They are trying to sell something that's free, and adding nothing of value in the process. Of course they're going to fail.

Linux is marketable. I can wholeheartedly recommend Debian for data centers or Ubuntu as a non-gaming desktop. However, I have no idea what Mandriva is trying to be, much less why I should pay them for.

> Humans consume resources. If you're concerned about limited resources,

I don't like this tiny little box you think in. What about colonizing space? What about economic systems of the machine age where people don't have to work to live at a decent standard?

It's because of fear like yours that I don't have my flying car yet.

The problem with Haskell is that it forces you to solve a problem. You don't write for loop, because that's a solved problem, it's a function called "map". You don't write synchronization logic, because that's a solved problem, it's a function called "atomically".

To write Haskell, you have to get off your ass and solve your own problem. (Or reimplement an existing library, but that's hard to explain to the boss.)

> We're geeks: we're smarter than average (in terms of IQ at least) basically by definition.

Bullshit. We've just invested significant time and effort into understanding computers. Does that make us smarter than people getting really good at other areas of their life?

Actually, I think they are. The more people know about social engineering (or pretty much any "evil" knowledge, technique or information), the more people will realize when it's happening to them.

Remember the old saying: if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have them.

Is it so hard to believe 32 of them were dumb enough?

We'd need a complete rethinking of resource distribution otherwise, and I doubt most of us could imagine a world without capitalism.

FTFY

The very idea of this comparison makes me sad about the state of modern software.

we do need a source of cheap labor.

If normal people knew what developers know about software, civilization would collapse.

Selling bicycles is not the way to help drivers fix their car.

That's it, I've had it with this thread. Read this whole discussion again, but with "Allah" instead of "Anonymous". They're equally real.

You know Bill doesn't work there anymore, right?

Congratulations, you have detected a geek on a website that labels itself "News for nerds".