What gets me is that the idea of being arrested not for violating a law but for being a malcontent seems to have a lot of supporters in the UK. Doesn't seem like a place I'd want to live in. Not trying to be a jackass myself most of the times, but.. wow. Strange idea of freedom, really.

I stopped reading here and I'm seriously hoping you're kidding. "risked a fire"? Seriously?

Yeah, fuck freedom of speech. Sheesh, what was he thinking, that malcontent! Praise be to our betters! War is peace! Freedom is slavery!

Guess it depends on where you are, and how good the connections are. I'm in Germany, too, in some small backwater hamlet, and I need to drive to the large city every day. 35 minutes commute by car, two hours (!) by public transport because I'd have to wait 40 minutes in the next bigger town for the connecting train. Plus the bus to take me there only goes once every hour, so I'd have to make damned sure to be at the station on time or I'd lose a lot of time. Hugely inflexible.

Before moving to our current place, I lived in the big city though, and I didn't even bother to get a driver's license because I'd just take the bus or just walk everywhere.

What exactly is your argument? That Linus is such a singular wunderkind that this is an invalid example? That software teams that have a project leader don't count? I'm baffled.

Sounds to me like that's going to be a problem no matter if you work remotely or not :o

Uh you mean like Android phones? Yeah those are a total failure :(

C'mon, you're not even trying :)

For the sake of my argument, it doesn't really matter if the kernel is good because of or despite those specific circumstances. The original argument was that it can't work, and clearly it can.

o_O

You mean .... like the loosely organized software team that has developed the Linux kernel hasn't worked out?

Up until recently I was an independent software development contractor. In the beginning of my career, I was working from home on semi isolated components, and I really hated it. It's very hard to concentrate on anything with all the distractions, you can't talk to anyone (even if it's just bitching about something), you don't get to know what's going on in the company, and when you have as small an apartment as I had back then, it's very hard to "switch off" from work after work, because in my case, my desk and bed were in the same room, and that makes it hard to "switch".

Add to that the obvious problem of constant distractions... but then, you get those in the office, too ;)

Emphasis on 'should'. Will it happen? Most likely the answer is 'no'.

...not to mention actual convictions afterwards...

Hahahahahahaha...

You're so cute when you're naive :D

I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen every day. But I don't trust coincidences.

$0.10 if you can name the origin of the quote :D

There are many scientific theories that have not be proven completely. You know what? It doesn't matter. This is not how science works. If we ever have a better theory, it will replace the old one. The good thing about scientific theories is that they can offer workable models that help to explain the world in very useful ways. You know, like Newton's laws. We know now that they are only valid under specific circumstances, and we have better and more complex theories now. But that doesn't mean the old ones were useless.

Your attempt to discredit Evolution by tagging it a theory is sad and only shows you have no idea how science actually works.