It usually takes more than three days to hack anything which flaws aren't by any means evident. It sure shows the voting machines are quite secure, but does that really show that they are "unhackable"?

Yay!

Yes, but remember the bar is being set by MS at this time since they have 95% marketshare or so. So while it's definitely nice when Linux does something much better than Windows, you have to place priority on achieving parity in all aspects of Windows vs. Linux so that more people can switch. It doesn't help if you spend all your time optimizing some little feature to be 100% better than Windows instead of just the same, when there's some other major problem that's going unfixed and causing people to have to use Windows. There's only so many resources.

I get your point. I don't really know MythTV project, I just has have seen it and heard about it. But I do participate in a few other projects, I never mistreat any noobs or people looking for help. But I'm not always helpful either, and keep it to myself sometimes. Sometimes it's because I'm just tired. Sometimes it's because I sense the guy is gonna ask me to tie his shoes for him next (and also because I'm tired. I'm usually tired :p). If jackasses get under your skin like that, then you're in trouble, because the OSS world has a good amount of them. You must come and show people that you know what you're talking about and provide every proof you have in a (if possible)followable way. Because those same jackasses might not really know the project in depth as they might appear to (even though because some projects are just too damn big). So don't expect that. They might just be repeating to you the troubleshootings some other dude in the development wrote in the wiki because so far it seem to have worked every time, and they don't care(or don't know at moment how) to analyze it a whole lot. It's always good to start assuming that even though they are the ones caring the thing on, you just might be seeing what most of them don't. And therefore be assertive about it. It's also always good to consider that the person who might actually know about that part of the code is not available at the moment, so writing it in the mailing list might elicit better results. All in all, what I'm saying here might not be applicable, the structure, the way a project is carried on, the people etc, may change from project to project, so follow your own head.

Things have been cooling down in the last few years. But microsoft used to ferociously attack the open source world. Or you don't remember? They were ruthless, bullies really.. they would go on the press and unprovokedly say flat-out lies just because giving OSS a bad reputation in the "computer layman world" was good for[their] business. That among other things. This didn't happen once, twice or trice.. it happened many times throughout the years. I think yours is a good point, fighting microsoft shouldn't be the focus, but fighting back may still be necessary.

and some showed up just to be rude.

I would never have believed that people in the Linux community would show up at an event just to be rude. I've always heard such glowing praise about the Linux community. They're always there to help the new guy, willing to mentor those learning the "So simple a caveman can do it" operating system and break the monopoly of Microsoft once and for all.

His comments can't be correct. Everyone knows what fine, upstanding individuals the Linux community is.~

Steve Ballmer is a business guy and the CEO.

Ray Ozzie is the tech guy and the chief software architect.

Bill Gates was actually replaced by the two of them working in tandem.

Do these guys even research a little before they make these retarded articles about how an already huge company that tripled its revenue in 10 years is doing poorly?

The current CEO of Palm is the inventor of the ipod, not Steve Jobs. While at Apple Steve Jobs sent him out to find a hot product to make and he found the 1.8" hard drive at Toshiba that was considered a waste of resources and about to be killed. He made the ipod around it. iTunes came from a company Apple bought and they just renamed the software.

iTunes took off because Microsoft couldn't get their DRM strategy right and iTunes worked out a good deal with the record companies. the Ipod was one brand from a company everyone knew.

the iphone was a sales disaster until they cut the price and added the subsidies from AT&T. even then it was a slow niche seller until the 3G came out with the AppStore and Exchange support. the fact that you need a Mac to code for the iphone and the Vista PR disaster helped drive Mac sales. Otherwise they were flat for most of the decade since no one in their right mind would pay the premium for Apple's usually slower hardware. Now that the PC market is maturing it's becoming more vertically integrated like any maturing industry and Apple is there with a complete product while MS sticks to it's OEM model.

if you compare the specs than the iMac's are competative against Dell/HP and in some cases cheaper. the MBP will be competative once the next refresh comes. it's worth it getting a Mac since it's the only decent desktop ^nix and there is no crapware like on Dell's and HP's

But applying the same logic, we should go back to manual in a whole lot of other areas where things are nowadays totally automated.

Whatever the potential problems I still believe it works better than the traditional voting system. If not, people should be questioning the widespread use of web banking or software in airplanes too. I'm not saying I don't think those are as secure as it gets(more than humans anyway), but the interesting point is that it seems to interest some of those with power that voting machines keep being unreasonably untrusted while some other more complex systems not.

The outcome of this contest doesn't prove much really. But as I heard their development is solid, just like bank websites or airplane softwares.