I'm pretty sure that by "off the grid" he meant someone that the feds weren't already watching. There are plenty of people who have never committed a crime before who might be dumb enough to buy supplies with a credit card.

I am getting started on contributing to Libreoffice, and I can can tell you for sure that there are currently no plans that involve getting rid of Microsoft format support.

While I agree that it sounds like he probably shouldn't do it right now, your argument is wrong. Sure, they already have licenses for Office 2007/10 and windows 7. However, they don't have licenses for the next version of Windows and Office that they'll end up having to get when Microsoft eventually drops support for Windows 7. Many times you need to upgrade before support ends.

Also, what about the next version? And the next? And what about the future cost of trying to get all the old Microsoft Office documents converted, since they will no longer work with the latest version in 10 years.(Ever tried to open a Word document from the 90s in Word 2007/10? It isn't pretty. Hell, Libreoffice supports old word documents better.) Oh, and I guarantee that Microsoft will change the Desktop and/or Office GUI in the future, so you still have training costs. At least, my organization spent quite a bit of money training users on Windows 7 when they moved to it.

Basically, here is my point: Migrating to Linux will likely cost more and cause more frustration in the short term. However, it will save money and save frustration in the long term. (Especially if long term >= 10 years)

http://www.esecurityplanet.com/features/article.php/3910891/Android-Code-at-Risk.htm seems like a better article to me, as it actually gives you information. For instance, to answer one commenter I saw, it mentions that the code from the vanilla linux kernel has fewer flaws than the code that is Android specific. It also mentions this gem: "We found that the Android kernel had about half the defect density that you would expect, compared to other industry average codebases of the same size," Andy Chou, Chief Scientist and co-founder of Coverity told InternetNews.com."What that means is that a defect density of one defect per approximately one thousand lines of code is industry average, according to our measurements – for the Android kernel, the defect density was about 0.47." According to the same source, the defect density if you look at Android only code is .7 per a thousand lines, so still below the industry average. In short, Android is more secure than most other kernels that Coverity has analyzed.

I'm brand new to the international internet "scene", yet I understood. I'd never seen anybody use periods as thousands separators(yeah, I'm from America), but I managed to get what he was saying pretty easily. That being said, it would be nice to use -something- different for the decimal point or for the thousands separator, so that it's not the same.

I apologize, that was supposed to say "They commonly say "we support (insert open standard/free software product here)." And just an addendum, if we didn't use "loaded word usage" we would simply be ignored. Just because you think it is fine that the millions of FOSS users could not use YouTube/wikipedia(if they didn't make this stand), doesn't mean we agree.

Well, they are supposed to be open standards supporting. They commonly say "we support ". So yes, I would say that using a codec that free software cannot ethically use would be betraying the community that they make use of every day. They use our software to make money, and this is the best possible way they could give back.

I found it more convenient to post my thoughts on my blog, but basically it wraps down to this: Google will support an open codec or they are a traitor to the community they say they support. Here is the rest: http://fossstudent.blogspot.com/2010/03/googleyoutube-and-h264.html

Even if this did work in theory, someone would think of a way around it. We'll never be completely safe from malware, no matter what security mechanisms are in place. It's like in physical security, security system companies come up with new locks, and thieves come up with new lock breakers. Unless we brainwash the entire population of the world to be nice and not try to break systems, there will never be a conclusive way to detect malware. Oh, and wouldn't his method for detecting malware be horribly intrusive?

Yeah, messed up there... meant to put "little comments link"

Heh, well i just hit the little link and then hit the link at the top to go back to the main topic... then sent a e-mail to /.