More like Linux from scratch instead of Mathematician, gentooist as physicist, Debian as chemist...

Gaps! a law against being none original would be the end of story making. Have you read tvtropes lately? (or at all?) It's virtually impossible to make a story without using a trope already used dozen of times (and I'm being optimistic). It would be even worst than software patent.

Casual Piracy is as easy today as in the early 2000s... Easier I would say. Go to TPB or any torrent agregator, search for the last movy you want, download in tens of minutes and watch it... in the emule's time (or worse) you would probably have waited a night or two, and you would be hoping not to get a porn file (or the revers).
And for all I know, pirating games don't seems to be harder either. The only thing that change slightly is how you find the games.

As for the Humble Bundle: Keep in mind the games in them are no exclusivity. They were probably on TPB before they were in the Bundles, and anyway the fact is that the bundles are still selling, so it doesn't seems to be hurting anyone. Quite the contrary it would seems. Also, getting games for the price you want without DRM and free music legally is attractive. I can only speak for myself, but I have bough games with the bundle I wouldn't have pirated other way. (The down side being I have now to much games for my free time, but hey they were really not expensive. )

So I guess DRMs are only good for annoying genuine customers.

Just to be clear, I meant to say even 10 years ago things were not what you described, so your experience was probably from the precedent decade.

I'm not blaming you for giving up, just don't compare what Linux is in the present to what it was in the late 90. Things have evolve a lot. I'm not telling you to give a try. Do what you want. I seriously don't care. But please don't make judgment based on what you think you know. I could make use Linux to my grandmother who don't understand much about computing, and I'm sure it would work well. Believe it or not.

Linux was ready in the late 90s or even early 2000s, but seriously it's not comparable to what it is today.

Ah a anti-linux fan. When was the last time you saw a modern Linux system?

Yes you can copy/paste... you can since at least 10 years ago I would say. The middle button also works, and quite frankly, it's a great feature I wish was implemented in windows as well.

In most modern distribution, the installer can make partition without your input, but you can dictate your own settings. I also think it was possible 10 years ago by the way...

Ha! please don't start with unguessable names... have you look at windows process lately? Anyway, application are named by there author and it's true on any platform.

Yes let just look away and ignore Ubuntu, Mint, Redhat, and plenty other totally usable distribution that doesn't require real knowledge from the user part to use.

But anyway, you can stay in the years 1990...

Luxury!

Real gamer find things on the floor and hit on another with it!

You train your geometry with angry bird!
Its like snooker.

The man should sell his story to Hoolywood. They might had some explosion there and then, but whatever...

I knew the minitel when it was still mainstream! (gosh, what am I now? some kind of reverse hipster? )

It used to be fun to type random stuff on the black screen with the keyboard while offline, but it kind of gets old pretty quickly, I tell you. Other than that it a handy to find postal address and phone numbers... I wasn't old enough for the hotter stuff. The biggest downer was it was pay per minute. Then internet came, like fifteen years ago, with the fancy html and stuff, plus you could do the same thing and more with it. I'm surprise the service still exist until this week end, but I figure old people are difficult to move to newer technology.

Either way, this treaty need serious rethinking, as in it's current state, it is hardly enforceable. For one thing, apart maybe for China and India, There were no manned space exploration program seriously supported by any government since the 70s. It might be that not being able to exploit the moon or another celestial body made it difficult to sell to earth people, and ultimately difficult for government to justify to put money on it. It's just a thought.

An other difficulty to enforce this treaty, is that their is no real way to punish transgressor... Imagine China set a colony on Mars. What is the rest of the world gonna do, apart from learning to speak mandarin?

Maybe we could offer this to some death waiting prisoner as an alternative? Maybe not the sanest crew... But They would have double motivation to succeed.

It's funny how people just can't stop saying PS have huge features that lakes Gimp. I'm sure that's true, but I never see what those features are or why they are so goddamn importante.

I mean, normally, in a good flameware KDE/Gnome or Linux/OSX/Windows or vi/emacs, you gets some details, but here, pretty much nothing.

So I'm curious : What's so great about PS that it's worth paying for? ( And yes, I know it isn't hard to get it free, but it's not what I asked, you pirate's scumm! )

There is a difference between doing bad maintenance or changing a brake to tinker the software that control your speed. if you get a bufferoverflow you can have a car speeding up in the middle of a city, or braking suddenly on the hightway, and you might not be able to predict it until it happen.

Anyway, bad maintenance is bad enough, if you can do both, it is just more troubles awaiting.

To be fair, it's not really the "electric engine" part that matter.

Most people don't hack their computer programs, but some does and sometimes some came up with something usefull for more people than just himself. It's great and cool.
Now all systems aren't critical on a car, but if you build an Open Source Car (electric or not), you Open all systems, else it's a Closed Source Car with Open Source equipment. But you don't want average joe to hack the direction, speed regulator or brake systems. 'cause average joe will probably f*ck it up. And you want your roads to be relatively safe, or else you don't bother with rules for them. On a racetrack the rules are different : tinkering is expected, so why not hack what you can?

I'm all for freedom to hack your properties, but like all liberties it shouldn't allow you to put other people in danger.

The point I think isn't that any Joe Nobody can make change and fix bug, but that constructors can produce the derivative product, cuting cost of developpement, and that independent car's repairman can do their job without paying what-thousand dollars to a car constructor for certification.

As for private tinkering, It shouldn't be autorised for vehicules on the public roads, but it can still be interresting for stock-car amateurs...