And how many desktop Linux users do you know outside of the IT department besides a simple web-browsing box some guy set up for his Grandma?

Because pre-installed Linux desktops just fly off the shelves. Please. The only widely successful end-user Linux environment for daily use has been Android.

Both Linux and FreeBSD desktop users are a minority that few care about. Though if you count the Sony PS4 as desktop FreeBSD usage then it will soon trump Linux. Market share is a lame argument, FreeBSD is a great OS that is better documented than Linux and has several advantages as well as Linux binary compatibility with native performance.

Oh, and in fact, if you try to run an X11 app without XQuartz installed on 10.9, it will ask you if you want some help installing XQuartz and will direct you to a site to download it.

ML removed the old stale obsolete Apple-branded X11.app. It did not uninstall XQuartz. And XQuartz is quite actively maintained. Does the average kid running GarageBand need it? No.

It's been an optional install from the beginning because most folks don't need X11 apps. Native mac ports of apps are much nicer most of the time and pretty easy to find. Running legacy X11 apps is not something most people need. But if the need arises, you can, and it works REALLY well. LOTS of people run command-line FOSS tools under OSX though.

Apple solved the crappy UNIX desktop environment problem. They just didn't give away the source. I don't care if software is FOSS or not however. If it's good, I'll use it. If the price is too high, there's plenty of ways around that issue that any 14-yr-old kid with a web browser can find.

I'm still a little confused as to why the Linux crowd didn't just adopt launchd from Apple. It's open-source as well and while "different" it's launch scripts are readable and it does its job quite well. Personally, I prefer the old BSD rc scripts but I can tolerate launchd. Systemd looks like a far bigger mess and will end up fragmenting quite a few projects. I imagine GNOME functionality under FreeBSD will take a nosedive. systemd seems very "Un-UNIXy".

As long as systemd support remains OPTIONAL in X.Org I'll be a happy man. It's times like these I'm glad I'm a BSD guy.

Funny until you consider the amount of OSX users running XQuartz. Most desktop BSD users migrated to Macs. All the FOSS goodies you can shake a stick at *AND* a native commercial desktop productivity/graphics/audio software base that isn't a joke. Not having to jump through hoops to exchange data with the rest of the world is nice.

Nah, they'll do their best to bury this tech so they can justify giving their pet video streaming services priority and throttling others in the name of fighting network congestion even though their network was largely built with public funds.

"Normal humans are effectively excluded from developing software. The real injustice of developer inequality is that it doesn't have to be this way."

Yeah, it kinda does. Face it, computers are the most complex machines ever designed and implemented by mankind. There is no way to make them much simpler without losing functionality and breaking a lot of things we take for granted.

I'm excluded from practicing law and medicine.... OH THE INJUSTICE. I should be able to take a 2 week course and read some picture books and perform surgery, right? IT and development are professional fields that require extensive training. Get over it.

We tried making programming accessible to the common man. These efforts were called things like BASIC, HyperCard and Applescript. And you know what? Common people couldn't even hack it with those. And they were braindead easy to develop in. They were fairly slow but novices could go from blank slate to working program quickly. And still..... most "normal humans" were confused.

"Normal humans" don't see how complex even basic tasks are to the computer itself. They think programmers just punch keys and click all day and it all comes "naturally". They think the job is easy. Computers are insanely complex. GUI's have just made the problem worse because the common misconception is that computers are "simpler" now.

The "normal human" computing skillset consists of opening Word or double clicking the blue E to get to facebook. Sorry, I don't want these people writing software. Most of them have no interest in writing software, either.

The biggest "injustice" is that IT/development folks are generally excluded from any other field after dealing with IT/development for a few years unless we can pull an MBA out of our ass. We are "excluded" far more than most others. And the common line of thought is "this stuff should be simpler so we don't need those weird IT people". The reality is "simpler for end users" means insane complexity under the hood.

There's one problem. $19,000/yr is *NOT* a living wage in the *ANYWHERE* in the US anymore. I've studied my whole life to get as good as I am at my craft. I shouldn't be forced to support a family of 5 on what basically amounts to minimum wage because some desperate Indian guy will do it for $8.00/hr.

I don't expect 6 figures (and don't get anywhere near it) but being able to own a home and make car payments with a white collar position should be expected. $35,000 to $60,000/yr for skilled tech talent that is hard to find in my area is not an unreasonable demand and I shouldn't be threatened with outsourcing for simply wanting to feed my kids. I don't want wealth. I want an existence where I don't have to struggle to simply survive ALONG WITH the high-stress common in IT positions. We are not unskilled labor. We are highly trained. We deserve a living wage.

In short, tailoring job ads so that ONLY an Indian guy would qualify and low-balling salary to the point where Americans could not AFFORD to take the position without living in a homeless shelter is a scumbag move. I sincerely hope folks doing such things choke on their f**king dinner.

I'd say we need to unionize but the problem is that IT departments are so small they can be replaced on a whim (at least it looks easy on paper to bean counters).

That's funny, because no one else at my office wants a MacBook Air because they are too different from what they are used to. I have a MacBook Air and an iMac because I want a stable UNIX desktop with native MS Office without the constant hell of keeping a Linux box updated and dealing with apps that use a different UI toolkits. Like it or not, as far as commercial UNIX desktops go with a decent library of well supported common desktop applications, Apple is really the only game in town unless you just want to run Windows in VirtualBox.

And the Macbook Air isn't exactly poorly specced and it's QUITE well built. Sure you could probably find a cheaper PC laptop with a slightly zippier CPU but it still won't be quite the same machine. Apple does have some things going for it.

So, a quick, light, very thin dual-core mobile UNIX workstation with an SSD that I don't have to dick around with much to get a great productive system.... I'll pay an extra couple hundred for that. Some of us actually have work to do and don't want to have to jump through hoops to exchange data with others at work yet still want a UNIX box. We also want an OS that doesn't feel like a constant beta release with apps using a dozen different UI toolkits. Being able to run X11 apps if needed is nice too but that's usually not necessary.

Basically, Windows is ugly and inadequate for some of my needs, Linux/BSD kinda suck as desktop OS's, Sun is dead, SGI is dead, Oracle is evil..... doesn't leave you much choice if you want a ready-to-roll UNIX box these days that has the backing of any prominent commercial software vendors like MS or Adobe.

You jest but it's happening.... Subway recently dumped them as a POS supplier and will not support any new Micros installs and are hesitant to support older ones. They moved on to HP and Par. We went with Par for what should be obvious reasons for our locations.

Personally, I think Windows-based POS systems are a catastrophe waiting to happen. Doesn't matter who the supplier is, the OS vendor remains the same in most cases.

If Subway ported their POS software to run on top on Linux or BSD I'd be a much happier man and sleep more soundly at night. The Par POS hardware is awesome, various retail chains' choice of OS and lack of sensible security practices is still as much a problem as it was with Micros.

Depends which version of the M-1 you are talking about. The carbine fires .30 Carbine, the Garand fires .30-06/7.62x63. The AR10 and M14 fire .308/7.62x51. Russians typically used 7.62x25 (aka .30 Tok), 7.62x39 and 7.62x54. There's LOTS of .30 cal rounds out there.

As far as 9mm goes there's a TON of different sizes. .357 Mag, .38 special, 9x17/.380ACP, 9x18 Makarov, 9x19 Luger, 9x23, etc, etc. To make matters even worse, some of them are even interchangeable to a degree. 9x18 pistols can fire .380ACP in some cases. .357's can shoot .38 special in a pinch, 7.62x25 pistols can often shoot 7.63 Mauser cartridges, etc.

Basically, if you don't know what you're doing and rely on a stamp on a gun to tell you what it shoots..... you should probably find a different hobby.

MOST of what the NSA does is illegal SOMEWHERE. Violating the laws of other nations still makes you a criminal organization.

Yeah, because every applicant the NSA receives is 100% honest. In fact, I'd assume most that were THAT honest would never be hired. One would also have to assume he successfully beat a polygraph as that's a typical requirement these days.

I'm sure he would have clearly got the job and we would have found this information out had he been completely honest. The NSA are a bunch of traitors and their corporate lapdogs in the US telecom industry deserve everything they are getting for essentially whoring themselves out as NSA thugs. Personally, I'd trust just about ANY individual before I trust a damn thing the NSA says.

No love for WindowMaker anymore?

Agreed. Choosing to ignore mountains of well-researched evidence because you don't believe in observable fact due to conflicts with your "beliefs" handed to you by your mommy and daddy would lead me to believe you have no place in the scientific community.

It's like choosing to not believe in gravity which would also would call any of your work into question.

Religion should be classified as a mental illness. Willful ignorance is not a trait most look for in research.