I've been stopping by, and occasionally posting, for over 10 years. I think my favorite Slashdot memory was setting up Slashcode for a local ISP. That jump started my Linux SysAdmin career and I never looked back. I've always been able to find a good read here and I hope that continues. Best of luck on whatever path you choose in the future!

I think this just fits in with the corporate IT empire building that has been going on lately. HP and Dell just finished a bidding war for 3PAR and now Oracle is making noise about "their" updated kernel. Just another enterprise IT infrastructure trying to stake its claim.

It isn't fashionable to accept that this is just an accident. For over a decade the mass media and certain member of the U.S. government have been working overtime demonizing big corporations and the wealthy. This is just another opportunity for them to attack "big money" because, hey, it's their greed that caused this, right? Like every other disaster, someone will step forward and use this as political leverage to push their agenda. I find it ironic how so many people will scream bloody murder if the government sidesteps due process even a little bit but when something like this happens these same people want the same government to step in and crucify anyone within arm's reach; shoot first and ask questions later, if there is a photo opportunity.

Society has been conditioned to think the government needs to take care of everything. We become more of a nanny state with each passing day because a select few refuse to accept responsibility for their actions. These same people want the government to protect us from ourselves for our own good. Bad people will do bad things, that's a fact of life. Hell, good people do bad things sometimes too. Oh well, my opinion matters not. Give them a few years and they will turn the Internet into another over-regulated mess that will suck on levels previously unheard of.

It's not how the government is supposed to work according to the Constitution but Obama doesn't seem to care. He seems more interested in making marks in future history books than following the oath he took when he was sworn into office. I can't say his predecessor was any different. Too many politicians and not enough legislators. The sad thing is, I'm not sure we can fix it.

For three easy payments of $49.95 (plus shipping and handling)

No, no, no, that was Duke JUPITER: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Jupiter

I would expect the pedantic police will be out in force to correct your usage of the word "derivitive" but otherwise your point is well made. Personnally, I don't think the problem with the GPL is the license itself. I use it occassionally even though I prefer the less complicated BSD-style licenses. My problem are the legions of Stalmanistas who attack anyone who criticizes the GPL. These same people like to point out how using software licensed any other way makes you a slave to the developer yet they drive cars made by someone else, wear clothes produced by someone else, and often eat food that is prepared by someone else. Using their arguments they are just as much of a slave to the manufacturing and service industries as computer users are to software companies. The fact of the matter is, we are all a "slave" to something. We all enjoy having our choice but some seem to forget one very important choice; if you don't like something, then don't use it. You have that choice too. And please don't argue with me because I didn't make the same choice as you. I realize that is part of human nature, but there are bigger and more important things in life.

A friend of a cousin's college roommate's younger sister's best friend's boyfriend who sat next to someone in Algebra II who knew someone who delivered a pizza to their next door neighbor who said they heard something but thought it was on the TV.