Google.

All the issues you worry about are due to DRM issues. Not ebooks. EPUB is much better than ASCII. Hell you can read them in a web browser if you unzip them. Each section of the book is just XHTML.

DRMed ePUBs books don't use Adobe Reader. They use Adobe Digital Editions and there is no Linux version.

The user experience is good if and only if you are only going to read your books on the Kindle platform. As soon as you want to read your books on a Linux box and/or with free software, it now becomes a pain in the ass. None of the books I've bought (that I read on my Kindle) have come from amazon. I've gotten them all from publishers/retailers that use ePUB/Digital Editions from which I strip the DRM and convert to mobipocket format for the Kindle.

This would only hold true in a DRMed world. Without DRM, its so trivial to copy and backup books that they'd have a far higher chance of surviving than a paper bound book.

The Kindle can read DRM free mobipocket, and it's pretty easy to convert from epub to mobi. On the otherhand, it would be nice if I could just drag and drop epubs onto my kindle without the conversion step.

Look everyone. He shutdown the debate about whether we should use Amazon's services by pointing out an obvious bias about a business entity.

Didn't you hear? All security problems can be solved with hash functions.

s/have idea/have no idea/

The only thing virtualization has done for me in my organization is give me access to more hardware that would otherwise be monopolized by a bunch of underutilized Windows file servers.

Most people around here have idea how any of these things work beyond the marketing brochure level with pretty layer-cake diagrams. In reality, the only thing between you and "them" is a couple of integer values sitting in RAM and tons of point-in-time incomprehensible logic manipulating them.

Virtualization in no way increases security beyond what adding any other software layer could. At best, it doesn't hurt security. At worst, multiple systems can be compromised via a simple hypervisor breach. All it takes is a buggy device driver.

Decimal representation was a epic mistake in the first place. First, there are more characters to type. Second, constantly having to do base 10 to 2 conversion is a PITA. Base 16 to 2 is trivial.

Access control lists down to the atomic level along with encryption is the answer to every security problem. Neither one of these things work when the user himself is responsible for maintaining them. Installer: Do you want to install cute bunny screensaver overriding all security measures that would otherwise prevent said installation? User: Clicks YES button. Types in admin password.

No they can't easily "just" relicense it. They'd have to track down everyone that ever contributed to the project and ask permission for their changes to be relicensed.

The only freedom is restricts is restricting others' freedom.

Obviously the only reason you'd want to make an improvement to a piece of GPL'ed code is because it was valuable to you in some way. If it were not, then you would just go find a different piece of code that wasn't GPL'ed. So you take this valuable piece of code that you can't find an alternative for or write yourself, and you make a change to it that want to keep as secret sauce. For some reason, even though you see no problem with having this opportunity yourself, you believe your rights are being stepped on because you can't prevent others from having the very same rights you had.

But I think all this talk of personal freedom is bullshit to begin with. What you really want to be able to do is pass off others' work as your own in the form of proprietary software while charing monopoly rent prices on it.