No you wouldn't - because they would say "if you value your family you'll assist us"

Nah - it's all really to stroke Julian's e-peen and nothing more. I hope they track down the scum who released all this stuff and make them suffer.

"What would the world look like had he spent his money on something else?" Not much different. Sure on the backend it's made huge inroads. But to most people of the world, Linux doesn't mean squat.

Wow - read this a while ago - /. certainly is getting slower and slower with it's news.

Apple is not in a monopoly position, MS is. Different rules apply when you are, specifically about abusing your monopoly power in one area (e.g. operating systems) to muscle your way into another (e.g. web browsers).

Except in the Apple arena, Apple DOES have a monopoly. You can't use their OS on non-apple hardware ("legally"). So technically, Apple is forcing that piece of crap Safari down every Apple user's throat by default, just like MS has with IE. Now, sure, Apple doesn't have the marketshare, but they should have to play by the same rules in the marketplace. If I were MS, I'd sue the EU to force all OS manufacturers to give users a choice at first-bootup/install of which browser they want. Oh, and let's not forget that the countries of the EU weren't seeking to sue MS and their position. Not until the EU saw it that they could get a lot of money from MS, Intel, etc, and use it to help fix their $hithole economies. better yet - MS should just pull all their licensing from every EU country, refund people money, and then sue every person and business who continues to use their software without license. See how the EU likes that.

...if they will require Apple to do the same. Sure, the marketshare isn't the same as MS, but it's the principal. If I were MS, I would now sue the EU and force them to require the exact same thing for OSX, all flavors of Linux/BSD, etc. If you're gonna level the playing field - you can't just take down the bully. You have to enforce the "rules" across the board.

* I don't want to turn the Linux desktop into Windows, hence I'm slightly leaning towards not releasing it.* Umm, you won't ever turn the Linux Desktop into Windows because you showed security vulnerabilities. I'd say release it so the kernel hackers, distro managers, etc, can try and find ways ot keeping similar scripts from working. It's not like Linux is widespread outside of the server market, anyways.

Wow - I checked the radio button to change it, selected Google, and it was done. I know it's rocket science for all your /. mac and linux fanbois and all... But nothing is worse than google paying people $1 per install if they con someone into installing their toolbar and such.

Yeah - they patched IE to prevent rooting. And? Everything, and I mean, EVERYTHING is vulnerable in some way. Your "roll up" comment isn't really true either - far as I've seen, ever IE patch from MS lists the MS KB article related to it (if it exists) that points out the vulnerability. Can't say I've seen any patches come across that say "fixes a bunch of stuff in IE - don't worry about what we fixed". You being "tired of it" means little - well, this is /. after all, so you probably make up one of their core fanbois...Everyone "lies" - even the linuxheads.

You're in a 20 man operation, with multiple executives?!? Wow. I'd GTFO.