..... well then it's not a real package manager in the sense that a package manager is being described. Plus, in Windows 7 (and I believe Windows Vista too), it's just called "Uninstall A Program". Windows 7 has a link to the "Windows Marketplace", but that opens in, of all things, a browser.

So let Microsoft fix it and have it work in a sensible, useful fashion and get the EU off their backs while simultaneously providing the sort of functionality enjoyed in many other operating systems.

Dear stuck-up elitist Linux user, how the hell am I going to find a package manager if I don't have a browser installed?

The package manager is a pre-installed application which is used for adding and removing other applications and anything upon which they may be dependent, as well as retrieving said applications and related pieces of information from a remote location (such as out somewhere on the internet; being its own application, it doesn't require a browser. Fuck you, too, and you're welcome.

It's also interesting (I guess this makes #3) to point out that not allowing gay marriage doesn't mean gays can't live together; it means the government doesn't recognize it as a marriage. Which is, by this time, almost a name-only thing. I am guessing it has similar arguments (the non-legalizing it) as not allowing polygamy and bestiality to be legal marriage unions. Except homosexuals can be domestic partners, polygamists cannot be domestic partners with 2+ others, and you can't be a domestic partner of a cat.

The obvious solution here would be for the government to not have these various categories of relationships and have one generic "life partner" heading (for things like hospital visitation rights), and leave the marriage/whatever bit up to whatever ritual house or other sort of whim to define it within their own respective pool.

This would also be great because the whole "tax breaks for the married" bit is ridiculous. What, you pay less because you won the love sweepstakes? You pay more back in when you lose and get divorced? Assinine.

The fact that there's 350 comments debating the issue is another case in point. You may want free software. I may not care as long as it works. The guy next door doesn't seem to mind paying. So having a "unified vision of an ideal" just isn't going to happen.

Unless of course the unified vision is having tons of options, which is the direction it seems to be heading in again. Somehow, though, people tend to get really pissed and reject ideological offerings that don't fit them personally, while simultaneously running at the mouth about how true choice is "not so restrictive" as that with which they disagree --sentiment that itself promotes restriction and choice reduction. And in that case, you absolutely need the hard-liners preaching, because a well-reasoned decision has to be made considering several points of view.

You're free to reject that, of course, but don't suggest anybody who disagrees with you is wacky. They're looking at it from the point of view of different needs.

What with RELFEXIVELY CONTRARIAN TWATS* like yourself out there, it's no wonder they can't see the sense in arbitrarily satiating the whims of a few pissants. Your problem is you're looking for a unified gospel when you're being granted options from which to pick and choose. If you're serious about someone else telling you The Right Way for your desktop, you're looking in the wrong place.

*see? it's not nice!

The problem with Stallman's approach is the assumption that most people want the free software ideal. The reality is that most people are not even knowledgeable enough about their computers to even understand what free software is all about, why it matters, and why they should care.

I would imagine that this is why he regularly makes a very vocal big stink about it. Just think: sixty-odd years ago, most people didn't know what a carcinogen was, why it was bad, or that it could be found in ordinary, presumed-to-be-harmless things like lead paint and cigarette smoke. Now of course, people who knew could always go, "Nobody cares about this! People die every day! Don't interrupt people's lives with this scary, annoying information!" Historically speaking, though, I'd wager quite a few people are glad people bothered to speak up and do something about it.

Most people do not care about the legal or technical issues surrounding their software, they just want to get online and do stuff. Stallman insists that when somebody sends you a .doc file, you should refuse to open it and insist that they send you a PDF or ODT file instead. Great when you are dealing with engineers and programmers, but not so great when you are dealing with people who think you need to create a .doc file in order to attach an image to an email.

I doubt many people gave a damn about things like anti-virus software on their Windows machines when the internet started to get popular with the masses. Somehow over time, though, a fair number of these laypeople wound up learning (likely a combination of the hard way and word-of-mouth) that they're probably a decent idea. Sure, lots don't know how they work, or where those little bits of nastiness came from, or that most such problems could be avoided by other means, but they know they're important and do bother with them, slightly.

Really, I get what you're saying, but there's a point where it goes from "not everyone wants to know how the car goes" to "people can't and won't ever change a flat!" Give some people potentially useful information and it *does* stand a chance of getting filed and used somewhere someday.

I fear greatly for the future of the show. Please get that man a haircut.

You watch Doctor Who for hair styles?

"So few if any"? You must be forgetting about all the people who do useful stuff like filing bug reports, writing howtos, lending a hand on forums where the software gets talked about, writing and sharing scripts, plugins, modules, and other forms of add-ons, donating cash towards a particular application or documentation project, and hell, even in some cases *gasp* coding applications. Yeah, I know, it's easier to pretend that not one single person actually puts any effort towards anything and that everyone's just a freeloading ingrate unwittingly applauding their own destruction as they vaccuously wave their FOSS pennant and take the willingly-offered fruits of other people's labors, but no matter how many times this gets pitched, the end-times trumpets don't sound.

People keep making stuff and giving it to other people on the terms they decide, because that's how they want to do it. If you want to write and application and charge for X, Y, and Z around it, nobody's stopping you.

Aw heck - you're just looking for a spot to go all sour grapes contrarian on us. If project management on up isn't sharp or otherwise attentive enough to have already clamped down on unauthorized projects for every perceived IP and budgetary nightmare in the bogeyman's sack, they're not about to catch it when it's time to trim overhead in a blind panic. A shitcanning during an economic downturn is more likely to be a good ol' fashion lay-off that takes out Secret Agent FOSS in the same fell stroke as Corporate Drone.