Several years ago, a kernel developer submitted a patch that greatly increased Linux performance for desktop-oriented tasks; but the patch was rejected because it harmed server performance. In that case, there was no way to reconcile the needs of the two types of systems. Under that kind of situation, the logic for a server/desktop split increases.

Not only is 4/1 not nearly enough, it needs to be symmetrical. 20/20 is just barely servicable for a household. 100/100 would be adequate, but 1000/1000 should be the standard. These companies want to stay at 4/1 so they don't have to "waste" any of their cocaine/hooker money on infrastructure.

Just a wild guess (and I may be wrong), but perhaps it's for better communication of events between the underlying system and the GUI.

Thankfully, the Open Source AMD video driver has progressed enough to use it for normal computing. I've been using it on cards I already had laying around, and it performs very well for daily use. It performs much better than Nouveau (which isn't surprising, since AMD released full specifications, and nVidia requires complete clean-room reverse engineering), and integrates into a Linux desktop cleaner than the nVidia proprietary driver (nVidia destroys the boot display, for example).

Now I have enough motivation to no longer use nVidia. Thank you, nVidia, for helping AMD gain some ground.

You beat me to the point. The parts of the so-called "Patriot" Act that authorize warrantless surveillance in violation of the 4th amendment are invalid and illegal. It doesn't matter what parts of our government say otherwise; any law that violates the Constitution is not valid law.

That being said, our governments's actions are backed by a large body of people armed with the most powerful weapons in the world. Unless we're willing to fight and die for the Constitution (which 99.999% of us aren't willing to do), we are truly screwed. That is because the only other option we have is to drop party politics and actually vote in our best interests (which 99.999% of us are too stupid to do) to restore a government which actually exists within its own legal limits.

And after the patent restrictions expire, this format may possibly become useful. As it is, this format is completely useless because of the patent threat.

Software Patents: killing innovation since 1998.