On cursory inspection, Mandriva's new UI uses a GTK+ style, an icon theme based on Elementary, a full-screen launcher similar to Unity's Dash, and a modified version of Dolphin with no menu bar (and no way to enable it). I haven't kept up with why Rosa Labs (page in Russian) has taken over Mandriva UI development, but they have made their mark.

Is the full-screen icon picker, as in gnome-shell, Unity, and now "Simple Welcome" in Mandriva the wave of the future, or just a passing fad? (Personally, I prefer menus.)

Having read the Ars Technica story, I'm disturbed and maybe even a little frightened by the DOJ's actions against Mr. Adekeye. They're determined to take away his freedom and his money while acting as the muscle for Cisco's legal department.

This, along with other recent ridiculous cases, like the trumped-up charges against Aaron Swartz, have left me wondering, what can a US citizen do to change this situation?

What interests me is the bias of the TechCrunch article, which is along the lines of "powerful attorneys general bully a beleaguered business because it makes them look good." WTF? Why is it assumed that Topix is unfairly under attack from the government, and the attorneys general are only doing what they're doing in order to bolster their careers?

The articles didn't give me a lot to go on, and I've never heard of Topix before, so I have to generalize. Lots of forums are moderated in one way or another, but this is the first time I've heard of one that turned "express moderation" into a profit center. But the point is, I don't start out assuming businesses are the "good guys" and the attorneys general are the "bad guys". My assumption would be that if 33 attorneys general are trying to get a company to change its behavior, they're doing it because they must have gotten quite a few complaints, not because they're attention whores. Businesses generally aren't looking out for my interests; they're looking to make money. I'll take the attorneys general over businesses any day, even if that causes butthurt for CEOs like Chris Tolles.

A balanced review will attempt to present things from both sides, whether the observer believes the facts to be balanced or not, the purpose being to allow readers/viewers to make objective (or subjective - that's their call) judgments of their own. Such a review needs to be objective in itself, but that doesn't mean that objectivity denotes balance.

You don't "allow" anyone to make a correct judgment by presenting things from both sides. Just because you present both sides of an issue doesn't mean you've got your facts correct, it just means you're reporting "he said vs. she said," even if what "he said" is demonstrably false. The media does this all the time. You allow people to make a correct judgment first and foremost by researching and presenting the facts correctly.

I have no idea whether the things the author of the Vista/DRM article wrote are true. For that, I hope to get clarification from other /. posters! It's obvious the author thinks what Microsoft is doing is bad for consumers and bad for Microsoft. It's also obvious he's using loaded words (aka "spin"). But his argument either falls on its face or stands based on whether his facts are right, not whether he publishes a "balanced" view.