Linux + Office 2007 = all-Linux?
Yes. Remember, as GNU fanatics like to say, Linux is just the kernel. "All-Linux" here refers to Linux on every computer the person uses.
But if nobody can figure out another way to do the same thing, the patent does indeed stifle innovation (since other inventions often build on top of existing ones).
I think the key point is that there is no "magic number" that is the length of time during which a patent is guaranteed to not stifle innovation--other than zero. What if C. A. R. Hoare had gotten a patent on the original quicksort? Even modern general sorting algorithms like introsort are based on quicksort. Science and engineering are built, fundamentally, on iterative improvement of existing designs, and patenting just stops progress in a direction of research for the length of the patent.
I do the same thing, except I don't have Mathematica or Maple, so I use wxMaxima.
Why would this be tied in to the kernel?
In the immortal words of the Internet Explorer development team: "Why not?"
... replying to myself to stop the inevitable flood of comments about free vs. open source software, how not all free software comes at no charge, etc., etc.
If everybody wants free everything, then nobody will work on anything.
Every open source project ever begs to disagree.
Or have you not noticed the banners on all the pages?
I can't speak for the OP, but I'm not a subscriber and I don't see ads on Slashdot. Or anywhere, for that matter. Can you say "Adblock Plus" and "NoScript"?
Hey, Slashdot can do random bullshit too. *cough* idle *cough*
Oh, and look at this: http://www.google.com/trends?q=emacs%2C+vi%2C+notepad
False positives aren't too bad. You just fall back on the old method.
Yes, but would they?
</cynicism>
Touche. I'll concede this one then and chalk it up to a policy that I don't agree with.
Indeed, this is a policy I think a lot of people disagree with. Still, it prevents Wikipedia from having an article on every Pokemon.
I still think the policy is fundamentally flawed. It's one thing to delete an article that some douchebucket writes about his two-week-old blog; it's another to delete something that's fairly well-known to a large but specific group of people.
So what's a better criterion? An arbitrary "I've heard of it before" vote? Ghits?
The current article for Lolrus is a redirect. However, if you follow the redirect back and check the page history, you'll find a medium-length article with some independent citations (Slate and Time Magazine).
Read WP:N again, carefully. At least some references must specifically refer to the subject as an independent topic, not just mention it as a subtopic of something else. (The Time Magazine article comes close, but it doesn't really go into any detail, as the first commenter on the AfD mentioned.) That's why the article was merged. Why none of the content of said article appears in the lolcats article is another matter entirely.
The article lacks citations, but there are enough sources on the internet that citations could be provided.
If there are so many references, why don't you add some of them to the article? You see, that's the beauty of Wikipedia: if something is wrong, you can fix it yourself. And it's almost impossible for an article with reliable, properly cited references to get deleted for good.
Great idea in theory. But in practice, it leads to Eastern European weightlifters being deleted because pimply-faced American 'admins' haven't heard of them, but that every single Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon card ever created has its own separate page.
So... um... when did this happen? You don't give a specific example, and I'm pretty sure the Pokemon thing was settled a loooong time ago. And, again, remember that deletion review can undelete stuff if more references can be supplied, and that an article can be recreated after a poor version is deleted. (Although recreating a poor article with another poor version a couple times is a sure way to get a ban.)
Sigh... every time any article on Slashdot mentions Wikipedia, there's always a flood of people saying "oh, no, I don't dare write anything lest my poor little article get deleted". Yes, there are cases of admins abusing power and deleting articles that never should be deleted. However, these cases are few and far between compared to the number of articles that are deleted for the legitimate reason that no one except the author would ever want to read about the topic.
Have you actually even read WP:N? The third sentence of the page begins "Notability is distinct from 'fame,' 'importance,' or 'popularity'...". For the most part, there is a very simple rule for deciding what is notable: if someone independent of the specific community of people related to the topic has written about the topic, it is notable; otherwise, it is not notable. Many stubs can automatically be saved from deletion by spending five minutes Googling for references.
In short: the few unusual cases of articles being deleted improperly has caused everyone to believe that there are no solid criteria for deletion. There are. Read them. And, of course, there's always Deletion Review.
Finally, I refer you to one of my previous comments.
Could someone please give me a quick comparison between OOo and MS Office?
Here you go: OpenOffice.org has every feature that any practical user would ever want or need. Microsoft Office has these, too, but it also has the ability to generate charts in seventeen dimensions, which for some reason is the one feature absolutely essential to whoever you happen to be trading documents with.
Real Programmers don't eat quiche. They eat Twinkies and Szechwan food.
