I would argue that any majoritarian electoral system (winner-takes-all), including ranked choice, incentivizes large parties. There is some nuance between them, but I don’t think that ranked choice can fundamentally solve that issue. Sure, you can enter a protest vote, but will it really change anything? I think that parties need realistic changes at gaining (some) power in order to be viable in the long term.
Would you mind explaining how introducing ranked choice voting would substantially help smaller/additional political parties? I always find it confusing how much Americans focus on the presidency and ranked choice voting when it comes to breaking the party duopoly. At the end of the day, there is only a single president and he/she will probably always come from one of the largest parties. The presidency somewhat inherently limits the influence of smaller parties.
What I would focus on, if I wanted to increase the number of political parties in the US, is the House of Representatives. If proportional representation (e.g. biproportional appointment, party lists, MMP, …) was introduced there, it would allow smaller parties to hold real power. (With biproportional appointment, the seats are distributed according to party voter share while also ensuring regional representation). Do you know why this hardly ever comes up in the context of the US?
The GPL (and AGPL) do place some restrictions on how you can integrate it into another application but this doesn’t have anything to do with commercial use.
Basically, if you create a derivative work and publish/sell it, you also need to license it under the AGPL. In case of the AGPL it also applied if you use it to offer a service. But if you only use the unmodified version (same source code) and the intended application interfaces, this does not apply.
Running the application on Windows is clearly allowed. The second case also sounds ok (allowing this is kinda the point of FOSS). However, if you create an improved version of PDFCreater, then you’ll need to publish it under the same AGPL license.
I’m not a legal expert, but the AGPL seems to be quite clear on this point:
- Basic Permissions.
All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated conditions are met. This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program. […]
You may make, run and propagate covered works that you do not convey, without conditions so long as your license otherwise remains in force. […]
However, depending on the exact thing that they said, they may be in violation of the AGPL. Once they have given you (conveyed) a copy of the program, they cannot impose a license fee for the use of the software.
- Automatic Licensing of Downstream Recipients.
Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that work, subject to this License. […]
You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License. For example, you may not impose a license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under this License, and you may not initiate litigation […]
Switzerland has since introduced a law that changed this to self determination.
Unfortunately, more sustainable (e.g. organic) farming practices generally do not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions [1]. The main issue is that these methods reduce crop yields and thus have a higher land use.
[1] L. Smith et al. “The greenhouse gas impacts of converting food production in England and Wales to organic methods”
Weird, they certainly claim so on their US website:
Available countries and regions: United States, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Singapore, […]
I think that the Minisforum UM690/UM790 are looking quite attractive for their price points, if you’re looking for something high-end. $520 for an 8-core Zen 4 barebone. I haven’t bought one though, I’m just using an old notebook.
This “new law” was passed more than a year ago… But, it’s still a step in the right direction.