Why not? Agreeing to TOS is important for a variety of reasons. In most cases agreement to TOS is what permits a service to host your media (writings, photos, videos, etc.) because without it you would retain copyright of the work, and sites would be liable for everything. Take away the viability of TOS agreements, and you take away the ability of most websites to operate in useful ways.

There's a well known method of avoidance of this issue. What you do is set up two teams. One team looks at the original source code and writes a detailed spec based on that code. The second team never sees a single line of code from the original project. They use the detailed spec to recreate the program "from scratch" but such as to perform exactly or nearly exactly the same as the original program.

This method has two safeguards. For one, your "blind" team will most likely write code quite different from the original project. Secondly, you have a clear paper trail of this process so that when the lawyers come a-knockin' you have a stack of documents to show that you did it in a legit fashion.

I wish it were that simple. But the things you hear people complain most loudly about usually have nothing to do with muscle memory. "it doesn't need all this eyecandy" is one of the most common complaints, presumably because it doesn't run so well on old hardware. The scrollbars are a big issue with Unity, but hey look they _work_ exactly the same as they did before, you just have to mouse over it to see it.

With linux desktops, you're not really using it unless you've got your hotkeys configured anyway... AFAIK there aren't any DE's that simply remove the option to change your keybinds.

Those packages are meta-packages that install all the standard-distro desktop software and dependencies (so like the kde calculator instead of the gnome one, kate instead of gedit, etc) for either environment. The only other real differences are in system libraries.

The kde desktop does lack a *small amount* of the polish of the gnome desktop, simply because of developer focus and userbase size. Certainly nothing dealbreaking. Most users will never notice. It used to be a heck of a lot worse, but kubuntu has stepped up their game significantly since kde4 was included.

The difference between Kubuntu and Ubuntu is what packages come preinstalled and loaded on the CD.

To convert a "standard" ubuntu installation to a kubuntu installation is this "painful" bit right here:

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop; sudo apt-get remove ubuntu-desktop

The main reason that the two separate "projects" exist is to organize which packages come on the CD by default, and to centralize the streamlining of the desktops, that is, that the standard collection of ubuntu functionality (including integration) is available under both environments. It's a fork only in the sense that they each have a separate CD distribution, and a default set of preinstalled apps that do not depend on the underlying libraries of the other DE.

Clearly, not everyone was as happy as you thought. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people working on so many alternatives.

Not a damn thing. You can use gnome 2.x until MATE is working well enough to replace it. It's really the same thing.

I for one don't understand why people get all emotionally attached to their old UI. I've used fvwm, twm, windowmaker, enlightenment, kde, gnome 1, gnome 2, xfce, unity, gnome shell (with extensions). Honestly I think these things just keep improving over time. But seriously. If you are a romantic masochist, just install the window manager that emulates the amiga workbench and be done with it.

Linux as a whole, is the kernel. The kernel. There are different versions, patches, etc. but it's one kernel.

Maybe you mean open source as a whole?

Maybe you mean software as a whole. That would make a whole lot more sense. Except it hasn't "turned in" to anything... it's always been that way.

So the combination is... one, two, three, four, five? That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! The kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!

Even microsoft now admits the "start menu" metaphor was a failed experiment.

Round, square, who cares?

Before I start, let me clarify that I am not a *fanboi* but the primary maintainer of a least a dozen production machines each of Windows 7, OS X, and Ubuntu linux. Therefore I feel I'm qualified to shed some light on your misconceptions. Take this response not as *hate* but as an assumption that you are not willfully ignorant about what you're talking about, and you just need someone knowledgeable to clear up your obvious confusion. That said...

conceded

Dead last on desktops. Number one in the server space. Number one in handhelds. PC ownership has stagnated. The mobile space is where all the growth is happening, and linux-based OS's are eating everyone but Apple's lunch in this field. Even Apple is still relegated to playing a strong second fiddle.

There are no anti-competitve bundling deals with PC distributors in the linux world. There's also little in the way of manufacturer and application support. Those are the real reasons. Less technical and more political than you seem to think.

This is a gross generalization. Gnome is really no more or less user friendly than any of the commercial alternatives. All of the several different viable options for linux destkop environments have their strengths and faults. It's not any different for Windows or OS X.

For at least the last 5 years, use of the terminal on an Ubuntu desktop system is about as central as it is on Windows or OS X. Pros do it for convenience, but it isn't necessary unless you're trying to do something unorthodox. This is an old, dead, troll of an argument against Linux. Try a modern Linux desktop, it's really not as bad as you seem to think it is.

By the same token, windows is still missing many features Linux had 20 years ago.

Driver management in Linux is handled through the package manager, because drivers are software. I haven't needed to roll back a driver, ever. I did so exactly once to enable visual effects and it was complete cake. No CLIs were employed. The last time I needed to use lspci to determine the model of a piece of hardware because it wasn't autodetected was 2006. The last few releases of Ubuntu even notify me when there's a better proprietary (manufacturer) driver than the bundled open one, and automatically install THAT.

so wait, *you're* the one worried about getting "hate" from "fanbois"? Ummm...

An OS is not "CLI or GUI". OS's work to abstract hardware from software. That is their purpose. OSX is a mach microkernel OS with a GUI on top. Windows 7 is a NT-family kernel with a GUI on top.

You're obviously really upset about linux. I don't really understand why, it sounds like you're really happy with Win7 and that's fine. You can rage about terminals and drivers, and it's not going to change any Linux users' minds about their choice in OS. And since win7 can't run ZFS and won't take the GUI code out of protected kernel space, your angry rant isn't going to change my mind either.

Point being that choice is good, each OS has its strengths and weaknesses. I salute your right to choose and even though windows is far and away the hardest of the three to administer, and you clearly have no need of the superior features Linux does offer, I'm glad you're happy with it.