I've been using Linux as my daily driver for 30 years. Oh sure, I had to dual boot from time to time to use the very last of the straggling applications, until I finally found quality equivalents for all of them.

Intuit, Adobe and all the incumbents spent billions upon untold BILLIONS to keep users like me trapped. And they lost.

Games run like a Swiss clock factory on Linux.

And as an added bonus: no progress bars, obscure meaningless error messages or popups.

They'll wring the last few cents out of their accidental deal with IBM, and then Linux and its equivalents will sweep DOS aside for good. The world will be a much better and happier place.

I escaped. I no longer need Windows for anything. Including:

1. Adobe Creative Cloud (I use free equivalents)
2. Quicken (I wrote my own equivalent).
3. Games, including Microsoft's OWN games (they run smooth with all the graphics options turned on with Wine, Proton, Lutris, Steam, etc.)
4. Development (nobody develops anything on Windows anyway)
5. Writing (Emacs for an author is incredibly powerful)
6. Video creation (faster and more stable on Linux)

All those billions spent on lock-in

I suppose I could keep a potato around with the billywindows installed on it, but it can't disrupt my work or interfere with my schedule any more. It can't destroy my work either. I also don't have to endure six progress bars every time I try to do something.

As far as this little gray duck is concerned the OS wars are over, and Microsoft lost huge. Good riddance.

It does not become a "work" until it is copyrightable. Slapping a few words together does not constitute a "work" as it is understood in Title 17.

I do intellectual property for a living. Give it a rest.

There is no such thing as a "non-copyrightable work."

Same shares up almost 16%. Sorry if you popped all your champagne.

Any original (or otherwise eligible) work fixed in a tangible medium is copyrighted automatically under the United States Copyright Act of 1976.

Access any Big Tech(tm) site on phone "5G" connection: instant.

Phone video playback on Big Tech: instant.

Access my own e-commerce web site on the phone: 20-30 seconds minimum, even if 97% text.

Access the same site from a wired connection: instant.

All this posturing is bullshit. 5G is bullshit too.

If you don't have a Big Tech URL, your site is already fucked.

No matter what your job is, if the cash register does not ring, you do not get paid. Ever.

Let's see, all the power plant employees got fired. All the suppliers lost a major customer and naturally had to lay off thousands. Plus we didn't get to build the batteries, so no jobs for Americans there either.

0 + 0 + 0 jobs for Americans

Right in line with the agenda.

Let's spray salt into the air! That won't cause saltwater rain, will it? Because what would saltwater rain do to the environment?

Just remember kids, every time an American loses a job, an overweight, pasty rectangle-head gets his bonus.

Millions of highly trained and highly educated Americans are sitting at home arguing with an ATS firewall.

Exactly as designed.

> Who is giving you the money you need to make your car and house / rent payments?

My customers.

> The students that drop out still need to earn some sort of a living.

That's nice. Not my responsibility.

> we'll do absolutely nothing and let the drop-outs become criminals

First of all that's a false dilemma. But better if that happens off campus so the students who do want to attend can accomplish something.

> That is how you wash your hands of the responsibility, isn't it?

It was never my responsibility to begin with.

> Question is, would you really want to live in the resulting society?

Only difference between what I propose and what is happening now is the people who don't want to be there are fucking up the schools so nobody can learn.

Give them the option to attend trade school or join the military. That or compulsory community service. If they fall through the cracks after all that we did our best.

Yeah. Libraries. They have these things called books which you can use to learn about important things that happened before 2013.

Perhaps if we encouraged their use a little more often, we wouldn't have half the adult population living as functional illiterates.