He claims that he tried to, but the prosecutor in Sweden wouldn't let him or even agree to a meeting with him or his lawyer. Eventually he asked the prosecutor if he could leave the country, she gave the all clear and he left.

Most desktop systems may have WINS installed, but those oh so important servers probably don't (why on earth would google install samba on all its linux boxen, for example?). Besides, you've somewhat glossed over the issue with "Write a resolver that mimics WINS to the client and then behind the scenes use a modern P2P encrypted network." That's the hard bit - whether its DNS or WINS resolution is a mere technical detail. Building a system that can provide reliable, quick and above all *trustworthy* resolution over p2p is difficult. I hope he/they can find a way, but I doubt that they will.

This is a classic race to the bottom scenario: unless every country has the exact same tax regime, the argument that there should be lower taxes will remain - right up until there is no tax at all, and thus no - or very limited - government; a complete privatisation of the state. That may or may not be a good thing, but this also extends to 'hidden' taxes, like keeping a safe working environment, paying a fair wage and so on.

"TFS is based on SVN. Really."

Really? This seems very unlikely as there is no mention in the license and the repository is a SQL Server database. Even if this were true, Subversion is a technology that is in decline. DVCS offers substantial advantages.

"I'm really not sure where all the TFS hate comes from."

It comes from using SourceSafe, Subversion, ClearCase and, more recently, Git. Doesn't stand up to any of them except possibly SourceSafe - though that's hardly a great accolade.

"It's heavily integrated with VS..."

And that's part of the problem. What if I don't/can't use VisualStudio? For example, our database design is done in Erwin. The hoops we have to go through to make sure that TFS doesn't get its knickers in a twist! Maybe its because Erwin generates binary files (TFS sends the whole file not diffs, which makes the whole thing even slower than it is normally). In contrast, Notepad++, WinMerge, File Explorer and even VisualStudio seamlessly integrate with Tortoise/SVN making my workflow seamless and painless. The difference between the two is striking. Another example: We generate SQL scripts from Erwin and then check these scripts into TFS. When TFS sees that these files have changed (even though it is usually just the date stamp that has changed), it will download all the SQL scripts (there are lots of them!). For some reason this process takes 10 times longer than a normal refresh - I can wait 20 minutes for it to complete, instead of about 2 minutes. Why does it even need to download the files that are the same except for the date stamp? 20 minutes x once a week x a four year project... Wow, what a waste of time!

"Check out/check in seems like a tedious process"

Check out/Check in IS a tedious process when you realize its completely redundant. TFS has an option to remove this requirement, however management seems to think this is a good idea as 'it helps avoid merges'. Face/Palm. Case in point: Our developers are split across two sites, and I often fly between them. While working on the Subversion based project, I worked on the plane. My workflow was essentially uninterrupted. Now I'm working on the TFS based project, I am forever having to bring up file explorer to change Read/Write permissions. If I want to add a file to a project... well, its easier to wait until I arrive at my destination. With a DVCS my workflow would be *exactly* the same - and I'd even have a full history of all the files!

"There is no integration with Windows Explorer."

Yes, there is if you install the TFS Power Tools. I don't recommend it though as it seems to screw the performance of Windows.

TFS is not a source control system, its a developer control system designed to allow middle management to fiddle with security, lock files and generally dick about with the development process. If you really want that kind of functionality, I'm sure there are better ways. Avoid at all costs.

Not the GP, but as someone who has used several VCS, I have to say that there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING to like about TFS. Its nearly as bad as VisualSourceSafe, and I'm not joking when I say I think they built a .Net service to wrap a VSS back-end. Besides the god-awful performance (it is sloooooow), you can't work off-line (which is great, because TFS will often stop working), the user interface is random and inconsistent (some places will let you view a file's history, others won't for example). It has an obsessively complex security model that, no doubt, keeps middle management feeling all warm and fuzzy - but often breaks. The integration with Windows File Explorer is bat-shit-crazy and SLOOOOOW. The whole system seems to try and track all local changes, in real time, and fails - editing a file with notepad instead of in VisualStudio/TFS will confuse the hell out of it. Getting latest version doesn't always get the latest version - we've got used to using 'force get latest' and risking over writing local changes. And that's before you consider that the technology, even if it worked well, is a decade or more out of date! Oh, and as an added bonus, your code and history gets locked up in a proprietary format. Avoid at all costs.

I really am regretting ever creating a Facebook account. If things carry on in this direction, I shall delete the thing soon.

They may well try that, but I doubt it'll work so well. Unlike the 80s, computers and phones are always on, always networked. To patch WordPerfect to run on the latest bastardization of MS-DOS required manufacturing and distributing disks; to patch the iPhone and Android requires an over-the net update that could be ready in less than a week. An inconvenience, perhaps. A show stopper? Not so sure. They also run the risk of tainting Windows as being the source for the problem ("It still works with my iPad!", "No problems with Ubuntu"...).

I agree with up until the point where you said that business owners should be responsible. I think this would not only seriously harm businesses, but is also unnecessary. There are a number of ways a corporation could be punished. Instead of prison, a corporation 'does time' as a state owned business; Instead of a death sentence, the corporation is shutdown and all assets sold off with proceeds to government and the victims of the crime. In the former case, shares would be suspended for the duration of the sentence. In the later case, the company would be de-listed and the shares would be worthless. In my opinion this would provide the benefits of limited companies, while also allowing the state the right to punish corporations when they break the law. It still leaves the small issue that companies are, in effect, immortal. That alone gives them immense power...

• Noise
• Heat
• Battery life
• Noise

No, really, all the spinning fans and disks in modern PCs give me a headache. If SSDs go some way to getting rid of that noise, I for one, will be happy.

I may be misreading the events here but as I understand it when this goes through there will be no more Novell. Its just a question of who buys which bits.

Bear in mind that when a hard disk fails you typically loose at least some of your written data, and in worst case scenarios all of it. You won't be able to write to certain areas when an SSD fails, but you can often still read the data. So, yes, SSDs might fail a bit sooner, but its usually not critical like a hard disk fail.