That's exactly the ownership that Microsoft is writing about. Do you want Facebook to be able to publish your photos even after you've deleted them (and possibly deleted your account)? The article also mentions Amazon's Kindle lending. Buyers of e-books want to be able to lend and resell their books, they want ownership.

Sure, all these things require DRM, but just because it can be used in annoying manners doesn't mean it's not useful for people in general.

These two plugins are must haves, IMO. Bar Tab needs a little massage to get to work in FF4 (there are details in the reviews) but that's detailed in the reviews on the plugin page (or use FF3). With them FF3 used under 300MB with tons of tabs, while Opera uses over 1GB for the same number of tabs. (I'm currently using Opera, switched because FF4 wasn't compatible with the plugins I wanted, but that's on a 8GB system. And I hate the memory footprint.)

Science is a matter of faith even to many scientists. Science may be able to back up a theory to an extent, but scientists use belief to take it beyond what science can prove, and look on others who don't believe in the theory as lesser people. An always topical example is how "global warming skeptics" are treated as heretics, but there are other (perhaps better) examples of scientists sticking to theories even when they start to lose favour.

People are programmed to believe. Science may be vastly different from religion, but trust or faith in both probably use the same psychological mechanism in most people.

Getting a separate phone line for work is one way to overcome this. I've known people with a work cell and home cell. Don't need it myself, but it depends on the job.

I've known people who work very long hours just so that they get away from their families. It's sad.

Some IT workers are already trolls, and it's best for their co-workers that they telecommute.

With a regular job you're often also expected to be on call 24-7, as well as expected to stay in the office at times for very long hours.

I agree regarding the family down sides, and I experience them, but I'd much rather have my wife take advantage of me being there than have her permanently dissatisfied because I'm never there to help with the kids.

As others have said, it depends on the company you're working for and people you work with, and it also depends on you. I communicate a lot with my boss over Skype, and I think our work relationship is very good. I also think that for every distraction you have at home you can be equally distracted at work. At home you might have a wife and kids, at work you might take extended coffee breaks with your co-workers.

From Ars Technica's discussion on the subject from last year it looks like Apple is actually considering open source in its license. The GPL is a special case, and IMO the solution should be similar to YouTube and copyrighted videos. That is, there should be a channel for the FSF or others to complain about GPL apps and for Apple to remove them as a result.

If by "Free Software" you mean copyleft, then yes, but that's simply because copyleft licenses (and in particular GPL) are limited in the usage they allow. The app store situation is unlikely to change and is likely to become even more common as the main computing platform moves further away from being PC-centric. IMO if GPL wants to remain relevant it needs to adapt. It should be possible to create a copyleft license which takes into consideration app stores and closed devices. Other source code licenses are compatible with these app stores, and might gain more traction if GPL remains incompatible.

I agree that angel'o'sphere overstated the complexity in some respects. However, you're also oversimplifying it. First of all, shouldn't every file in the source include the GPL license or a reference to it? That's a bit of work. Besides that, for many projects there's need to detail dependencies, get source codes from various directories into that archive, and so on.

IMO the most work is in making your source presentable. I guess that's why some open source comes uncommented, as it's easier to strip the comments out than to make sure they're relevant and readable.

There are also potential complications. For example if you become aware of stepping over a patent after you've first distributed your code, it looks like you could be in trouble.

On second thought, I take it back. GPL could probably be summed up by "make all your code available under GPL". While the distance between this and GPL is larger than between the other simplifications and their corresponding licenses, I imagine that no one will hold you to the finer details if you comply with this part. The complexity arises when the distinction between content and code isn't clear, as in the case of the web.

Still, more effort is required to comply than with other licenses, especially if you care about how your code looks to other people.

It's just my experience. Commercial libraries and code, even if they do have legalese underneath, are typically offered with simple explanations and detailed FAQ's which simplify the understanding substantially. I guess that's because commercial offerings sell the licensing terms and it helps the buyer decide which of several different licensing terms to get. I also think that these licenses, even in legalese, are simpler than the GPL. Some open source licenses may be simplified to "include this license text with your app" or "mention the original source of all the code", and commercial license may be "may be used by a single named developer" or "for one project" or "paying such and such royalties". GPL may be summed as "make available all your source code, distribute it all under GPL, mark and date any changes, and include the license." This is simplified to the point where it doesn't represent the GPL all that well, and still it's much more complex than other licenses. It also requires more work than other licenses to comply with.

That's why in my opinion using GPL code is a bad choice for many projects, including personal ones. The only reason I see to use GPL is if you are a proponent of this specific license due to the ideology behind it.

What do that have to do with it? If I use the code without upholding the license, then I can get sued, right?

When I looked at using a CMS for a personal website, I discounted any which used GPL3, because I couldn't be sure that if I changed a template I would need to make it available, not to mention doing a small code change. It's not that I mind sharing, it's just that it's a hassle and it just worries me that if I use a GPL3 CMS I'm opening up a pandora's box. I don't know if that's really the case, but because these licenses are complex to decipher and GPL has a reputation, it's not something I want to risk. So even though it's not for profit, and I don't have a real problem sharing the changes I did, I'd rather stay away and not be liable for anything.

The problem with many of the open source licenses is that they are complex. A commercial license to source code or libraries typically gives you simple terms: certain people can use the code for certain purposes for a certain number of projects for a certain amount of money. Some open source licenses, GPL in particular, contain tons of legalese and conditions which IMO makes such licenses best avoided by most developers, regardless of whether they're used for commercial purposes or not.

Minimising is obviously an important feature to you, but I rarely use it, so I'd appreciate it if you could tell me its benefit over just bringing the window you're interested in working on to the front.