What many people miss out is that many middleware libraries these days allow for easy porting between Linux, Windows and OSX. Most big titles aren't locked to a single platform, either. GTA V is out for both XBox 360, PS3 and PC. That means there is an OpenGL version and any Windows-specific functions are hidden away in a software abstraction layer. That in turn means a Linux port (as in, get the damn thing up and running on a Linux box) is not only feasible, but could probably be done by two programmers in one months' time.

There are also a bunch of promising kickstarter projects, nearly all of them promise a Linux port these days. Games like Planetary Annihilation[1] or Mighty No 9[2] have got Linux ports out of the box and would be available on Steambox with 99% certainty.

So, yes, while there is a cost to porting, it's not half as huge as it used to be and it gets smaller all the time.

[1] http://www.uberent.com/pa/
[2] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/mighty-no-9

200 launch titles is nothing to scoff at, actually...

Not quite.

Imagine Youtube. You post videos, right?

GMG is like Youtube. Except, you don't only post videos. You post one item, which can be any number of different media - an article or "blog post", a song, a video, a 3D-rendered image, a video game... Anything. People may comment on this item to say "Wow, nice job" or "Eww that sucks!"

Now, further imagine that all files are hosted on your own equipment.

Now, further imagine that there are thousands of these servers, and they all speak to one another, and they never require you to sign up for anything in order to comment and create "video responses" and whatnot. Sounds good yet?

1. Stop trying to control the non-commercial filesharing. The damages to creators are, at worst, about as big as trespassing on private property that isn't near a house or is actively exploited - like say, a forest. The positive effects, meanwhile, are huge and not to be neglected. Instead focus on the commercial filesharing efforts and the people making money on protected works without sharing those profits.

2. Lots of works can no longer be used because their right holders cannot be found (orphan works). In order to solve this problem, copyrighted works should be registered or face a very short copyright term on e.g. five years after publication. An extension of this idea is that economic copyright should only be allowed as long as the copyrighted works do have a substantial value, therefore we have a yearly fee of 2^x where x is the number of years a copyrighted work has been published. This ensures orphaned works become public domain, but it also ensures that copyrighted works that no longer have any commercial value also falls into public domain.

3. Copyright terms either need to be severely reduced, or there needs to be an exception clause for archivists, museums, libraries and the like to let them complete and create as complete collections of works as possible, lest our entire culture from the fifties and onward disappear.

Just a couple of ideas to get started...

Copying a file is as much stealing as walking on private property is. It may be a crime but it isn't theft - it's trespassing.

You wouldn't walk on someone else's lawn now, would you?

Dude. I know what I see, and compared to Windows, Ubuntu really has it beat.

Name any hardware older than six months and chances are, Ubuntu supports it out of the box. Hardware just works, except for the notable exception of graphics drivers.

On Windows I need to run around and hunt for tonnes of software and serial numbers and whatnot. On Ubuntu, I can just apt-get it. On Windows I usually spend the first hour or so uninstalling all the crapware, though granted, crapware isn't Windows' fault, it's still a huge annoyance I do not have to deal with on Ubuntu.

Sure Ubuntu has it's warts - but for the average user? Set it up once and it just works until the hardware finally wears out... :)

"Average people have ZERO desire to use the command line and ZERO desire to edit conf files by hand. Average people want something that works, has simple buttons and icons, and is backed by good CUSTOMER SERVICE..."

So why on earth are they using Windows, which is more or less a piece of crap in all of those regards? Also I've found Ubuntu to be a much more user friendly and consistent experience than Windows alternatives, once you get over the learning threshold.

I do agree Apple is sexy-schmexy - It's like driving a sports car with an automatic gearbox and it's easy to control - as long as you're not riding on a dirt road. Problem is, as soon as you need to go on a dirt road, that car will show it's warts. But if you don't expect to be driving dirt roads much, then by all means run Apple! More people than you think need that dirt road functionality though...

Hey, every guy (and gal) needs a hobby! :D

Emails are sent in the open - like postcards.

Incidentally the spam filtering is only a service provided specifically because you as a customer demands it. It's easy as hell to opt-out should you want to.

Small/Medium Business

No, but we're discussing the second Death Star and the shield generator around it, not the Battle of Hoth.

The shield generator on Hoth, incidentally, protected the planet from orbital planetary bombardment. It did what it was supposed to do, but could not stop ground troops from coming down to the surface and destroy it.

I'd say that the web technologies of today *is* broken - but it's more because of what the web has evolved to than anything else.

The original web was never supposed to be dynamic. It was supposed to be static pages with maybe some theming thrown around for good measure. And for a while, that worked, then came requirements of theming (CSS) and form handling (PHP) and cool effects (JS).

These days however, it's all about webapps. Few if any sites have static content, it's all in a database somewhere. HTML is merely an afterthought; noone cares whether HTML validates or not, because the pages aren't static and shit just works. The entire "presentation vs content" that was going on doesn't really exist anymore - The content has moved to the database and HTML is today only used as a presentational language. Sad but true.

Therefore I think we need to rethink and reinvent the entire web as we know it, since the current path will only lead to more and more brokenness. HTML has outlived it's purpose, it's as simple as that...

Nono... That's TROLLS!

Gnomes are small cute persons. They're even smaller than halflings.

Sheeesh, kids these days...

So, by creating MIR Ubuntu contributed to Wayland by giving the Gnome devs a big kick in the butt?

Well played, Canonical, well played! :)

And for the record, as long as both MIR and Wayland are more or less interoperable I don't care what's behind the hood. Both are open source and will be solid by the time they come out, so may the best implementation win. A little competition every now and then is just healthy.

Hardly. Google is also such an indexing service. Just google for whatever with the name torrent behind it. I can assure you it will be at least as effective as TPB.