I would tend to agree with you about Apple's contributions. However, they are currently in a spat with the FSF over the GCC project. The FSF runs GCC and requires copyright assignment for all code contributions. Presumbably this is so they can quickly upgrade to the newwst GPL license (the Linux kernel is configured almost the opposite way, making the "upgrade" GPLv3 a non-option). Apple has spent a lot of time improving the Objective-C compiler in GCC, but isn't going to assign copyright for that work.
What this means:
1) All code created by Apple is still GPL (not sure of version). Copright: Apple, Inc.: Licensed: GPL.
2) Apple's code is not merged to the official GCC source tree.
3) Not really any user disrruptions.
Mac OS X/iOS are basically the only systems that use Object-C, and Apple provides the best implementation of Ojective-C via Apple's source tree. Other GCC-using platforms probably won't go through the effort of merging Apple's patches, but it's not likely that their users would even be interested in Objective-C.

Really the only thing that matters is that the FSF and Apple have not done a good job of working with one another.

Otherwise, Apple does a good job of working with free software projects. I think one of the best examples is CUPS. About three years ago Apple purchased all of the CUPS code. Apple has kept the project open, and nothing bad happened. Granted, there wasn't much fear of anything bad happening, and CUPS isn't exactly breath-taking technology, but everything worked out great.

So why don't they just use their formula to compute the last digit of Pi already?
That would be the rational approach. Who cares about the two quadrillionth digit??

We could link to Mark's actual blog post http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/517 instead of linking to some crappy IT World "article."

The main problem here is foreign students. I recently graduated from the math department, and many students had basically no understanding of English.

I really disagree that non-English-speaking students should be allowed in American universities. I just didn't get the feeling that they participated in the classroom at all. However, that's not how things work, so I'll be more pragmatic.

Since there are many students with little understanding of English, there are ESL departments that can be good resources. They might have a recommendation on acceptable translators. And, while it might not help you right now, you might be able to convey recommendations (ex. no network capabilities) that the university can provide to incoming ESL students. Then, you won't have as much of a problem in the future.
If it really turns out to be a problem, then in addition to spare calculators, you might need to provide a few spare translators that students can use if they forget theirs or bring an illegal one.

The problem for Apple doesn't have anything to do with their "walled garder." That's an issue for users, not content producers.

I do agree that Apple (and Google) won't get good content deals. The movie/TV industries have realized how badly the music industry got raped by iTMS. Digital downloads are way up, but they just aren't making very much money. Why on earth would movie/TV industries want any piece of that pie. Decreasing prices is certainly good from a consumer POV, but from a producer's view it's bad, unless you can make up the revenue in increased sales. I don't think the price-points exist to make ATV or GTV profitable enough to entice content producers to make "all" (or substantial parts) of their catalogs available.

Content industries are successful because they know how to segment markets. Slashdotters hate it, but that's the way the business is done.

But this doesn't make any sense. Windows 7 is almost brand new. You can't emulate a brand new design so it's comfortable for new users.

I think emulating Windows' DE, but I understand that it could help very ignorant users, although I would seriously question the wisdom of moving them to Linux. However, emulate something familiar like Windows XP.

While I mostly agree with your analysis, I have to put my two cents in.

I think the defining characteristic of fantasy is a reactionary ideology. That is, "fantasy" has some status quo, which is good, peaceful, etc. Some evil emerges that wants to disrupt this harmony, and the entire struggle is basically to return to the status quo. I use the term "evil" because there's no better way to characterize the baddies. Every minion is complete evil and deserves to be washed from the earth/planet. My favorite part is that the good guys technically more closely resemble antagonists (they don't "change" and in fact oppose it); whereas, the bad guys are usually trying to overthrow some thousand year-old harmony, making them protagonists.

Sci-fi is more difficult to characterize. There is certainly my definition of fantasy in many works; however, there are many other outcomes. Fantasy tends to ignore the complexities of real life, and glosses over any complaints that the enemy may have by painting them as completely evil monsters. Sci-fi tends to ignore many of the complexities by internalizing them in technology/"science," but actually presents them to the viewer, although usually in a sock/quirky-value sort of way. Fantasy breaks down if one side isn't evil and single-minded.

Damn, I hate to keep posting on Slashdot about my SO who is a HR recruiter for a tech security firm, but I have to. Hiring managers, who at her company are actually technical people, don't give shit for position requirements. Usually, the recruiter knows a couple of buzz words about the position, salary range, and an education requirement. Since the recruiter hasn't spent time on the project (and the manager doesn't want to spend time selecting candidates), you get bad choices.

*Recruiter takes resume/notes from phone interview to manger*
Manager: This person doesn't have PHP development for X years.
Recruiter: They have Perl, Python, Java, whatever.
Manager: That's not what I asked for, quit wasting my time.

*Recruiter takes info from PHP developer to Manger*
Manager: This person doesn't have enough experience.
Recruiter: How much experience do you want?
Manager: More (typical response).
Recruiter: I will try to find someone that meets the salary constraints.

We give HR a hard time because they seem to bumble around all the time. However, they usually only deal with something for a few minutes. It's just not possible for them to be up to speed. If they were given better specifications, they would make better decisions. However, it all goes back to the manager who wouldn't speed 10 extra minutes creating a job description.

Actually, even though Nvidia does not support KMS their drivers do support running X as a normal user. Users of the ATI proprietary drivers are SOL.

Using KMS does not automatically remove the root requirement. For example, Ubuntu uses KMS drivers for many cards currently, but one of the big improvements for 10.10 will be to run X as a normal user with some drivers.

My point is that there are very few places where they would be enforced. They are a scare tactic, espcially for anyone that reads Slashdot. We aren't exactly the executive types where an ex-employer would bother with (expensive) legal scare-tactics.