We can't tell from Blackduck's data either since it isn't known what criteria are used by them.

We could pick other projects and see what the trend is in them, but ultimately all we would know is what the trend is in them. Google Code looks like a fairly easy place to gather some figures from and they host a lot of code these days.

Any such study is limited by the set of data it looks at. I presume the FSF chose Debian because it is (a) large (b) licenses are reasonably easily checkable (c) well documented historical versions, so they could quickly check if the there is a trend away from the GNU GPL in the kind of systems the FSF was created to create.

The changes in Blackduck's data are simply too large to reflect changes to say GNU/Linux distros, since software tends not to change license that often, so it seems likely they are just including more sources of free software from other places which simply have less GNU GPL software in them, in which case what you are seeing is their data becomes more representative of the totality of free software code rather than a trend away from the GNU GPL.

Thus it is possible both studies are correct and that GNU GPL usage is increasing in Debian (and probably other general purpose GNU/Linux desktops - not least a lot of them are based on Debian, and perhaps in general), and GNU GPL now forms a smaller part of the code base that Blackduck are keeping in their knowledge base.

Whilst I'm sure the FSF like people to use the GNU GPL, they are pro-free software, so if that the amount of free software Blackduck find is growing faster than the growth in GNU GPL software, it is unlikely to be keeping my friends in Boston up at night.

But what really matters is what software people use, not the proportion of software in repositories. I'm using Debian to write this, and I don't much care what free software license most of the software I use is, as long as Debian can inspect, package, fix and distribute it.

I care more when I write code, but mostly that the codebase I'm contributing to aims to remain free, a copyleft license is a guarantee of that, but it isn't the only such guarantee that makes me feel good. I'd happily contribute freely to the Apache project knowing me and my friends can expect to benefit from any such contribution in future even without a copyleft license.

Fair enough. I believe Powershell also now has programmable tab completion, so I dare say "Powertab" is catching up fast. I sometimes suspect a lot of this sort of development depends on someone mistyping something important, and spending the necessary hours making damn sure they never make that typo again.

You've never enabled the extra features in Bash auto-completion have you.

In Bash the tab auto-completion is programmable, with the typical configuration used on Debian it completes command names, file names (to nearest unambiguous match and then shows you the list of matching names), it will display the command line options to commands limited to those which match what you've typed so far, for various commands that take commons lists (like list of available software packages) it will auto-complete those arguments from those lists.

I believe Zsh does similar but also shows short extract from documentation on command line options in addition.

The problem is as a GNU/Linux user you can end up like me and just hit tab whenever the grey matter glitches and you forgot what you were going to type next.

Say you want to install a web server with PHP5....

$ apt-g[tab] completes "apt-get "
$apt-get i[tab] completes the "install" option
$apt-get install libapa[tab] saves typing the "che" (goodness you can get lazy)
$apt-get install libapache2-m[tab] saves typing "od" for mod
$apt-get install libapache2-mod-ph[tab] saves typing the "p5"
$apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5

So I've saved typing 15 characters (if I can count), got everything spelt right first time, and this one command will (I think) get you a webserver and PHP5 installed and ready for development work, of course usually you want to specify which thread model you want for the Apache webserver and probably want some other dev tools but it makes the points that you only need 16 key presses to install a webserver with PHP (no browsing to websites, downloading installers, or finding your original installation CD image to drag IIS off, or patching to get it up to date after running the command (since it'll install the latest versions). Only the command name "apt-get" is a file name.

It has been this way for a long time in Debian (although PHP5 wasn't around all that time), and you have to uncomment a line in one of the config files to enable the enhanced completion otherwise I think it is just filenames (including commands).

I was kind of worried about the opposite. It suggests someone at Microsoft has been doing some serious work making Windows easier to administrate, which might make it more popular amongst the IT literate crowd, and thus more popular generally.

This remote admin will make automaton of admin easier, and also discourage what we (and many others) are guilty of, which is logging in with VNC or remote desktop, and messing about as Administrator because we only have a few boxes. Until we realize actually we have far too many to be doing it all this way.

"That said... a reasonable expectation may not translate into something actionable in a court of law."

IANAL - but UK law explicitly implemented rules to govern consumer agreements where you can't negotiate contract terms. (Unfair terms in consumer contracts regulations) which were based on an EU directive from 1993, which effectively boils down to a reasonableness test (although there are restrictions on fields of reasonableness).

Whilst I don't have a problem boycotting Sony, perhaps such contracts probably needs some sort of proper legal redress in the style of the European directive, as otherwise it would be pretty much impossible to buy/lease any modern software or hardware without agreeing to similarly outrages terms and conditions as were used in this class action.

Apple get called draconian because of the things they do.

Being a good citizen in free software doesn't just mean doing those things in your own self interest to do, of which we agree Apple do a lot, but also not doing things that might be perceived as in your own short term self interest that are unethical (of which Apple also do plenty).

I don't think registering a URL to an XML file does the trick.

The Linux distro's typically sign the packages, saying they were presented to the distro by someone they trust.

You need some sort of security in place, otherwise the system is effectively trusting all the web servers in all the URLs, and we know how safe web servers are.

But yes if Microsoft update updated everything, then people would have motivation for running it. Where as if it just updates a few system and Office - things that no one cares about till there PC is spamming - where is the motivation?

But it boils down to the same thing, trusting a single central authority, and since Windows users implicitly trust Microsoft, it might as well be them.