I know this sounds crazy, but quite a long time ago I realized that I was approaching my retirement planning the wrong way. I was trying to amass money in order to support a lavish lifestyle. This approach has a lot of drawbacks. The biggest of them is that you end up spending the majority of your life chasing after money.

Instead I decided to learn to be happy living on $10K a year. It means I have make hard decisions. I don't have a car and instead ride my bicycle or take public transit. I live in a small apartment in the middle of nowhere. I cook for myself every day. I watch over-the-air TV. I don't have kids. Instead of going to see a movie, for instance, I stay home and make beer. I don't work crazy overtime and instead focus my energies living well every day.

I'm much better off than I used to be. I'm happier, and healthier. I save more money, and since I increasingly have less use for it I have the feeling of being wealthy. The money I save is not to live a lavish lifestyle but rather to support me when my health fails and I can not support myself.

I know it's not for everyone, but less really is more for me.

I used to be an Emacs guy, but I've switched to Vim. Most text editors have functions that can be accessed by keystrokes. You can think of this as vocabulary in a language. Each key press is a word. But Vi also has a grammar. Keystrokes don't just happen individually, they happen in bunches that are kind of like sentences.

In a normal editor you move your cursor and then edit what's under it. But with Vi you can say things like "Modify the 3rd word on this line". It takes time to get used to it, but when you do, it is considerably more efficient. I don't know of any other editor that has this capability. Even the Vi mode in Emacs only really rebinds the keystrokes -- you can't edit in the same fashion that you do in Vi.

No offense, but I think you are suffering from being used to one thing and missing it when you don't have it. I've worked 20 years as a programmer, about half in a Windows environment and half in an embedded/Unix environment. When programming in an embedded or Unix environment we always used the GNU tool chain because it's what all of the programmers preferred.

Anyway, I vastly prefer the available free software tools over any proprietary platform. For example, for source management, nothing beats Git (well, I can understand why some people prefer Mercurial, but that's free software too). I've used Perforce, Clear Case, and (god help me) Source Safe. They slow me down dramatically. For build management, a lot of Windows programmers use the tools built in to Visual Studio, but this makes continuous integration virtually impossible. I want a continuous build running. I want to know if a check in broke the build immediately, not a day later. All of the best continuous build tools are free software (and many of them have Visual Studio plugins in case you just can't wean yourself from it). Are there any TDD frameworks that aren't free software in existance??? I don't know of any. For build tools, if I'm writing C++ or C the Auto tools are dramatically better than anything I've ever seen on Windows (though I admit they are *very* cryptic and require time to learn). For other languages, I just tend to use whatever the language provides -- Ant for Java, Rake for Ruby, whatever. There are some IDE tools, but they only really work in Mickey Mouse situations, not in large software projects.

There are a couple of places where I'll give the nod to some of the proprietary software tools. Personally, I like vi (and even Emacs -- I'm bilingual) along with exuberant ctags. I'm dramatically more productive with that than with any IDE I've tried (and I probably have tried them all). The one place where Visual Studio excels is in refactoring tools. But in the end, not having them doesn't slow me down enough to use VS. If you are used to VS, I can see why you wouldn't want to learn anything else. Editors are really personal. It's a pity that people choose to learn tools that are only available on a single platform, but there you go...

For writing a manual.... Seriously, Word???? That's just nuts. You can't write a decent manual in Word because you just don't have the typesetting features. I suppose if it's not a professional manual (which is why a programmer is writing it)... I wouldn't use Open Office either. If I had to write a manual, it would certainly be LaTeX, which would give me good output and would be much easier to write to boot. You do have to learn, it though. Having said that, there are no particularly good typesetting packages available in free software that a documentation expert would likely want to use. But Word also fits that description.

As for having to use the command line... You *are* a programmer aren't you? Seriously, scripting is your friend. You save soooo much time. I think you are used to doing things one way and even though the new way is dramatically better, you aren't used to it. There's a reason why people used to working on Unix like systems haven't embraced the point and click programming IDE. Command line interfaces and specially built tools that do their task exceptionally well are much, much, better.

It's a pity, because I've met many programmers like you when I worked in Windows-only shops. It doesn't take that much time to show the benefit of the tools available in a free software environment. But if you don't know, then you don't know.

RMS has discussed the issue many times before. My recollection of his stance (you may want to verify it) is that he is in favor of "free culture" ideas. But this is not his focus. He is concentrating simply on software. He feels that the issues in other "free culture" situations are probably quite different and he doesn't have the time to think through them all. So while he's happy with "free culture" other than software, it's not something he champions.

When it comes to games, there is a component that is software and there is a component that is not software. He is concentrating on software. He can see arguments that the non-software components may need to be restricted. However, he would like the software to be free (as in freedom).

I get the impression that he would prefer that games be completely free, but that he hasn't puzzled through all the issues and hasn't decided for himself whether there is some moral imperative to push for it. Thus he accepts non-free games whose software is free.

I believe there are a handful of games on steam that are dual licensed, but I don't use steam so I can't verify it.

I tend to see this move similarly to when Corel made a Linux distribution. Steam is being orders of magnitude smarter about it and so probably won't fail the way Corel did, but it's essentially the same from my point of view. When selling a suite of software, there are certain advantages in being able to control the OS. Corel thought they were essentially going to be able to get a free (as in beer) OS and control the platform from top to bottom the way MS does. This would allow them to sell entire office solutions without having to deal with MS. Having their own OS, even if it was free software, would allow them to lock in their customers.

In a similar way, Steam can build a Steam system that works they way they want it to. It gives them the control to fix or modify things that aren't working for them. However, they are being considerably smarter about it. For example, they aren't trying to control everything from top to bottom. Corel just couldn't get out of their proprietary mind-set and decided they had to create their own distro. Steam is building on the work of others and ceding control in areas where they don't care. They are working with others to meet their goals, dramatically cutting their costs in the process. In some ways, they understand the point of open source better.

Now, they are still trying to sell proprietary software on top of that platform. The argument for open source gaming is a lot weaker because it's difficult point to people who have a successful business model. I'm a free software advocate and I think we have a lot of work to do in this area. But I don't think Steam will actually impede progress. If they are successful in creating a kind of proprietary gaming appliance/platform on top of free software, it will make it easier for free software games to get into the market. Right now free software games are just not commercially successful because we haven't developed the business models. (Don't get me wrong. There are very successful free software games. They just don't make millions of dollars).

This is where I differ from RMS slightly. I really believe his original approach to software freedom advocacy was the best: write code. People like Steam are adopting free software platforms because they exist and the business practices are proven. Companies are starting to understand the point that collaboration in areas that aren't their core business gets them where they want to go faster. We need more code and we especially need more proven business models. Morality may be our motivation, but it can not be our method. Steam entering this sphere gives us somewhere to go.

See this is the tricky part. Free software is a movement dedicated towards customers. It grants more freedoms to customers than they otherwise would have. If you buy (or are given for free) software that is Free as in "freedom", you can do more things than you can with software that is not Free. Though somewhat ironic, more developers care about free software than non-developers. Partially this is because the freedoms that you get as a customer are mostly useful if you are a developer. As many developers are also customers, they understand these freedoms more than non-developers.

The open source world is very similar to the free software world. The main difference is that open source advocates noticed early on that not only did software freedom help customers, but it led to many advantages for the original developer. Many open source advocates sold the idea as being "pragmatic" for developers. It doesn't mean that customers don't also get benefits, but the main selling point was "pragmatism" and value for the original developers.

So we have a situation where users customers can benefit from software freedom, and the original developers can benefit from open development using a consortium-like model with low barriers to entry. Unfortunately, there are some losers. These are the businessmen who insist on adhering to business models that are incompatible with free and open source software. There are others who complain that many free software models do not allow them piggy back on the work of the original authors to produce competing, closed products. Hopefully those losers will start to see the benefits and adjust their approaches.

I swear that one of the biggest problems that Gnome Shell runs into is that they don't put the documentation in an obvious place. As far as I know this is it: https://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/CheatSheet

I agree with you. I didn't like 3.0. I went to KDE for quite a while, but I really like 3.4 now. What seems to have happened is that a lot of necessary functionality was originally implemented as extensions and over time it has migrated into the mainline code. I really like Gnome Shell extensions because they are really simple to implement. The tweakability that most people are missing is there. But again, it's really not obvious how easy it customize your desktop using extensions: https://extensions.gnome.org/

If there was a built in tutorial mode along with an extension installer (maybe you only need a clickable link to the web page), I think Gnome Shell would become much more popular.

Actually, I'm using Gnome Shell on my Ubuntu netbook and I've run into quite a few problems. My main reason for choosing Gnome Shell over Unity is that I can't stand click to focus. I don't particularly hate Unity except that it's completely unusable for me if they don't add focus follows mouse capability. But the problem is that even in Gnome Shell on my Ubuntu box I run into all sorts of focus based problems. The firefox awesome bar (or whatever it's called) doesn't work most of the time (it won't redraw) for example. Windows also just seem to lose focus and I have to click around to get it back. I can't say for sure that it's an Ubuntu problem except that my desktop, which is running Sabayon, has no problems at all.

Over time I've gotten more and more disappointed with Ubuntu. They seem to be targeting it to a particular type of user, which isn't me. I have no problem with that and I even thing it's great for a distro to go after a specific market. The problem is that they seem to break everything that they aren't interested in. I can't just ignore what they are doing and do my own thing. Lately my advice to people thinking of using Ubuntu is to only use it if they like what Ubuntu is doing. If not, choose a different distro because rolling your own solution in Ubuntu is likely to break. Or at least that's my experience these days.

Skype is essentially running SIP under the hood (slight differences, but essentially the same). The supernodes aren't usually involved in signalling because NAT can be traversed using other methods. However, the supernodes will carry voice traffic. I have no idea what the initial poster means by "MiTM attack". Normally when you are talking about man in the middle, you are talking about spoofing one of the ends. I suspect that's not what they meant because why would you want to do that.... I suspect they simply meant that the voice conversation can be recorded, which is true.

But it's pretty tin-foil-hat for me anyway. Just because the pieces seem to fit doesn't mean it's true. You'd have to actually look for evidence.

Yeah. The main issue is that in many countries capital gains are taxed at a much lower rate than salary. And while there are a lot of regulations regarding when an executive can sell options that they hold, I've noticed that there isn't usually a lot of scrutiny about when options are granted. What's astounding to me is that the information is all public, so it's easy for anyone to look at. You'll see options granted after large write offs, or you'll see companies over fill their sales channels (creating a higher than expected profit for a quarter) and then correct it later (creating a lower than expected profit for a quarter) right before they grant options to executives. And nobody calls them on it. It's easy to see if you follow high tech companies regularly (and actually read their reports). Anyway, it makes it relatively easy for companies to pay their executives on the backs of the shareholders while at the same time allowing them to avoid taxes.

I have mentioned this before, but not only is it easy to fall into a cultural ghetto, it's hard to get out. I'm also an expat in Japan. I used to hang out with other expats, but then slowly drifted over to hanging out with Japanese people. The expat community is kind of difficult sometimes because people come and go all the time. As my Japanese got better, I naturally spent more and more time with people who were going to be there for the long haul. Several people were angry with me and accused me of being a "Japan-o-phile" (wtf?) or of being someone I'm not (presumably Japanese...) When I finally got married to a Japanese woman, several of my expat "friends" dropped me for good.

It's sounds bizarre saying it so plainly because when you live through it it's not really obvious what's going on. But communities like this are often quite hostile to the native population and get really upset if you don't agree with their stance. If you "go native", it's like you are betraying your own kind. It's completely insane, but it exists and you have to deal with it. Eventually I just walked out. I don't hang out with a single non-Japanese person on a regular basis any more. Not everybody is able to do that, and so the ghetto grows.

No offense, but your argument boils down to, "I've never seen anything successful and therefore nothing successful can be done". 10 years ago "bounty systems like Kickstarter" were rare and those that were around were not successful. Even free to play games were rare because the idea of selling in-game items had not been tried. Who would think that someone would pay for a digital flower?

New business models require forward thinking people. Money people are not usually forward thinking. They like to copy the success of others. But just to get you thinking, imagine a multi-player game which has updates every 2 weeks. If you don't have the latest copy you can't play with others. An automatic update subscription costs $48 a year billable in increments. Yes you can wait a few days and find someone willing to give it to you for free, but wouldn't you rather pay for a subscription? Single player serialized content has similar potential if it is well made. Other ideas include sponsored development, where official clients and official downloads are paid by advertising. The sale of vanity items in multiplayer games can fund development. You can even write games whose only intent is to create a brand for selling merchandise (ala Hello Kitty in Japan)

There are lots of other possibilities. In my mind, a business model where you pay $30 million up front and "finish" building the game before you sell anything won't work in a free software world. But nobody says you have to do things that way.

Until the latest copyright change, Canada didn't have fair use -- it had fair dealing (similar, but different concepts).

The last copyright act specifically had a section about educational use which described how an educational institute had to do things. However, these educational institutes were restricted to universities. IIRC, other schools like high schools were not included. Looking at the copyright act, I would have bet my last dollar that photocopying in a high school was *not* allowed (not even under fair dealing), but that's why IANAL.

The one thing that confuses me about this whole story is that the copyright act just changed (like 2 weeks ago). Are these rulings based on the new act (it seems unlikely)? If they aren't, I suspect the ruling is moot. In fact, I'm confused why the supreme court even agreed to look at this given the proposed changes to the act.

I suspect this was the crux of the issue. A movie wants to use a song, so they get the rights to use it in their movie. Obviously this is going to be a lump sum payment. However, the rights holders of the recording may have been arguing that they should *also* get a cut of the ticket price (i.e. a percentage of gross revenue) for "performance rights". The movie industry isn't going to go for that. So this was likely a fight between two big media companies. It likely wouldn't have affected movie viewers in any way.

I haven't looked at the original case, so I don't know if that's really what it boils.

Just want to chip in a bit with respect to "it is not a crime". A lot of people think that because it is illegal it is a crime. But there is an important distinction. In a crime, the *state* charges you, takes you to court, etc. Also you can go to jail. Civil infractions like copyright infringement are pursued by the party that was damaged, not the state. Your punishment, should you lose the court case, is financial -- You won't go to jail and you won't have a criminal record. This is also why it is not "stealing" (which is a crime).

The wording is important. Many special interest groups would like to make copyright infringement a crime. That way the state would pay for following it up. There could be jail time involved. People could get a criminal record for it. These special interest groups would like it to be "stealing", which is why they are purposely using that term now. If they can get the general public to accept that copyright infringement is "stealing" and hence a crime, it will be much easier to change the law.

Personally, I don't like the way many copyright laws are written, but I support copyright. I think there are a lot of places where we can improve copyright law, but I believe that making it a crime is not a good idea. As civil law, if I break the law but the copyright holder doesn't suffer any damages as a result, there is little point in suing me. For example, in countries without fair use, I might want to rip a DVD and put it on my file server. It would be illegal, but it doesn't result in any damages, so nobody will sue me. That is a reasonable balance, IMHO. But if it were a crime, I may be charged even if what I'm doing isn't damaging anyone. Even worse, because the state pursues it, the copyright hold has no say in the matter and can't stop proceedings if the state decides to go ahead.