There appears to be a push to control open source software, in the guise of protecting children via age control.
With OSS, anybody can tweak the code on his device to pass the control, so the idea would be to only allow certified software. Which is expensive, and out of reach of most open source projects. Enter big, reliable companies that can afford the ticket for the certification of horrendous piles of slop.
see this recent HN post about it, I find it resonates, so to speak, with what you explain :
That's a completely different thing from AI drones or whatever (not to mention that I wouldn't trust anything the Guardian puts out, not to mention that magazine).
In english this is called pollarding a tree. Historically it has been used for smaller wood pieces (firewood, etc). It's fuctionally different [from daisugi] because you don't get construction grade timber from it
Can confirm : I'm reading this from France, we're in the 8th day of the meanest heatwave the country has known since records exist, and it's expected to last two more.
>If contract broken, sue them. Why throwing a scene?
Haha! tell me about it.
A client of mine ended his contract in 2010, pretending he did not use my software anymore. He had the source because I had to compile on site for technical reasons.
A disgruntled employed called to tell me and my associate he was still using it. It took me 3 years to find a proof, lawsuit started in 2014, the expertise began in 2016 and ended in 2021. I have a first trial hearing scheduled Feb, 12 2026. Expect 6 to 12 months before a decision, and of course, an appeal after that.
The guy had stocked up 5 million dollars net when I stopped him with the lawsuit [0], he is using the money to pay well known lawyers to delay the procedure every which way.
I'm out largely over 100 000 euros in court, expertise and lawyer fees, plus the countless hours spent responding to the endless, senseless dribble their lawyers produce.
As far as I'm concerned, my services are now hosted by me, and failure to pay shuts down the service, it's in the TOS.
[0 : he subcontracted for a big entity. I would never had gotten that contract myself, lacking the thief's network; said big entity never replied to our mails about our software]
Shutting down services upon payment issues is much more different than getting into laud public dispute.
Also, there's always some number of problem clients out there, never good idea to stray away from civility. There are problem merchants too, which is much more socially acceptable to shame publicly.
A friend worked in an audiophile shop during his physics master and he'd swear the customer base was the most gullible bunch he ever saw... And mostly unswayable by rational arguments.
I suspect some of that disconnect is because hearing itself isn’t standardized. Differences in frequency perception, hearing loss, and training can make two people genuinely hear different things.
Of course people have different hearing, but the audiophile market is overflowing with snake-oil stuff like 'oxygen free copper' cables to 'acoustic resonator discs'.
Nobody's proven any of that stuff results in better sound quality (or even different quality after you graduate from junk stuff to reasonable equipment). Seems like an awfully expensive way of experiencing the placebo effect to me.
I know someone who spent upwards of $10k on a single 3-foot HDMI cable that was 'infused with Peruvian copper'. He says it makes the colors "more true".
There appears to be a push to control open source software, in the guise of protecting children via age control.
With OSS, anybody can tweak the code on his device to pass the control, so the idea would be to only allow certified software. Which is expensive, and out of reach of most open source projects. Enter big, reliable companies that can afford the ticket for the certification of horrendous piles of slop.
see this recent HN post about it, I find it resonates, so to speak, with what you explain :
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48960155