Yeah, because the Wii isn't outselling and outlasting all the PS3s and 360s out there. /sarcasm

I see. But what if this guy didn't use any of Google's proprietary code in it? The rest is GPL/BSD/MIT licensed, yes? They can't legally threaten them when they create a fully "free" OS?

I don't think they can legally stop them from modifying their own property. If Apple doesn't like it, they can void a warranty. I am not aware of any law on the books that says one can't modify an iPhone.

Jesus. The Micropologists seem to have gotten a lot of mod points today. I've been seeing a bunch of legitimate true posts modded down as troll or flamebait. Developing for IE6 *is* a royal pain in the ass, and IE's never been good even in its latest incarnation.

Deal with it, Micropologists.

People swallow it. They're swallowing CodePlex and the Community Promise!

Uh, actually by the time RMS got started (1983) computers were well into the consumer point of view thanks to companies like MITS, Apple, IBM, and Microsoft. Apple was a year away from releasing its magnum opus, the Macintosh (Not their first GUI-based machine.), and IBM as already deep into selling its best seller, the IBM PC, which was knee-deep in MS-DOS. Another two years woulsd see the Mac become a huge hit and Windows' first release. RMS, at the time, was still diddling around with pre-Alpha/Alpha versions of the GNU toolchain.

RMS didn't foresee anything.

You're assuming Stallmanists actually think. If they did they'd see through about 90% of the propaganda Stallman cranks out these days.

I support free software, but only so far as its actually practical. Like, I won't use GNash since it is not as good as Flash, and I want actual 3D acceleration, etc. I won't declare software evil purely because its proprietary but based off of the actual character of the software makers. RMS would rather we just blindly hate on all proprietary software. If I did that I'd use crippled disributions like gNewSense.

The problem I see with Stallman is he overly politicizes software. I think it should be more treated like a PERSONAL PREFERENCE then a POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. I like open source because I *have* noticed a significant quality and, yes, fun aspect of FOSS. Maybe it's because I'm a tech-savvy programmer. But I have noticed a couple cases where the open source alternative doesn't really work all that well or doesn't offer what I really want. Then I go proprietary.

I use the "nvidia" driver, Flash 10... not nv (Which only supports 2D on nVidia cards... barely. Since I like eye candy this driver is not used at all by me if I can help it.) or Nouveau (I admit I know little about this driver or what its features are. I *do* know it's not up to the proprietary driver's level.). Too bad KWin in KDE 4.3 doesn't have alpha blurring anymore.

I know people will say GIMP/OpenOffice are not as good as Photoshop/Office. Personally, I think GIMP is quite good. Maybe not as good as PS, but the difference between GIMP and PS is hundreds of dollars and professional features I don't give a shit about. I personally think that, with a little refining, Go-OpenOffice (The Novell Fork of OO.) can easily beat or at least match MS Office. It certainly fills my limited needs, at least.

My "software philosophy" is "forget politics or what is moral in theory, use what works well for you," I honestly don't see any real MORAL issue as an end-user whether or not I use proprietary software or not.

In fact, I would not be honest if I said I don't believe there isn't evil open source software, either. I personally don't trust Mono, for example, because of the companies backing it.

I agree with you for the most part. It had a time of relevancy, but now it's annoying to hear the Next Evil Thing denounced by His Royal Leader of Free Software Richard Stallman, who probably hasn't written a line of code in decades.

Oh look, the "Linux is not usable" troll. Go back to 1998, when that argument actually had some real standing.

Really? Maintaining a dual boot system is agony? I've know plenty of "normal" users who do it no problem.