Oh come on. Do you really think I'm not aware of LibreOffice? I tried opening some .doc and .docx files recently with it (version 3.6.2) - it was able to open them and show things mostly like they do in Office 2010. But it's that mostly bit which is the problem, and I don't care about whether it's Microsoft's problem or not, the fact remains that it's not a perfect replication. This might not be an issue for certain documents but it certainly increases the odds that it will chew on something critical later down the track. We don't need that level of uncertainty.

Oh, and things like WordArt and borders are sucky in LibreOffice. Writer has Fontwork which is similar, but nowhere near as flexible or pretty (and any Word documents which use WordArt will not render properly in Writer). The borders also aren't as good and Word documents don't transfer properly when using borders from Word. These might seem like "minor" things, but it's an accumulation of "minor" issues in LibreOffice that make it less useful for us than it should be.

I don't' know why people in the FOSS community can't accept the fact that free software often has deficiencies, and those deficiencies can't always been ignored or worked around (or it might not be worth the effort to do so).

That's nice. In the real world though what does that mean in terms of available options? Windows, basically. I'm not going to play keyboard/mouse heavy games on a console, plus user mods are kinda out of the question on consoles anyway.

Also, Windows isn't just for games. I use productivity software that doesn't have a comparable feature set in Linux - IrfanView, MS Office, FL Studio, the Adobe Creative Suite, Visual Studio, the list goes on. Games are a big part of it, but even if Steam gains ground in Linux it's still not enough since I'd miss out on the above software as well.

Did you know, Adobe Acrobat has the ability to analyze a PDF which is compromised entirely of scanned pages from a book, perform OCR on it and then actually allows you to perform regular text searching in it as well as highlight and copy the bit-mapped text from the PDF as if it were actual ASCII text? This is frankly amazingly useful for my wife as a lot of the supplied source material for her Masters course is presented in PDF image format. NOTHING like this exists in Linux because Adobe haven't ported Acrobat to Linux, and there are no alternatives. At this point there's no way I'd want to move her to Linux if she can even get this feature any longer (not to mention Office of course).

So yes the prison might exist. But we live in an imperfect world - we have to compromise sometimes in order to get what we want.

I just want to address one point in your post:

2. Aesthetics are subjective. I find aero to be gaudy and ugly. The older win2k/nt4 look was much cleaner and faster. Layout wise, it was far superior as well. Windows 8 borders on useless except for extremely simple tasks. I also find OSX and linux gpu accelerated desktops to be slow and ugly too. Seriously, I don't want all these needed fades and transisions and other stupid shit. I want it to respond. Instantly. That's just me.

There is no rule that says you can't have a fast, responsive desktop with a GPU accelerated desktop. Heck, if you're using Compiz it's damn easy - turn off the Animations plugin. Animations and transitional effects are just easier to apply to an accelerated desktop, but every operating system has a method for disabling them. A CPU accelerated desktop has the benefit of being able to incorporate Expose-style functionality, clearly peak behind windows using variable transparency, zooming in onto part of the desktop quickly, plus others. Not to mention alleviate the CPU of doing the rendering when your GPU is just sitting there.

But then, what would I know... I'm just an engineer, not a politician or an executive

In my experience, it's extremely unwise to use your title to validate your opinion as if it matters more than someone elses. I'm an engineer too, and I've seen and listened to the rambling of enough fellow engineers to convince me that we're no smarter than anyone else, or more immune to the stupid of human nature.

Not to say your position is wrong, just that invoking your title probably doesn't help.

Well by the time that happens, Windows 8 will either have been (officially) patched to incorporate less Metro and more traditional desktop UI (or provide the option to do so anyway) or Windows 9 will have come out and strip out Metro as a failed experiment.

Either way, if it still requires moving from Windows 7 I'm OK with that, since I never buy Windows and it's damn easy to pirate if you know what you're doing.

Crysis has DX9 and DX10 modes. I definitely notice a difference in DX10 - shadows are more defined, the motion blur is actually not annoying since it blurs at different amounts depending on distance - hard to describe the difference but it certainly looks nicer, and the lighting is a bit more effective.

Deus Ex: Human revolution has DX9 and DX11 modes. DX11 allows tessellation, which means things like ears and collars appear as smoothly rounded surfaces rather than sharpy cut. Shadows and depth of field are also improved, and the delay between alt-tabbing from the desktop back into the game is reduced significantly in DX11.

So some of the benefits are subtle yes. But they are cumulative, and the summation of all these little improvements add up to an overall better experience. Having said that, rendering technology has definitely not matured since we're still effectively performing hacks to get 3D worlds to work. Ray-tracing engines with real-time performance is the next big step.

Why thank you, I enjoy life as a prisoner. It helps me play a lot of games and ensures I don't have issues with file formats that everyone else uses. It's fun to be locked up! :)

I'm not sure you understand. The whole point of DirectX is that it allows for a standard API that graphics card vendors and developers can rely upon. This way, you don't have to make dedicated NVIDIA or ATI or Intel code paths to deal with the specific implementation of those vendor's features (something that's STILL an issue with OpenGL extensions).

NVIDIA and ATI have their own proprietary implementations of stereoscopic 3D, and this can be a headache for developers. So, if DirectX takes control over the stereoscopic 3D API, developers can then target DirectX 11.1's implementation of stereoscopic 3D and all NVIDIA and ATI have to worry about is how to modify their drivers to make it work on their GPUs.

But big studios make all the fun games. Sure, indie developers make standouts from time to time (Amnesia, Braid, etc), but I like Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dishonored. These are way too involved for an indie group to make. And since it's not going to make one lick of difference if I send them an email or not, I'd rather just do what's necessary to play them since we only live once anyway.

Sounds like a lot of time and effort expended into getting what you were already used to with Windows.

I tend to agree with him. I have yet to find a Linux DE that has the right balance between having too many options (KDE) or too few options (GNOME), while still having a modern GPU accelerated desktop which looks slick (Windows 7). Besides, the advantage is my wife can use my computer efficiently because it looks pretty much the same as her computer (and no she could never run a Linux distro - she's a teacher, schools use Microsoft Office, and I don't want to cause added stress by making extra work for her).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model#WDDM_1.2

Sounds like a key feature of DirectX 11.1, the stereoscopic 3D rendering, is a feature of WDDM 1.2 and given WDDM 1.2 is only available in Windows 8, that kinda ties DirectX 11.1 to it as well.

Windows 7 uses WDDM 1.1. Could Microsoft safely update this to version 1.2 such that DirectX 11.1 could be made available for it as well? Probably (Microsoft developed it all, so there's no reason why they couldn't). Would it be a worthwhile investment for them to do so? Probably not; they're having enough trouble getting people to want to use Windows 8 as it is - forcing people to shift to it in any way possible, no matter how slimey, is not above them.

I doubt it'll matter much though - you'd have to be particularly crazy to develop a game that requires DirectX 11.1 any time soon. especially given the backlash against Windows 8.;

Amusingly enough, if one takes your post and your sig and swaps the order around (plus a little editing), you get this:

"It is now safe to switch off your computer."

r2d2 falls into a deep sleep...

Well I suppose I must know how to use Windows better if I choose malware-free software. I will admit this is a skill that comes from experience, but I have a LOT of Windows experience and see little point in switch from something that works so damn well. Windows 8? It can go to hell. Hopefully Metro fails and Windows 9 allows for a more traditional desktop operating system.

I actually donated to Linux Mint about a month ago, and yet I've given up Linux (again) for Windows 7 (again) due to a lack of comparable software (no, 80% functionality isn't good enough compared to the 100% I get with Windows unfortunately). So I feel kinda stupid for donating and yet still abandoning the operating system. Then again, I do appreciate Linux on an intellectual level so hopefully it helps.

Well I wasn't aware of this issue before I purchased it, and it's not a big enough deal to go through the effort to return it (particularly since it was bought online). I mean, it's just something that I see as a negative with a product that overall is fine for my purposes. But aren't I allowed to vent just a little bit?

FWIW - I'm part of the engineering community (FPGA and embedded systems developer), but I don't want to have to hack or reverse something just to get what I want, even if I can. As for the type of posters on Slashdot - well, my signature I hope explains how I feel about the quality of posts here (sometimes anyway).