I'm always entertained by diehard linux folks who simultaneously desire greater adoption of linux on the desktop while wildly opposing any actual steps to make it a reality.

No reasonable person would cache credit card details. It's not exactly the type of data, regardless of its sensitivity, that would need to be cached anyway. Let's face the real issue at hand: There is a *huge* market for anti-Microsoft "journalism." You monkeys will piss pageviews on anything that makes any absurd claim, and you won't think twice about whether or not it's credible.

I got four words for you:
GNU Image Manipulation Program

Yes, because once you reach your destination, all you have to do is look in a phone book under "dope" to score some weed. Either that, or yell very loudly in a crowded area, "DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE I CAN FIND SOME WEED?"

Anyway, after years of smoking "dope" myself, I'm still able to use the correct version of "you're" in my writing.

Overall, you make good points, and I agree with you except the quote above, which is the meat and potatoes of the argument.

The reason adopting H264 is the pragmatic choice is because the vast majority of mobile devices have hardware support for encoding/decoding H264. How many people are going to adopt FireFox mobile if it can't decode H264 video? Software decoding WebM would not only be absurdly slow, but drain the battery extremely quickly. H264 has become a defacto standard because of its technical superiority. In order for some open standard to even begin to supplant it, it will need to be superior in some fashion, beyond just being free of patents.

Your particular example isn't one of pragmatism, it was of necessity. Some people needed a modern browser on a non-Windows platform, or a browser that was more secure. Comparing this to the current H264 fiasco is apples and oranges. H264 is still technically superior to open alternatives. What they are trying to do is shove their ideology down their user's throats.

The death of FOSS is going to be the inability to adopt pragmatic solutions to problems, and instead trying to achieve some ideal solution that aligns with their fundamentally flawed ideology. RIP GPL, you've grown to old and stuck in your ways. The younger, better looking, not-as-cynical-and-angry bsd-style licenses are quickly replacing you.

Oh yes, because there are SO many jobs that require javascript experience and NOTHING else. You'll get laughed out of an interview if your only experience is with javascript and you don't understand simple, classical inheritance.

My bad, I was under the impression that people might desire marketable skills.

Oh, you're right. Javascript semantics are totally reasonable and consistent. It's the programmers fault that there appear to be a million nuances.

What would a wildly successful company who's invested heavily in javascript know about its shortcomings? You got me man, you got me.

Yes, what a wonderful idea. Teach people a language that doesn't use classical inheritance, that constantly violates the principle of least astonishment, and that google is trying to replace (and is hopefully successful in doing so).

Typical of slashdot, people are either ignorant to the fact, or ignore the fact, that the desktop interface still exists, and that metro is not intended to be used in a desktop environment.

4g does mean something right now. It means you can advertise a phone as have another "g." Regardless of whether or not you can use that fourth "g," consumers are generally idiots that are easily swayed by such things. It's got 4 g's? Well it must be better than a phone with 3 g's. It's got a 5 megapixel camera instead of a 4 megapixel camera? More megapixels are better!

Because once a 4g enabled iPhone is released, it will be introduced as being "revolutionary, the first to implement such technology." So really, the article is just forward-looking.