Here's one of the better criticisms of dropping SUID, and it's from an Openwall developer. These criticisms are echoed by almost everyone thinking about removing SUID.

BTW Fedora 15 is also dropping SUID, so while Openwall is the only current distro. It's by no means the only one in development. Ubuntu is also removing SUID, but I don't know their timetable.

This is incorrect on two levels. First, you only need to make the changes available if you distribute the changed code to outside parties. Second, you only have to make the changes to those outside parties, not the general public. However, those parties are free to redistribute it, so this really depends on your customers.
At my company, we have modified several GNU tools, and we haven't released any source code because we use them internally.

Personally, I favor BSD-style licenses over GPL. Yet, for internal applications there's very little difference. BSD just allows redistribution without source code.

Pillaging means removing resources from a location to enrich yourself. This is not pillaging because the resources are being used in the combat theater, and furthermore, they are not being used to enrich anyone.

Actually, it doesn't. Yes, it takes "time" for humans/bees/whatever to calculate the lowest cost route, but when studying algorithms, it doesn't add anything to the complexity. Since finding the quickest route is really like sorting, you get O(n Log(n)) which is contained in P.

Back to TSP, the additional routes don't even matter, because it's illogical to ever take an inefficient path.

I don't think you really understand systems administration. 'Users,' or in this case admins, don't typically do stuff once. Furthermore, they need to know what he did and how to do it again (i.e. new server or whatever) or just remember what he did.
One-off stuff isn't common and is a sign of poor administration (i.e. tracking changes and following processes).

What I'm trying to get at is that admins shouldn't do anything without reading the manual. As a Windows/Linux admin, I tend to find Linux easier to properly administer because I either already know how to perform an operation or I have to read the manual (manpage) and learn a decent amount about the operation (i.e. more than click here/use this flag).

Don't get me wrong, GUIs can make unknown operations significantly easier, but they often lead to poor process management. To document processes, screenshots are typically needed. They can be done well, but I find that GUI documentation (created by admins, not vendor docs) tend to be of very low quality. They are also vulnerable to 'upgrades' where vendors change the interface design. CLI programs typically have more stable interfaces, but maybe that's just because they have been around longer...

Why would it be anything other than a standard Amazon/iTunes MP3 download? It's not like they are going to mix a better quality free digital download, and provide additional bandwidth for you to download it.

I would tend to agree with you about Apple's contributions. However, they are currently in a spat with the FSF over the GCC project. The FSF runs GCC and requires copyright assignment for all code contributions. Presumbably this is so they can quickly upgrade to the newwst GPL license (the Linux kernel is configured almost the opposite way, making the "upgrade" GPLv3 a non-option). Apple has spent a lot of time improving the Objective-C compiler in GCC, but isn't going to assign copyright for that work.
What this means:
1) All code created by Apple is still GPL (not sure of version). Copright: Apple, Inc.: Licensed: GPL.
2) Apple's code is not merged to the official GCC source tree.
3) Not really any user disrruptions.
Mac OS X/iOS are basically the only systems that use Object-C, and Apple provides the best implementation of Ojective-C via Apple's source tree. Other GCC-using platforms probably won't go through the effort of merging Apple's patches, but it's not likely that their users would even be interested in Objective-C.

Really the only thing that matters is that the FSF and Apple have not done a good job of working with one another.

Otherwise, Apple does a good job of working with free software projects. I think one of the best examples is CUPS. About three years ago Apple purchased all of the CUPS code. Apple has kept the project open, and nothing bad happened. Granted, there wasn't much fear of anything bad happening, and CUPS isn't exactly breath-taking technology, but everything worked out great.

So why don't they just use their formula to compute the last digit of Pi already?
That would be the rational approach. Who cares about the two quadrillionth digit??

We could link to Mark's actual blog post http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/517 instead of linking to some crappy IT World "article."

The main problem here is foreign students. I recently graduated from the math department, and many students had basically no understanding of English.

I really disagree that non-English-speaking students should be allowed in American universities. I just didn't get the feeling that they participated in the classroom at all. However, that's not how things work, so I'll be more pragmatic.

Since there are many students with little understanding of English, there are ESL departments that can be good resources. They might have a recommendation on acceptable translators. And, while it might not help you right now, you might be able to convey recommendations (ex. no network capabilities) that the university can provide to incoming ESL students. Then, you won't have as much of a problem in the future.
If it really turns out to be a problem, then in addition to spare calculators, you might need to provide a few spare translators that students can use if they forget theirs or bring an illegal one.

The problem for Apple doesn't have anything to do with their "walled garder." That's an issue for users, not content producers.

I do agree that Apple (and Google) won't get good content deals. The movie/TV industries have realized how badly the music industry got raped by iTMS. Digital downloads are way up, but they just aren't making very much money. Why on earth would movie/TV industries want any piece of that pie. Decreasing prices is certainly good from a consumer POV, but from a producer's view it's bad, unless you can make up the revenue in increased sales. I don't think the price-points exist to make ATV or GTV profitable enough to entice content producers to make "all" (or substantial parts) of their catalogs available.

Content industries are successful because they know how to segment markets. Slashdotters hate it, but that's the way the business is done.

But this doesn't make any sense. Windows 7 is almost brand new. You can't emulate a brand new design so it's comfortable for new users.

I think emulating Windows' DE, but I understand that it could help very ignorant users, although I would seriously question the wisdom of moving them to Linux. However, emulate something familiar like Windows XP.

While I mostly agree with your analysis, I have to put my two cents in.

I think the defining characteristic of fantasy is a reactionary ideology. That is, "fantasy" has some status quo, which is good, peaceful, etc. Some evil emerges that wants to disrupt this harmony, and the entire struggle is basically to return to the status quo. I use the term "evil" because there's no better way to characterize the baddies. Every minion is complete evil and deserves to be washed from the earth/planet. My favorite part is that the good guys technically more closely resemble antagonists (they don't "change" and in fact oppose it); whereas, the bad guys are usually trying to overthrow some thousand year-old harmony, making them protagonists.

Sci-fi is more difficult to characterize. There is certainly my definition of fantasy in many works; however, there are many other outcomes. Fantasy tends to ignore the complexities of real life, and glosses over any complaints that the enemy may have by painting them as completely evil monsters. Sci-fi tends to ignore many of the complexities by internalizing them in technology/"science," but actually presents them to the viewer, although usually in a sock/quirky-value sort of way. Fantasy breaks down if one side isn't evil and single-minded.