etc.).
Trouble is what happens to those who stay (Score:3, Interesting)
As unfair as it might be I think the response to the crisis is wrong. We should NOT welcome the refugees and asylum seekers. By and large these people are the educated people of quality with some wealth in that region that are leaving. If anything it might be self serving to allow them to come to the US or enter the EU.
If Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan etc are ever to be anything other than squalid hell holes its the very people who are leaving that would otherwise have the cause (families) and capability (education + money) to make those places better. While denying them entry in Europe and the US might be sentencing them to a life time of struggle or death letting immigrate dooms the places they come from to being dominated by the Islamic extremist loonies.
If we ever want to see those places settle down, and see it be possible for people to have a normal life there the only approach might be to make getting out more hopeless than taking back their countries from the crazies.
Melodramatic much? (Score:2)
"Enemy"? Really?
Wow. Just... wow.
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This time, it looks like it will be Europe and Russia against America. Putin seems to be the only politician who's taking the invasion of Europe seriously, and the new European leaders will inevitably turn to him for help after they kick out the 'we're all the same under the skin' liberals who currently run their countries.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Why isn't Saudi Arabia helping? They have a tent city with 100,000 air conditioned empty tents normally used by pilgrims:
http://www.infowars.com/saudi-arabia-has-100000-empty-air-conditioned-tents-that-can-house-3-million-people-yet-has-taken-zero-refugees/
Instead they've offered to build 200 mosques in Germany:
https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/260080/saudi-arabia-offers-build-200-mosques-syrians-daniel-greenfield
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The part about Sweden is a theoretical possibility, in that somebody managed to dig up an old law, and not even about homes.
The German one is about a woman who rented an apartment in a building, and the land lord has decided to stop renting out apartments, and sell the whole building. She has been given over half a years notice, apparently more than German law requires.
The headline is just right wing extremist propaganda.
Re:Is that even possible? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure that's possible. Can you revoke a licence of an old program? You can change the licence for a new version, sure, but when I buy (or download) a program, the licence that comes with it *at that time* is the licence I have to adhere to I would think.
From the manual:
"By default, TREEFINDER displays a license notice every time the program is launched.
Clicking the I-agree-button all the time might get on one's nerves after a while, so here is the
trick how to switch it off: using a text editor to create a file containing the words 'I promise
that I will always respect the current license conditions.' and save it in your 'Treefinder'
directory as 'i_agree' (without a file extension!). You will never see the license notice again."
and:
"This license agreement is valid until the next software release. Afterwards, the license of the
latest TREEFINDER version applies."
So it looks like he was already a control freak back in 2011, and was attempting to reserve the right to impose retrospectively whatever licence he felt like issuing in the future. I suspect this wouldn't stand up to serious legal scrutiny, but it was already a big red flag before he went off the rails completely.
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And this is why EULAs (all of them, not just this one) are evil and must be abolished.
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The truth of Islam, is that it is never happy being the little church down the road, it must be the church, the state, and the law.
So, basically the same same as Christianity, then?
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The major innovation that the Christians created (and Islam copied) is the idea of "you must belong to us". Christianity used "if you don't you go to hell" - a concept unheard of before then, while Islam came up with "and you can't quit us afterwards".
Up until then, Judaism, Hinduism, and the rest of the world's religions were "If you want to join us,
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Crime is crime, the numbers might go up with large influxes of people. But they will still likely stay at historically very low rates. We hear a lot more about crime today than in times past simply because we live in a more connected world and so are exposed to sensational news from all corners of the world. Crime rates have a lot of room to grow again before they impact the average person noticeably.
I never presumed that having more open borders and immigration policy would lead to less people immigrating,