If we think we might object to provisions we wouldn't like in the final contract, we'd better start objecting now. The end effect of such protests can only be positive for us, particularly because we often lack a direct input into terms and in the end are left with a thumbs-up-or-down; making a fuss early gives us some of the only kind of leverage we really can get.

If they contribute the least to global emissions now, their development should take the form where they remain contributing little to global emissions. Hopefully more advanced nations will be able to reduce their dependency on coal in the meantime.

In the last few years, Ubuntu and GNOME stepped beyond the useful compromise Unix made between suitability for technical people and suitability for average people, and leaned towards the latter with generally no good reason. Sure, Ubuntu was pushing for an alternative to the X Window System, but so were the Wayland folk, supported by GNOME. The GNOME folk have been toying with the idea of making systemd a requirement for GNOME, making GNOME infeasible on other platforms.... because apparently your window manager should have a dependency on your init scripts? GNOME has removed all the options that make it usable in GNOME3, while at the same time embracing unreasonable defaults and suggesting the community write extensions to make it usable again? And so on.

I suppose if we want everyone eventually running KDE on FreeBSD, we're well on our way there.

Imperfect doesn't mean worthless. If someone were to create a treatment that would cure almost all the people suffering from deafness, that'd be pretty great. Doesn't mean we should stop caring about the rest, of course.

Sorry to be the pedant, but that "disallow apps that can't be scripted" line seems kneejerk and fairly stupid. Scriptability is not a yes/no thing, it's a measure for how good an API is. If you just want apps that are minimally scripted, I'm sure you could make a platform where every app accepts a hello() message, and does a popup with that, but that doesn't get you close to being able to do neat things.

I suspect what we'd really like is more choice in programming languages on the phone and a cleaner split between UI and API.

I wonder how many people would write apps for such a device for free. I might, and the opensource community might too, but is that enough?

Ahh, so nothing that's actually important.

Why are composited desktops important?

Exactly right. When I started my current job, I had an iMac sitting on my desk; I was initially skeptical, but as soon as I saw the machine specs (as I was installing Linux onto it), I fell in love; it's a very nice machine, and my workplace had spiced it up further by putting a lot more RAM and disk into it. It's one of the most pleasant desktops I've ever worked with (and the resolution is amazing).

Losing my sight would be a very harsh blow.

It is not your place to speak for slices of the American people with such a light constraint. Whether I agree with you or not on the "enemies bit" is immaterial; we're a nation with a great variety of opinions and perspectives, some of which paid attention in history and some which did not but without that factor determining people having your politics.

The style of your rhetoric is reckless. If you're prone to such drama and sweeping statements, it doesn't suggest your arguments are well-formed.

Ownership and authorship are not the same thing. He was the author of the work regardless of whom he wrote it for. Others are not entitled to claim authorship, even if they can claim ownership.

Often if you're "causing offense", you're talking with a thin-skinned person who wields their pain and/or nuttiness as a mallet to shove others around.

You have the right to decide that you should be able to control how others speak; that their mouth is put on the earth for your comfort and not for their expression. You have the right to decide to nag people who have no ill will towards you into talking in ways that you like. You have the right to conflate past oppressors with modern folk who have no such intent, and to try to control the latter.

Doesn't make it cool.

I hope the voters abolish Ron and Rand() Paul at their next opportunity.

+1