I've never actually been able to get Linux to run properly on arbitrary hardware that I happened to own.

I, on the other hand, have run into one thing that Linux didn't work with. I have a collection of accumulated 'stuff' and just last night Frankensteined a PC together. I don't even know the model number of most of the parts. It's an Nvidia 8600 (something) video card, and a Soundblaster Live, I know that much. Worked just fine, no issues. (Streams PC games from Steam pretty well to the TV upstairs, too.)

I purchased a mid-high prebuilt 'gaming rig' a couple years back, and everything 'just worked', except the "SoundBlaster® X-Fi XtremeAudio" card. That was the 'one thing'. There was a config fix but I just pulled the card and used the onboard MB audio. Whatever that is worked fine.

Just installed Linux for my cousin this weekend. Some HP laptop, I honestly didn't even check the model. Everything just worked, including the 'scroll region' on the trackpad, and the weird 'slide-touch' volume control above the keyboard.

That's not what the shareholders want. They are in on the pump and dump scheme, the last thing they'd want is to end it.

That's only true because you can't get ANYTHING done anymore. Of course that also excludes the creation of any shitty code. If you can't get ANY coding done, it can't be bad...

Lobbying is, essentially, a necessity. Nobody, and certainly not politician, is an expert in everything. He needs someone to inform him.

The big problem with lobbying in its current form is that this information is, to put it mildly, a wee bit lopsided. At best politicians only get a skewed and one sided point of view on a topic from a lobbyist. At worst they also get bribes in different forms.

What we'd need is a system of experts that act as advisers. That's not really easier to realize either. Because every human being has an opinion. And few have the incredible integrity to argue against their own case just to present the facts of the other side.

Lobbies targeting voters can far easier be countered, especially with something like the internet at our disposal. Since it's unlikely that money could do the talking in such a case (and if, at least for a change everyone would get something out of it), what's left is propaganda.

And that will at the very least ensure that things will be talked about instead of hushed up, which allows us to at least weed out the most heinous crimes like TTIP.

Only if you also exclude "structural". Because our politicians actually have structural integrity.

Unfortunately. If they didn't, fewer would exist.

What's your position on this fad of appliances needing networking and whatnot other connections? Especially in the light of other devices (like routers) usually running something that used to be free software 'til the appliance maker got their hands onto it. It is likely that some if not many or even the majority of IoT appliances will run (allegedly) free software in one way or another, and most likely without any regard of the underlying licensing model.

Would you rather see it as a vehicle for OSS to move into everyone's home and literally become a household thing, or is it just yet another abuse of free software by makers of appliances who just like to cut corners?

Sorry, clicked the wrong article. Someone mod the parent of this one (also by me) offtopic if you have some modpoints to spare. Thanks.

When has this happened? I couldn't think of a single instance right now.

Well, technically, RMS has more similarities with Santa...

I shudder at the thought. Imagine people with lower coding skills who resort to cargo cult programming thinking that hey, after all, it's from the biggest OS in the world, it can't be bad code!

Won't fly. Despite all efforts to make smartphones anything BUT a phone, they still are. And hence you still need a carrier.

And carriers won't really enjoy the idea of NOT being able to lock you down to their contract.

Uh, do we have any REAL questions?

That's where pathogens are superior to us. They neither have politics nor religion.

Go ahead, I don't mind it. Hey, whatever floats your boat, who am I to judge someone's preferences?

But I'm also not insensitive to people not wanting others ogling them. I have to admit it would make me uneasy if someone kept staring at me. Not even in a sexual way, just staring. I do not like attention too much and I prefer not to be the center of it.

I guess not minding being ogled is something only really existing in natural exhibitionists and people who'd rather get paid to put some clothes on than to take them off and hence never experienced it first hand.