I believe a Facebook engineer once stated exactly what you suggest. I'm sure they would have gone another direction but just the fact that Facebook is able to use it like it does seems to imply it's a pretty capable open source project, despite its flaws.

In reality, MySQL is sort of a poster child for open source software. It's a case where a company started using it to keep expenses down. Out grew it but because they had the source they were able to modify it for their use and contributed it back to the community. I can't think of a better example really.

Facebook seems pretty confident in it. Nearly a billion users. I'd imagine if there was a serious enough issue with it Facebook would end up losing quite a bit of money, more than a bank likely. Granted they have their own patches and forked version but the changes aren't that dramatic that a much smaller business couldn't use it.

Then Valve is going to lose out on Linux because most people are moving away from Ubuntu, not toward it. Personally I couldn't give a shit less. I've never used steam and I grew up a long time ago, I don't play games anymore. All you kiddies that care though should write to Valve and explain they are making a mistake going with a distro that refuses to work properly with the rest of the community.

Yeah, I think i've tested every version since the Ubuntu Netbook remix days. I've never settled on Unity as an actual day to day desktop though. It's just too foreign to me.

For a billion dollars even a true believer would sell. You could take a fraction of that billion and make another DB and still have enough money to jerk off with thousand dollar bills for the rest of your life.

Understood, but as far as I am aware, MySQL never pretended to be that. I've been aware of MySQL for over a decade and used it off and on. I'm not a DB admin so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. But MySQL was always the "Use it for your website!" DB package. Facebook seems to get a lot of use from it, granted they use a patched version.

Postgresql was supposed to be the heavy lifter if I remember right. Is this not the case?

I've installed Debian. I really don't see how it's "more work" than Ubuntu. It's like three mouse clicks and some typing and you get a fully functional gnome desktop.

Available on Debian. Not seeing your point. There are better package managers out there now too, like Pacman and RPM has leapfrogged deb in recent years in my opinion.

This totally negates your first point. Debian and others work after some fiddling too. You're just fucking lazy.

Ubuntu's LTS changes a thousand times more than Debian or even FreeBSD does.

Yeah, fuck delta updates and a sane package manager. Emacs does suck, yes. I shave my head, not sure if that is a haircut or a lack of hair altogether.

The majority of the internet would disagree with you. I'm not a big DB person but I do use MySQL on my hosted website. I'd happily go to Postgresql if my provider offered it though.

Red Hat's contribution far out weighs Ubuntu's. I also hardly think Steam came because of Ubuntu. Steam came because of Microsoft. Ubuntu just happened to be the flavor of the month. If not Ubuntu it would have been openSUSE or something else.

Manjaro is just Arch with a better installer. To that end, it has a pretty big community as it's fully compatible with the Arch repos and Aur. You should try the latest Sabayon. It's pretty damned mature now. openSUSE however is probably the best candidate.

Is it just me or is Unity progressing in version numbers faster than Firefox? I'll wait til tomorrow for Unity 8.

Steam works on non-ubuntu distros. In fact it's even bundled with Manjaro

Honest question then. Why are you using Ubuntu? I can't think of a distro that changes more with the exception of Arch. Why not go with Cent or Scientific and have a more stable setup with fewer changes? Or better yet, go with FreeBSD or PC-BSD and have an even more stable setup. Even plain old Debian will do a better job of it.

Just off the top of my head and in no particular order:

openSUSE
Sabayon
Fedora 19 (when it comes out)
Mint
Manjaro

All of the above will get you nearly the same hardware support and often a better desktop experience. Manjaro is an up and comer based on Arch, still has some bugs. Sabayon, based on Gentoo is actually pretty damn good now. The others have been great for a while. I honestly don't understand why people are so hung up on Ubuntu, it doesn't offer anything the other distros don't.

Well, it's Israel, Jews are supposed to feel safe there. That's sorta the whole point. Unfortunately, bigots like you have done everything they can to allow Muslims into Israel so they can commit terrorist attacks against innocent civilians. And as for the moronic comparison to 1965 Alabama, no. There is no comparison there. Give it up.