Correction acknowledged and accepted.

Perusing this thread will tell anyone why Linux is not a significant player in the OS universe. Too much chaos, to many sharp opinions, jingoism... in the end, all that keeps Linux from being a serious contender beyond cell phones (where it is invisible) and scientists (who have certain needs).

There will never *be* a "Year of Linux".

Yet I'll keep on using customized versions of Linux for my own development needs, just like my wife uses odd and exotic materials media for her artwork. Linux/GNU/etc is an artist's tool, but it will never be mainstream or popular. Deal with it, be glad you have it, and quit bashing each other over the head.

Fascinating. I'm chagrined to have been ignorant of this. Thanks!

Like most protest movements, anti-Apple activism is likely unproductive and too focused.

HP, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle... do you really think all the other tech companies are innocent in such matters? Given that the problem extends beyond the tech sector -- are you willing to boycott your refrigerator, or your car, or your shirt? Picking on Apple is targeting an easy mark, one that probably has more to do with disliking Apple's image than it does with any real desire to help people.

I don't own or buy Apple products for a lot of reasons. Their use of asian semi-slave factories will not be solved by a boycott, simply because most people don't give a rat's rump. Consumers want their cheap toys, and the "don't give a shitters" outnumber indignant Slashdotters by hundreds of thousands to one.

If you feel that boycotting Apple is some sort of stand against naughtiness, knock yourself out. Delude yourself that buying an Android phone or a Samsung computer makes you holier the Jobs' army..

However, if you want to make a difference, get involved in the political process, as people did with SOPA/PIPA. Make a stink on the broader issue of companies selling product created by near-slave labor in dangerous facilities.Anything less is playing at activism, as if it were a shiney toy, puffing your ego because "I'm doign something" that costs you little and helps the problem even less.

Congratulations on codifying reality succinctly. Hell, this is how most projects work, political or otherwise: Shoot for the moon, settle for what you need.

Which makes me wonder -- why doesn;t the opposition do this? We need to demand freedom, push for flory, and expect to get bits back incrementally. Hell, we aren't goign to repeal the Federal Code, but we might just take a few bites out of it and start something positive.

Often, the best way to defeat someone is to use their own tactics against them. Vote, demonstrate, get involved, fight. Anythign else is just posturing.

Ignore the sheeple. They've been around since humans first evolved, and aren't going away anytime soon.

Bad laws do go away, but only with great effort, struggle, and sometimes societal collapse and rebirth. Humanity is due for a good colonic, IMNSHO.

Excuse me, sonny boy, but "younger" isn't the problem. Some of us old folk (aka, fifty in my case) know what the hell is going on here: We're all being frelled by morons and ignorati with this bill and other pieces of stupid legisilation.

I don't give a damn about who's on my lawn (literally, kids walk thru my yard all the time) -- I want these damned politicians out of my head, thank you very much.

You can't buy fast food with food stamps.

And I was talking fish and fruit. Chicken is packed with hormones; red meat is fatty and has other "bad" elements". If we're suppoed to be eating fish and fruit, that isn't evenly vaguely cheap.

I live surrounded on three sides by ocean.

Fish is hideously expensive, as compared to chiecken, beef, and pork.

Same thign for fresh fruit -- I live in a state (Florida) that produces lots of fruit, but the stores have incredibly high prices.

I know people on Food stamps (a large percentage of the U.S.population now, btw) -- and they can't AFFORD to eat healthy. There's a reason poor people are fat -- bad diet, because good food is too expensive.

I was never a huge fan of her works, just a matter of taste -- yet I appreciated her creation of female protagonists, and her depiction of dragons as allies of man.

A computer is a tool. Use the best tool for the job.

Windows is where I do most of the work that pays my bills (currently; that will change next year with a new project). I like Word and Excel -- there is no free alternative that comes even close to Office 2010 in terms of polish and functionality. And I game (WoW, Dragon Age, old games), .

I judge an OS by how much cussing I do while working with it. Right now, I cuss slightly less at a Kubuntu 11.10 box than I do at Windows 7. The difference is not enough for me to dump Windows.

For software development, I use both Linux systems and Visual Studio. Truly, Visual Studio is an amazing product; however, I'm quite happy and comfortable with multiple consoles, editor windows, and working from the console. Specialization is for insects, as Heinlein said. I'm very Buddhist in my approach to computing and software development; I use what works, be it C, C#, Python, or Javascript. My goal is to accomplish things, not fight some endless philosophical war that has no real meaning.

Sure, I could switch to Libre Office and run games under Wine -- but why? Just to make some political point? That would be stupid. Libre Office is clunky, less capable, and ugly when compared to Word 2010. Most of the stuff I do in Excel doesn't work in OpenOffice or Gnumeric -- lots of complex macros and formulas, DDE connections to live data (that is only provided via DDE)... and again, the "open" alternatives are just plain UGLY.

If I could have only one computer, it would be a Kubuntu or other KDE Linux system. Fortunately, I don't need to limit myself.

The Palestinians are hoisting the U.S by it's own petard. The U.S. government passed the 1994 law as a "do what we say or else" measure, under the false belief that this would force the UN to follow U.S. policy. Instead, the Palestinians are being admitted to UN agencies anway, and we're cutting our own throat automatically.

It's not the Palestinians who should be worried.

Bethesda is being stupid. Bad PR for them -- although the addicts will buy Skyrim anyway. Most people I know don't call Bethesda's games "Elder Scrolls"; they play "Morrowind" or "Oblivion" or "Skyrim". No one goes looking for "Elder Scrolls IV mods", they look for "Oblivion mods".

And only an idiot would confuse a collectible card game from and indie publisher with a single-player RPG from a major software house. By all the gods, am I going to be sued by Bethesda because my novels have mountains and scrolls in them? Sheesh.

While I'm sure Bethesda doesn't care about my opinion or my money, I will not be buying Skyrim, nor will I purchase any other Bethesda products, or products that they are involved in. I will, however, buy Scrolls from Mojang.

Microsoft supported it, Google opposed it. What more proof do we need that this act is evil? Propably none and even if some then not much. Nevertheless the articles linked in this story even if not bad in content still may be quite hard to follow for anyone who hasn't got an opinion on this matter yet. You can find much more information in the Wikipedia article: Leahy-Smith America Invents Act and even more in the articles linked in the references. I strongly recommend reading it all because otherwise we risk to draw uneducated conclusions from the aspects of this story that may seem obvious but actually are not that obvious for anyone educated in the intellectual property law. Some of the implications of that act would be rather scary so we really need to take some time to fully research the subject and unlike the Redmondmag, the so called "independent voice of the Microsoft IT community", the Wikipedia is actually worth reading.