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I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

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Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#311

Post by bongodongobob »

SoftTalker wrote: post #295
bongodongobob wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I refuse to believe there are adults out there where things like using a pen to write and mailing a letter are alien concepts that need to be learned. Well, believe it. I'm in my 40s and haven't written a letter since I was a kid. Why would I ever have to? Ask someone who was born in 2003 if they've ever written and mailed a letter. 99% are going to say no.

I just sent in my taxes by USPS mail a couple of weeks ago. Long after online payments were available, I would pay my monthly bills by writing checks and sending them in the mail, as that process actually took me less time than logging in to five or six different websites and navigating through their online payment flows.

That's very uncommon. All my bills are set to autopay on my credit card. Who manually pays bills? You don't need to click the buttons every month.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#312

Post by nullhole »

Suppafly wrote: post #271
BalinKing wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never realized that “LETTER” in that error referred to paper size—no printer I’ve had has actually given that error, so I only ever heard about it through oblique references to Office Space and such. It makes so much more sense now…

The 'PC' part is paper cassette, it's the printer literally telling you to load letter sized paper into the paper cassette, but everyone acts like it's some mysterious message that's impossible to figure out.

Well, PC also means Personal Computer, and letter also means element of alphabet, so it's not like there isn't room for confusion

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#313

Post by dbrgn »

dharmab wrote: post #112
maccard wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never written a check in my life.

How do you pay for things above a few thousand dollars? I guess if you don't ever buy a pricey car or own a home you wouldn't need it.

Many people in Switzerland love to buy used cars with cash, even if they cost a few thousands.

(But we can also just scan the QR code of the recipient's bank account with the e-banking app and initiate a transfer that way.)

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#314

Post by eru »

palata wrote: post #117
NoboruWataya wrote: post #3

Not sure if it's being exaggerated for comedic purposes but it is interesting to me how alien the act of sending a letter by post is to the author. Granted I don't send them very often but I wouldn't think much of it if I had to. But I guess younger people and particularly those in tech may genuinely never need a reason to send a letter (or, it seems, write an address by hand).

Agreed. I am a millennial, so most likely older than the author. Not having envelopes at the ready is one thing, but ordering stamps... on eBay??? And then wasting a few envelopes because writing down the address is unusual? That kind of blew my mind. I am a software engineer, and I always have a paper notebook and a pen next to my keyboard to write down stuff. I guess this all tells me I'm getting old :-).

> And then wasting a few envelopes because writing down the address is unusual? That kind of blew my mind.

Some people really have terrible hand writing. And dyslexia is a thing, too.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#315

Post by returningfory2 »

crmi wrote: post #215

> After a few weeks of waiting, I eventually received the ‘African Daisy global forever vert pair’ stamp which was round! I should have noticed that the seller sent me the item using stamps at a much lower denomination that those I had ordered. Oh well. Wild that so many commenters don't see the satire dripping from the post. Is it just a UK thing to never take things at face value?

I don't understand the satire, can you explain?

We can't see the full set of "lower denomination" stamps on the letter, but I'm not 100% sure it's actually lower denomination. The sender of the stamps seems to be using the "2 domestic forevers + some amount of cents = 1 global forever" formula. I think the UK sender didn't need to include _two_ global forevers.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#316

Post by eru »

grishka wrote: post #229
palata wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I am a millennial, so most likely older than the author. Not having envelopes at the ready is one thing, but ordering stamps... on eBay??? And then wasting a few envelopes because writing down the address is unusual? That kind of blew my mind. I am a software engineer, and I always have a paper notebook and a pen next to my keyboard to write down stuff. I guess this all tells me I'm getting old :-).

I'm also a millennial software engineer but I usually write stuff down to text files. I do use pen and paper to draw things if that helps my understanding of them. Like when there's geometry involved. Sending letters isn't an alien concept to me either. I'm old enough to have done it regularly as a kid. I especially liked the part where you have to write the zip code in those machine-readable digits.

> I especially liked the part where you have to write the zip code in those machine-readable digits.

How long ago was that? The machine have gotten really good at deciphering regular handwriting quite a while ago.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#317

Post by returningfory2 »

returningfory2 wrote: post #315
crmi wrote: post #215

> After a few weeks of waiting, I eventually received the ‘African Daisy global forever vert pair’ stamp which was round! I should have noticed that the seller sent me the item using stamps at a much lower denomination that those I had ordered. Oh well. Wild that so many commenters don't see the satire dripping from the post. Is it just a UK thing to never take things at face value?

I don't understand the satire, can you explain? We can't see the full set of "lower denomination" stamps on the letter, but I'm not 100% sure it's actually lower denomination. The sender of the stamps seems to be using the "2 domestic forevers + some amount of cents = 1 global forever" formula. I think the UK sender didn't need to include _two_ global forevers.

Indeed, the formula is correct. Wikipedia maintains a list of historic Forever pricing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_posta...

From the blog, the letter from California was dated April 2022, at which point the rates were domestic = $0.58 and global = $1.30. So the California sender correctly attached two domestics valued at $1.16 total plus an additional $0.14 to make $1.30.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#318

Post by collinfunk »

craniumslows wrote: post #184
roywashere wrote: post #98

That reminds me on the time the FSF moved, they changed their address, and the open source product I worked on had to change their address in the license notices in our product: https://github.com/moritz/otrs/commit/e845575e1848fd0124fb8d... And of course, as happens more often, this issue was raised to us by Debian developers, who care a great deal about 'correctness'

The FSF offices have moved again if you weren't aware. The new address is Free Software Foundation 31 Milk Street, # 960789 Boston, MA 02196 USA https://www.fsf.org/about/contact/mailing

In Gnulib we distribute and use the license with just a link to https://www.gnu.org/licenses/> [1]. I would just use that.

Many GNU projects use a rule that will fail 'make distcheck' when it sees an address in the sources [2].

[1] https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnulib.git/commit/?id=bf31... [2] https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnulib.git/commit/?id=086c...

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#319

Post by cortesoft »

davisr wrote: post #273

This is funny because I was the operations assistant (office secretary) at the time we received this letter, and I remember it because of the distinct postage.

What sort of request volume did you get? How many per day were you sending out?

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#320

Post by yyhhsj0521 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #263
programjames wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone born in 2003, I did this just last week when filing my tax returns.

You file tax returns by post? What country? Do they charge you extra to submit by post? That's crazy to me - tax returns for our micro-business and personal tax has been online since at least 2005.

I had to file my tax by postal mail in the US. Granted there is the option to file online, but that only works for ~80% of the people when things are completely within the intended domain. I have just one extra item outside of standard salary slips and some investment income, so I had to file physically.
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