Mule sought for mysterious Chinese delivery

The Free Software Foundation is asking for someone travelling back from China to bring a small package back with them, presumably leading to some interesting questions at airport security. The request, posted at the top of the Gnu.org web site, simply asks if anyone travelling to Boston from Shanghai or Beijing could possibly …

[Richard]

Spy wanted for source code espionage...

Trench coat provided.

[Chris G]

Possibly

It is a pack of tea. I hear there is a shortage of the beverage in Boston

[Anonymous Coward]

Ermm...

"...not as risky these days as wearing a Transformer's t-shirt in an airport."

If I'd stolen a Transformer's t-shirt and was wearing it, I'd think it would be pretty risky no matter where I went.

[LaeMi Qian]

Quite possibly...

...a commercial CD with GPL-violating code on it and they need the physical CD as evidence (wired data wouldn't cut it as it is too easy to modify).

[heystoopid]

Sounds

Sounds like an opening chapter from an old John LeCarre(Smiley's People) , Alistair McLean or Desmond Bagley Spy/Thriller novel written way back in the sixties at the height of a fictional war that the west lost daily ! Since on the other side of the torn and very tattered curtain had the far better more professional trained counter spies unlike the vast majority of fools and dead brained wankers that were recruited in old blighty by the various even dumber and mostly stupid MI mobs , who lived in constant denial of that which was obvious from first principles always doomed to fail absolutely every time !

[pctechxp]

FSF and mail attachments

it probably wouldn't get through the People's Great Firewall

(Always intrigues me why the Reds think calling stuff the People's x makes it sound more acceptable, everyone knows that it's the communist's x)

[amanfromMars]

Jackasses .... the Reality.

I couldn't possibly disagree with that synopsis, heystoopid. First Class Working Heroic Brains would appear to be an Optional XXXXtra which Blighty Denies Itself in MIModules and in their Executive Mules.

QuITe why they would tolerate it remaining so, whenever it is not necessary, would be a question and a half to answer. After all, IT is easily fixed with a New Department with Alternate Briefing/DeBriefing/Accounting for Fact and with which they can Interact/Interface if you like, or in this case, if they like. :-)

One Trusts in Global Operating Devices that the Speed of Virtual Change doesn't unduly Tax the Burden of their Defaults, Dead Slow and Stop Forward Momenta, or else one might have cause to Ponder Moles in Places and Voles in Spaces which shouldn't be ..... for Incompetence is then all that remains to Focus on?

Although it would be Wiser and Kinder to consider Ignorance in AI Changing Perception Landscape rather than an Entrenched Arrogance in Status Quo Arrangements for its Presence.

[Ian Moseley]

Practically communist?

nearer to true free trade than M..ros..t!

[William Towle]

Practically communist?

...except the "F/OSS is communism" analogy was debunked some time ago.

Something like this: on one hand communism is an economic system based on scarcity, and on the other information is not a physical thing; it /can/ be shared with close-to-zero cost, without reducing the quality or total amount available. Since there is no scarcity in the F/OSS model, the comparison is unfair.

[Fuion]

@amanfromMars

An odd press release today:

"The 3 aliens have decided that amanfromMars have been granted power of attorney. Direct all further correspondence to:amanfromMars. amanfromMars will inform the 3 aliens in person when the mothership has landed"

[amanfromMars]

Re. An odd press release today

Fuion,

Have you forgotten to enclose something? I could find nothing remotely odd with that statement. Or maybe I'm missing something ? Sometimes I can be a bit Slow off the Mark with my Head in the Clouds thinking of AI Seventh Heaven and Hot Angels :-)