Whether or not a specific scenario is allowed isn't really the point, they claim the license doesn't exist. It does exist. Perhaps the restrictions are excessive in its usage but to say it doesn't exist is either willful stupidity or a bald faced lie.

If an app wants to lose out on "conversion" they should be allowed to. I'm a die hard google supporter but this is just lame. Google's forcing devs to pay higher rates and trying to pawn it off as being for the developers own good instead of google's own wallet. I don't want to start hating google as they've done lots of good but this is dancing with evil.

Considering there is gross negligence in the article I don't think he's wrong to be a 'chump' as you put it. As an SPLA provider I can confirm there IS a win7 license available under SPLA. The article the person points to glosses over the licenses existence because he can't get an answer from microsoft on how to use it. So he gets a shitty rep and suddenly the license ceases to exist. So yeah, this article is full of bullshit and never should have made it to the front page. Sending emails isn't going to get you through the bureaucracy that is Microsoft, you pickup the damn phone and talk to your SPLA rep and request one of the license guys like I have in the past when trying to clarify MS's lame ass licenses. Being unwilling to do the legwork to get the facts doesn't give you the right to pull shit out of your ass and claim its reality.

The question was does anyone know anyone who was sued. Not can anyone prove without a shadow of a doubt that they know someone who was sued, we'll need you to pee in this cup as well please. If someone wants to be a douche and lie, so be it, but an A/C claiming to know someone is a valid, if unverifiable, response.

At my work we buy them in the 100's but never in quantities smaller than 20 at a time for testing. They're awesome drives. Don't blame the drive manufacturer because ups/newegg/mwave/frys plays football with your drive before you get it. Buy them in 20 quantities and you'll see they rarely fail. In truth, I have yet to run across a drive manufacturer with a failure rate significant enough for that to be the reason we changed drives. Although there have been a model here or there that were just .... wrong. Hitachi 1TB drives were as horrible as they come. On the other hand their 2TB five platter drives are my absolute favorite.

'Well-designed operating systems do not have any "hardware abstraction layer"' No. Its a basic choice OS designers make when creating their operating system. Microsoft believes they should be able to change their kernel willynilly without having binary drivers fail after every update. Linus is ideologically opposed to that so Linux requires the method you describe. It is not "well designed" its *ideologically driven* so that companies can't release binary blobs easily. Linus believes if you aren't willing to share your source, gtfo. I can respect that, but when someone like you comes along spouting it as a superior *technical* design it's like someone going on about how great and objective Fox News is.

"A decade later, Unix-like systems have vastly superior GUI". I'm sorry, but no, maybe on a single monitor compared to *XP*, but I use Win7, gui design is a moving target and Unix still lags behind Microsoft which lags behind Apple. Also, good luck getting 4+ monitors working on *nix without tweaking a single thing, windows? no tweaking needed beyond simply dragging the monitor around so it mimics the physical layout. I love linux, but it is far inferior to windows as a desktop OS unless you're using it for ideological reasons, which I can respect, just don't claim its easier to use or superior by default. I'll even acknowledge your own desktop might be superior, but its because you put the time in to make it so, by default its crap. Yes I know thats the whole point, but if the *nix desktops can't have decent defaults and require tweaking every time ... f'that.

I guess we will simply have to agree to disagree on the virtualization front. There are people who need to run ancient operating systems for legal reasons. They can either keep running them on ancient hardware that hasn't been made in ages or they can run it in a virtual environment that never needs to be changed. I see virtualization and its bastards as wonderful things, yes they increase complexity for the system developer, but they simplify it for the users, and frankly, the users are more important.

At the core of your argument is that you only 'value' some particular quality but not another and you have the gall to speak like you're an authority on the matter "it's important to explain to people who don't know better", the arrogance of that statement is truly amazing. We know it isn't the authentic item, that in no way diminishes our enjoyment of it. That's like saying because grape juice exists suddenly an aged fine wine has had its existence devalued.

Storage is part of the discussion as you want things to be publicly accessible until they are destroyed. The current consensus is we don't want that, which you have been arguing against.

The people 500 years from now judge whats important in 500 years. We store cultural artifacts for them, not us. What is the limit for storing cultural artifacts? Those in charge of storing those artifacts will decide that. Why do they have a right to decide that? Because those who owned the items and donated them to the archive gave them that right.

You're only looking at this from only one angle. The angle of replicas on display in museums, and you protest as if this was something new. It isn't, museums have been showing replicas for as long as they've existed. Virtually every dinosaur display is a cast of the real thing. The world you think exists is already mostly a dream. The difference with this though is we can have our own copy where before the process was so expensive it wasn't possible. You don't value this, I don't begrudge your opinion on the matter, but don't you dare say its worthless because YOU don't find worth in it.

Fools being foolish doesn't undermine proper usage. Just because some people parrot a saying to pretend they know what they're talking about shouldn't mean those who DO understand what they're saying aught to be called out for using proper language. As for the reason for the insistence of proper usage. It's because the very foundation of our society is based on these words, it is the DNA of everything we do. If people want to discuss things using modern definitions it should be laid out at the beginning of the conversation, never assumed. Otherwise two people can have a conversation where both sides 'agree' with each other and yet in truth are vehemently opposed to one anothers positions.

You're speaking of what laid the ground work for what eventually became HAL, if you want to be that pedantic about 'virtualization' then I can see why you took issue with me lumping OpenVZ and KVM together. I don't see why such a narrow view of the term should be used, no benefit is enjoyed by restricting it to that extent. Virtualization in the modern era of usage covers hardware and process virtualization. The hardware abstraction layer is its own thing now and no one would consider it 'virtualization', hell I'm going to guess you don't even though it pretty much sums up what you're saying with only some theoretical differences, practically its exactly what you described. Perhaps those of us who lump them together are wrong and we should get off your lawn ... or perhaps you should adapt as that's how the industry uses it. Or have you side stepped the existence of VPS providers? Or are they just "wrong"?

I wish that was true :(

I see your viewpoint but 'archaic 250-year-old definitions' as you put it is *very* important. How else can we know the meaning of what the founders intended to create if we don't even understand what the hell they're saying? The Constitution is a living document, not a mutant one.