Um, if their OS were secure, why would they need antivirus software?

"What's the point in locking yourself in if there isn't anything special about the hardware in the first place?"

Don't you remember Microsoft's campaign against "naked PCs" (i.e. computers sold without an operating system)? I'm sure that we'll see a similar campaign for OEM systems and motherboards set up to preclude installing a non-MS operating system.

Even if that were the case, it doesn't mean the compiled program will exhibit the same behavior:

#include

int
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
        assert(sizeof('a') == sizeof(int));
        return 0;
}

Yes, but you can't blame dmr for that.

I'd suggest reading the interview with Jon McCann, who heads up GNOME3 development and who brought us the "user configuration is bad, because the user will do evil things" gnome-screensaver. Note particularly the following:

"And I think there is a lot of value to have that experience you show the world to be consistent. In GNOME2 we didn't do that particularly well because everyone's desktop was different."

Neunundneunzig Muellbeutel?

Don't forget it's also a way to get someone else to do the work of indoctrinating the next generation into Windows.

I recommend Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Pay particular attention to the part where Mycroft is taught the difference between "funny" and "funny only once".

Yeah... It looks like I will end up going with Android for my next phone, even though its UI stinks on liquid helium compared with webOS's. OTOH, someday I may be able to buy a refrigerator that's easier to use than my phone. Great work, HP--and given that they're going for those niche markets, I presume they won't be open sourcing webOS either, which would be the one thing they could do to redeem themselves.

There probably will be a dead tree book--but I seriously doubt that you will be able to physically hold it in your hands for a significant interval unless you're a world-class bodybuilder. Note that the special edition of The C++ Programming Language is over 1,000 pages, and it's over a decade old!

"Open" in "Open Cable" essentially means "open to more companies than just the two that dominated set top boxes when the standard was developed" (Scientific Atlanta and one other, I think Motorola); it has nothing to do with openness in the sense we understand it, alas.

"Unfortunately on the internet - and in free software in particular - we have a lot of people whose voices aren't heard very loudly, and we have to take their needs into accounts as well as those who are vocal."

Go ahead and call them the "Silent Majority". You know you want to.

What really surprised me, though, was how he just came out and said you don't want to make it too easy to figure out how to change things, and that letting the user customize things is undesirable..."And I think there is a lot of value to have that experience you show the world to be consistent. In GNOME2 we didn't do that particularly well because everyone's desktop was different." I think that GNOME3 really carries through the premise of gnome-screensaver, another result of Mr. McCann's work--in it, the user is the enemy, and can't be trusted not to do something evil if you let him configure things, (Kind of like the justification for DRM, come to think of it.)

It will collapse when the young finally revolt over being taxed the amounts needed to keep the elderly living in the style to which they've become accustomed.

Some Congresscritter will come up with the idea of making everyone with cell phones, VoIP, and broadband connections pay even more to subsidize the dwindling number of PSTN users.

Isn't it more accurate to say they get screwed over if they don't install Windows on every computer they sell?