I think I am in broad agreement with @sil here but the fact that an act is against the law is not what deters people. They are deterred by the likelihood of getting caught and the severity of any likely punishment.
Note: the punishment can be purely social. When I was young it was common for people to drive to and back from a bar in the UK. It doesn’t happen anywhere near as often now as it is considered socially unacceptable.
There is clearly a balance to find here and we do need understand the causes of our problems and take steps to mitigate factors which lead to a worse society and promote factors that help to improve society. We still need sanctions however as while we can do much to improve society there will always bad people and we do need laws to set lines that they can not cross and set appropriate punishments if they do.
You specifically mention drug use and I would certainly not advocate people taking drugs but I feel drug laws in the US, UK and many places are totally misplaced. I have seen the effects of drugs ruining lives, either as a direct effect of the drugs themselves, or as a result of the criminal activity addicts are often forced into to fund and find the drugs needed by their addiction. This should be seen as a public health issue and suffers seen as patients in need of treatment and not criminals. Criminalising drug use forces users to hide their habit so they are less likely to seek help if they find themselves moving from a social user to the point where they are starting to feel dependant.
We are actually making a lot of progress here, though I admit we could be making more, In the developed world the gap between the rich and poor has increased in recent years but elsewhere things are improving and there is a real possibility that we can eliminate extreme poverty in the next 15 years, a UN commitment.
I won’t bother you with the details but if you are interested there is an excellent web based interactive tool to help you see global trends at Gapminder World.
“I think I am in broad agreement with @sil here but the fact that an act is against the law is not what deters
people. They are deterred by the likelihood of getting caught and the severity of any likely punishment.”
But punishment without law (i.e. a predetermined agreement on what is wrong and what will happen if you do it) is vigilantism. So yes, perhaps people are deterred by the punishment part, but you really don’t want that deterrent outside the framework of law.
I disagree, though, that law is a tacit admission from society that they’ve failed to solve a problem - because human sinfulness and selfishness is not fully solvable this side of the Second Coming of Christ. In the mean time, laws and their associated punishments have a deterrent effect.
I concur, here… or, rather, I agree with the initial assertion (laws are in fact a tacit admission that a problem isn’t solved yet) but that doesn’t mean that a solution is currently available but being ignored. In a world with a Star Trek replicator on every street corner, the incidence of theft would be much, much reduced (it’s hard to see why anyone would steal anything when they can have their own one for free, although some people will do so just because they’re dicks), but that’s not actually a tenable solution right now (we don’t know how to build a Star Trek replicator) and it is extremely difficult to see a way in which theft can be eliminated without eliminating scarcity. So, yes, laws against theft are there because we haven’t solved the problem of scarcity, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have laws; we need them until we’ve solved the problem of scarcity, and we haven’t, yet.
I’m not suggesting vigilantism is ever justified but there is nothing wrong with peaceful social pressure. As a young boy where I grew up many of my parents generation thought that it was OK to have a few drinks and drive home. Nobody was suggesting that they should be allowed to drive when they were clearly incapable but many underestimated how much their capabilities we’re diminished.
Now in the UK the social climate has changed. If I were to drive to a bar, drink a couple of pints of beer and want to drive home my friends would:
1 - Call me an idiot
2 - Suggest I walk home or call a taxi
3 - Steal my keys and call the police if I refused
The law has not changed significantly in the last 30 the last thirty years, but public opinion has. As young boy my parents would only have intervened if a friend was clearly intoxicated. But, bear in mind my parents had also been drinking so their judgement was also impaired.
I’m not suggesting my parents or any of their friends ever drove when clearly “out of their skulls” but it is obvious that they were driving with impaired reaction times and judgement. Back then most people turned a blind eye to others breaking this particular law. Today it’s very different.
To pick up on your second point laws can not be applied retroactively, though they can cancelled retrospecivly. To clarify this it is unacceptable for someone to be punished for something that was not a crime at the time it was committed, or to be punished more severely than the legal punishment at the time it was committed. It is of course perfectly acceptable to reduce the punishment if it felt that the previous punishment was excessive or to review the punishment upward or downward as required for anyone committing a similar act in the future.
Since no one bothered to translate it as of yet, I’ll try it out. This is the first, german, rant. As with all translations, many notions will be lost but I hope you’re fine with the content alone.
What kind of shit is this. I came from so far to watch fucking Bryan, instead of him now here’s a bald half-american asshole in front of me who just can’t not stand here being like “boo hoo I’m so important, ooh tatu tata”. Jo no or jo yes, motherfucker. You know? I’m done with this, you and your face and the crap you’re talking about. It makes me sick. You can’t be bothered to invite a proper american here, nooo, noo, noo, he’s not allowed to. Instead I have to listen to YOUR shit this whole evening. Yees, this is how it is. On top of that, there’s just ugly beer (TN: Trust me, it sounds weird in German too.), what bullshit. Hessen doesn’t produce “beer”, that’s not real beer, you have to come to Franken (TN: I’m bad at geography) for that. Now, to proceed, I’d suggest that next time you bring Bryan and REAL beer so I can drink something. Thank you.
Oh, this was fun.
Well, that’s not very nice, is it. 
I wouldn’t take the stance of the gentlemen at the event (no laws), I think punishment makes sense in a number of instances. Theft, abuse, violence, fraud, etc. However, I do not see laws themselves as an effective means to curb occurrences of crime. I’d argue in, at least some instances, laws have the opposite effect (IE alcohol prohibition in the US). Is it a binary choice one way or the other? I doubt it.
I’d like to see a more scientific/technical approach. Apply solution, assess outcome, improvement or not? If not, devise and apply different solution. What works best after various tests should win out.
I’d agree on drugs, criminalizing drugs seems like a very wrong approach and counter productive.
The poverty level, at least in the US, seems to be on the rise in more urban areas especially. To a large degree I’m pretty disenchanted. Here in the US most of the political talk centers around war and various US meddling around the globe.
There are many who live in poverty and would not consider stealing. They make the choice not to. Those who do steal make the choice to do so. An ancient proverb speaks about one not being despised for stealing because he is hungry, but will still have to face the consequences. It is more of a moral issue than a technical one.
Read up, I’d already done it 
I think yours is better though
I think that is key, catching the criminals. If there’s little to no risk of getting caught then the severity of the punishment is irrelevant.
The problem with cyber-crime is they are often perpetrated across borders. So apprehending the perpetrators and bringing them to justice becomes much more complicated. Sometimes impossible. Either because of the political relationship between the two countries involved, or the resources available to law enforcement in either country.
Brought a damned tear to my eye. This shit is practically poetry.
I dunno. I thought it was sweet. 
Well I only just got around to watching the video. I really disagree with Stuart’s point at the end, he’s repeatedly made this point over the years and there is certainly some truth in it. However I’ve spent a good amount of time on various linux related subreddits and even on the toxic heart of /r/linuxmasterrace, when people legitimately need help, most people pull their heads in and actually give the correct, reasonable advice. I’m not sure exactly what forum Stuart frequents that manages to trump the toxicity of some of these subreddits, however perhaps he should start avoiding them.
I completely agree with Jeremy’s point about how the grass is always greener. Step away from your comfort zone for a short while and I’m pretty sure you will quickly regret leaving, we’re certainly far from a perfect community but to suggest we are a bad one isn’t true.
Part of Stuart’s point was about how distros don’t work together enough. Part of what I like about the Linux distro way of doing things is the natural selection, each man for himself sort of thing we have going on. Distros die, communities die, projects die. Often these things die because of another community, distro or project. However they died because they were beaten, not because of mallicious intent. Our desktops may have many problems, however sitting on our laurels not innovating secure in our dominance over our competitors, has never been one of them.
I’m not for a moment disputing that you can get decent advice. The issue is this:
Native well meaning new person: I’m thinking of using Ubuntu, and it made me wonder what 2+2 was; can anyone give me the answer to that question?
It's 4.
Why are you using Ubuntu? You suck
Use Mint!
4.
The answer is 4.
Canonical destroy free software.
Yeah Ubuntu 4 lyf! Don't listen to haters!
Answering your question: 4.
4.
Don't understand why anyone uses Linux, it's not ready for real users
If you want to understand how to add numbers, you must install Arch.
It's 4.
5
I think this might be where our difference lies. I think (and please correct me if I’m wrong) that you’d look at that list of responses and say: you see? The question got answered correctly six times! Anyone can look at that list and get the answer! But I look at that list and think: this scares people away, a list of responses like that. So they never join the community and never learn how to distill answers from this sort of thread, or how to ignore the irrelevant. Obviously you can characterise my view as how I just want a line of nodding Stepford robots who’ll say “well done, use Ubuntu, join us” in creepy monotones, and I can characterise your view as how everyone needs to enjoy being repeatedly shit on by abusive respondents and that’s basically a core open source skill. But I’d hope we’re above such.
I understand your point I just think the problem isn’t as big as you think, or perhaps its worse some places than others, I’m not sure. I just came back to this forum from this reddit thread for example:
I’m sure once this gets enough responses, there will eventually be the worthless replies you mention. However even on this subreddit, which basically advertises itself as the worst our community gets, it’s not as bad as you seem to think it is.
What about this one? I’m sure eventually (if the thread maintained activity) someone will arrive and state it is in every way inferior to Arch, however no one yet has. It really is a few bad apples, a very few.
Perhaps a thread with more responses?
This should be the ideal place for the comments you mention, a fairly old thread about upgrading to the latest edition of the “hated” Ubuntu. Lets have a look. One guy who mentions the release date of Fedora 23… and thats it…
I’m sure my luck won’t hold forever going through these threads but for what is basically the cesspit of the linux community to be this restrained does put weight to my point that the issue is not as rampant as you seem to think.
I think perhaps you percieve it as larger due to aligning with Ubuntu, which is the main target for abuse in the Linux ecosystem at the moment.
So, the answer is: use something even less popular and then there won’t be a problem? Something in the open source community gets popular and you ought to step away from it to avoid abuse? This is what I’m talking about, entirely…
Ubuntu isn’t getting abuse because it’s popular. Ubuntu is getting abuse because it earned its position as the premier Linux distribution through solid hard work, however now it still retains that position in the minds of many while it’s high quality has slipped.
There are so many stories of people having bad experiences lately because of Ubuntu, not because of Linux, just because of the Ubuntu distribution. For example I set up Ubuntu for my uncle not two months ago. Every time the computer would start up, there would be an Apport error saying something or another had gone wrong, until I had to disable Apport entirely for him just to get it to shut up. He is also suffers from diabetes and has lost a large amount of his sight, so accessibility and particularly font scaling was something I needed to set up for him. Expanding the font wouldn’t expand the titlebar of the window so at the font I selected the text was cut in half, as were the menu options. There was also a printer/scanner issue, I needed to actually google around to get his printer/scanner to work properly.
I switched him over to Mint, primarily because of its more Windows style layout as it was clear he was having difficulty adjusting to the menu controls on the left etc. There was no error when he starts the computer, the accessibility tools work beautifully, the printer worked out of the box etc etc.
Ubuntu wasn’t the best choice for him. However Ubuntu has become the one and only experience so many people have of Linux, which was fine when Ubuntu was honestly the undisputed best Linux around. However a lot of people think it’s not actually the best experience for a new user right now, particularly due to its bugginess. Hell even Jono “ubuntu community manager” Bacon, admitted Ubuntu has gotten pretty buggy lately.
Personally I lost most of my faith in Ubuntu with this bug:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/An-Old-Ubuntu-Bug-Lets-Malicious-Users-Gain-Sudo-Access-479625.shtml
There was a guy on reddit who’s username was about this bug, he had submitted this severe bug to the Ubuntu security team and they refused to fix it for some inane reason while every other distribution scrambled to put together a patch. I’m sure every distribution has made similar mistakes however I don’t think the market leader has the luxuary of such mistakes. If they want to be the best, they have to be the best. The reddit thread by the guy:
There’s also the issue of Unity 8, we’ve been stuck waiting for Unity 8 for a long time now and there’s certainly a sentiment that the majority of Ubuntu’s effort is going towards that new platform, not on making each of the Unity 7 releases the best releases possib.e. While it may be brilliant when it comes out, it doesn’t matter until it does come out. Canonical has stuck with this same insistance of “not this next release, but the one after” for what, 3 years now? more? Every release is a pre Unity 8 filler bugfix release, that somehow adds more bugs than it fixes. It doesn’t feel like Canonical is giving their current Ubuntu releases their best effort, simply because their development resources are focused on this next generation that we’re still all waiting for. Perhaps I’m wrong about that, however it’s certainly the feeling a lot of people seem to have towards Ubuntu right now.
There are also lots of subjective elements. Ubuntu has struck out on its own towards its own vision quite strongly. Personally I applaud that, I think Linux distributions need to be more varied than just what package format they use. However plenty of people take issue with the Unity desktop on a personal subjective level and don’t think a Unity desktop should represent the face of the Linux desktop. This was a lot less of an issue back when we just had GNOME 2 and KDE, its a problem caused by the much broader choice we now have. Lets not forget your own words from back in 2005 or something “fuck a bunch of KDE, everyone should just use GNOME, push the efforts of the community in one direction”. I hope you changed your opinion since then but you must see why some people take this mentality.
Well that was a lot longer than I thought it would be, perhaps you disagree with these points however I hope you can see the complaints about Ubuntu are not purely the baseless spite towards the market leader. Canonical don’t owe us anything, however basically everyone joining this community comes through the Ubuntu front door, when Ubuntu doesn’t offer them the best experience and the shortcomings of Ubuntu are seen as the shortcomings of “Linux”, lots of people get upset.
There are decent counterpoints I’ll admit, like all the stupidity about the Amazon integration, anyone who ever refused to recommend Ubuntu based on that is a moron. I never said there was no issue of baseless hostility, just that I disagreed that it was as prevelant as you seem to think nor that it was the primary threat to open source.
When it comes to what I think the primary threat to open source is, I think there are two things.
Firstly it’s actually having a selling point. Windows isn’t a POS anymore. Viruses are a much less notable threat + Linux has taken a couple of security knocks lately. Windows is cheaper than ever. Things like a decent CLI and virtual desktops are actually being implemented in Windows. If Linux couldn’t overcome the inertia in the time of Vista how can we get marketshare now?
Secondly is about the whole definition of “threat to open source”. I think we forget we’ve actually won most of the “fights” open source is involved in, just not the one most of us care about - the desktop. With the “death” of the PC I think we should be more worried that our battlefield actually survives let alone who wins the fight. Because of this I think we should work on the things that are furthest from the capabilities of a cloud or a mobile to ensure the PC actually maintains relevence. That’s why I think we should ally somewhat with Microsoft, for they seem to be up shit creek without a paddle with regards to getting out of the PC business and have no choice but to fight to keep their market and thus themselves alive.
Did he get his payoff?