2.4million is 0.03% of their NET income in 2013. it's ... what, $.01 per customer per month??

10 or 15 years ago, that wouldn't have been something to take into account. A couple of people would have groused about it, and their friends might have paid attention, but the macro effect on the company would have been trivial.

Consider that Microsoft, for example, has gotten away with language like that in a piece of software that 90%+ of desktop computers are sold with, and that it's actually difficult to buy a computer without. Meaningful protests??? Roughly zero.

In this case, "legal' means "a court will rule that the clause as valid". Clauses that force you to go to arbitration rather than court (including class-action lawsuits) have been held as valid in the past -- including for things like software 'licenses' for purchased software.

This clause was pushing the envelope even further, and it's unlikely to have been held as valid (under these specific circumstances), but the fact that it's there might be enough to cause an unhappy customer to cave in and settle for less than (s)he might have in the absence of this clause.

The marketing debacle, on the other hand, isn't something that lawyers normally pay close attention to.

Yeah, but talk about proof that Caffeine can arrest development.

... and I bet that any kid that starts out this way is gonna be a mondo caffeine addict.

Anybody who states it that categorically is stupid, ignorant, full of hubris -- or setting up a straw-man.

The problem here is that people have been using the argument that Open Source is better because these issues can't happen "because" of the visibility.

Pretty much anything built by man is subject to errors. That includes source code -- open or closed. Any sane programmer knows this. The difference with open source is that the code is open to the users. Especially in the case of security, correctness is a high priority for many users, and those users can drive the bug-hunt process. As such, bugs tend to get found and fixed (sometimes proactively) faster with Free and Open Source code than with proprietary code.

For companies, on the other hand, security and correctness, in general, is a cost centre. It's often only pursued to the extent to which ignoring it affects profits. If it's considered better for the bottom line to ignore/hide a critical security bug than to fix it, then it may never get fixed. -- "Better for the bottom line" includes being paid to keep a bug open by the NSA/KGB/MOSAD/etc. The well-being of the customer base is only a (indirect) part of the profit calculation.

"Bad for the bottom line." Includes fixing code that you're no longer actively selling -- unless the bug hurts your public image too badly.

That's why, for example, XP is no longer going to be supported -- despite the fact that perhaps hundreds of millions of machines still use it.

Redhat 7.2 isn't officially supported by Red Hat, either -- but despite the fact that the current user base is probably in the range of hundreds or thousands, somebody who considers it critical infrastructure and can't/won't upgrade it can still arrange to get bug fixes because the source is legally available. RedHat isn't the gatekeeper for support the way that Microsoft is for Windows. RedHat is simply the (highly) preferred source of support.

Comcast has been messing with people's net feeds for a while now. People have been paying for N-Megabit connections and, to the extent to which those connections have been with NetFlix, those connections have been wilfully and needlessly degraded to well below N-Megabit.

TIme for a mass refund. period.

(also time for some law firm to make megabucks litigating this issue)

You can call 'protection money' whatever you want. It's still Extortion.

I don't mind the heads-up about a little-used piece of Gnu software (as pointed out, most distros push OpenSSL), but I do mind astro-turfing the Microsoft PR line of "Nobody's responsible if Linux fails!"

The irony, of course, is that most people haven't read Microsoft's EULA which effectively says 'Not only are we not responsible if Windows fails, but we'll sue you if you try to fix it yourself.'

This is really gonna bite the hundreds of millions running XP who will be orphaned this year when Microsoft stops supporting it. Not only do they face the prospect, in a matter of weeks, of never again seeing security updates from Microsoft, but it will be illegal to even try to fix future bugs themselves (or hire a third party to do it).

This last bit is something that Linux users have as a right

No support (not even 3rd party) for XP, and Windows 8 is just short of an entirely differend OS. You call THAT continuity?

At least with Linux, you have the option of (banding together with a group of like-minded entities, and) doing your own support, until you decide it's time to retire you old software/hardware combination.

That's the real choice and freedom you get when you use Free and/or Open Source software.

When Microsoft EOL's Vista (possibly as early as a couple of years from now), the people who tore their hair out getting used to it, are going to have to tear their hair out getting used to whatever Microsoft is shoving down people's throats then -- irrespective of whether or not the Vista based systems they have are really ready to be retired.

Well, supposedly, the study took levels of exercise into account -- and driving to work in the morning would account for 30 minutes of sunlight exposure, without any real exercise.

I often keep a dozen or more windows open on my web browsers. Doing that, and a couple more things, you can sometimes break 4GB RAM -- and that's using Linux.
For Windows 8 users, you need a couple of Gig just to get the machine off of the ground. more than 4 is needed to do almost anything more than stare at a blank screen.

I'm presuming that the beeps are Morse code for some silly message, but I only know enough Morse to recognize it, not 'read' it.

Macs are essentially an OS with the hardware attached, rather than the other way 'round. -- and they also have an OS 'tax' assigned to them. Macs also have well under 10% of the market, last time I looked.

This really only leaves Chromebooks, which, essentially are netbooks, not full blown notebooks or desktops.

If a consumer wants a 'real' machine with a choice of OS (or no OS at all), the pickings are incredibly thin -- and many of those pickings are from manufacturers who pay the tax to Microsoft, whether or not they ship the box with an OS on it. Often, they even pay an extra tax if they sell too many macines without a Microsoft OS on them.

If only Microsoft would stop doing things like using 'secure boot' to make life harder on Linux users -- rather than just competing on quality and features.