Your post, sadly, comes off as very ignorant. Please don't take that as a direct attack - its not. However, as a Marine Veteran who has worked directly in an intelligence capacity; you have no clue. There is a reason the U.S. government spends the large amount of coin and time it does to vet every individual who holds a security clearance.

Any sort leverage (perceived or actual) that can be gained on an individual who has access to critical information pertaining to the protection of this county; can damage this country. Gen. (ret.) Petraeus is probably one of the few individuals in the current world who has access to deep and wide knowledge of both the country's intelligence and military current and future inner-workings (esp. as DirCIA). He realizes/knows this, that's why he resigned.

Whatever your personal thoughts are about adultery, when it has the potential to interfere with national security - that person needs divorced from his security role ASAP.

I'm not from Canada so I don't pretend to understand the Canadian mindset... I do understand money though.

" The pattern in Canada is that some snot nosed upstart gives them a run for their money and they buy them out."

Your statement more than likely gives you your answer: offer enough money and people will sell. Why work harder than one needs to, if the opportunity cost: gain a large chunk of money in a short period of time, can occur? Granted, I'm certain - like in the USA - feel good thoughts and concepts such as, "personal pride", "helping others", "the underdog" probably cross their minds a couple of times, however in today's business environment, short-term profits outweigh long-term ones (research the present value of a future value, if you need help with this one).

I'm not gonna speak for all Windows and Apple users, but as for me; I do care about privacy, freedom, security, and ownership. What I don't care about is having to learn the particulars of a particular flavor of a Unix/Unix-Like OS. Is it interesting...at times yes; do I want to do that on a daily basis, fuck no.

I've been using / building / programming computers since 1989 and I still do not like the arcane wizardry that using a Unix/Unix-like OS forces me to do. Has it gotten better, admittedly yes. I respect that there is a *nix OS flavor for every single quirk that a person may desire, but to me it is stupid (I'm just gonna put it out there). When you have to tweak code and / or settings or worse - recompile for each flavor; fuck that. I have Windows programs from 1990 that still work in Windows 8, nuff said.

I'm not saying Windows is the 'holy grail' of computing, it has come a long way. But the same way some of you advocate learning/using *nix; I say learn how to properly lock down your system. It can be done, quite simply in fact. Not to mention Windows is much easier to use (even as far back as Windows 3.1; it was miles ahead in ease of use than *nix).

Thanks, much appreciated.

Does this mean that if decide to use the new GCC, I would be forced to using the GPL v3?

And what "decent human characteristic" did Gates lack with this, pray tell?

There was nothing 'immoral' or 'illegal' about the transaction. In fact, Gates DID attempt to get the two parties to meet; Kidall decided to go flying, not understanding (or caring) about the significance of the importance of the meeting Gates setup. If you want to talk about decent human characteristics, Gates did more than most businessman would have. He could have outright just purchased QDOS and not even mentioned it to Kidall.

This isn't like the stock market, where having what could arguably considered "inside" information is illegal. No court in the planet would convict on this. I respect your personal views, but nobody said business was nice.

Your absolutely right. However, while some people go in to business to make the world a better place; the majority go into business to make profits. And provided you are able to get your business off the ground, you probably want the best employees for the cheapest amount of salary you can pay them so you can maximize the amount of profit you can keep (i.e. pay yourself).

I'm not saying this is good or bad, its just an observation that generally has panned out over the years.

Of course if it did that, someone would complain that it has location-tracking software in it.

Considering that most Toshiba hardware sucks (yeah, I'm looking at the entire Satellite line of laptops); I'll stay away from these like the plague. , thanks.