I think he favours the Blender model of FOSS: there are people in the community coming up with ideas for new features and making fundraisers for it. It's like Kickstarter except the result becomes OSS. If not enough money comes together, less features will be implemented. Of course it only works for people with proper resume/portfolio. (See their OpenCL renderer.)

Blender is rather unique though. They have their milestone rendering projects to create short films (Big Buck Bunny, Sintel, etc) that push the latest features and raise their profile. This helps in fundraising and allows the project to continue. I think Blender is a success story for a professional-level tool in the FOSS ecosystem, but not all software can be made like this. A single product like a game, well... maybe the engine can be released as FOSS and you end up buying the data (maps, models, sounds, etc). But from his post I don't think he'd be satisfied with any financial compensation as an end-user, no matter how minor. That's his prerogative though.

Shit, I'll admit it. It used to be because I though it was a nice ideology (and it is), but nowadays I'll freely admit that I just like free software. I don't want to pirate anymore, but I don't want to buy software if there's a perfectly good OSS alternative available. Plus by using the OSS alternative I future-proof myself in case I finally decide to move to Linux (which may never happen, but it can't hurt to keep my options open and make the possible transition as painless as possible).

There's nothing wrong with being tight with money, particularly if the OSS options are good enough. I tend to now buy games and media more than tools, so long as the games are cross-platform and the media is non-DRMed. Keeps me happy, and yes it's a cheaper way to do things. Big deal, I like cheap. :)

I am basically opposed to the idea of paying for something that it is already done, payed for and that has zero replication costs too.

So what if the replication costs are zero? The work to make the software in the first place isn't free (we're assuming of course a for-sale product), so compensating for said effort is appropriate. It might take quite a number of sales before the costs for developing a product breaks even. Then there are the distribution costs, which even if it's something as simple as a server requires upkeep and maintenance costs.

Your position doesn't match the realities of the real world and no-one would take you seriously if you tried doing business with such a position.

And, if you still don't like it, easily replaceable: sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

I think you made a typo, here's the correct command:
sudo apt-get install cinnamon

OK it's still pretty new, but it's very quick and functional, and people are making themes and addons for it already.

What I've come to realize (speaking as a Linux fan but not a full-time user) is that a lot of Linux supporters like to blame everyone else for the lack of Linux's success on the desktop, EXCEPT Linux itself. They don't seem to acknowledge the fact that perhaps, just perhaps, it's the kernel developer's insistence on the lack of a stable ABI/API, the lack of support for commercial developers and the often hostile attitude of the community to said developers who write proprietary software, that might make Linux distros undesirable for the developers, and so the lack of software/hardware support and indeed, polish, ends up pushing people away.

But no, it's everyone else's fault. The Linux ecosystem is surely not at fault right? As long as people keep believing this, nothing will get better (and since it's such a pervasive idea that it's everyone ELSE who's at fault, no wonder uptake of Linux desktops is not only at a standstill, but in some reports is regressing.) It's fucking disturbing how many people think Linux is good enough for mainstream users, and ignore the legitimate complains people have about it. Personally I'm prepared to work with its deficiencies but at least I'm not blind to them!

Can't please everybody, but just the other day I thought about how I will mount my Pi when it comes

Am I the only one who was thinking something when reading this?

I can appreciate your sentiments, but I haven't had the experiences you've had.

Doesn't make them any less annoying or worthy of recognition of their existence. Plenty of people have had these issues, posted on various Linux forums, with varying levels of success at fixing them.

If a desktop configuration gets corrupted in Windows and I can't login to my user profile, then I usually I have to blow the user profile away to have it rebuilt.

What in God's name are you doing to your system that ends up corrupting your user profile? To be fair I shouldn't complain too much because in a past life I did IT support (never again!) and some people somehow fucked up their profiles so badly that new ones had to be made. I still have no idea why it happened.

With Linux, the settings are ruled by text files

Traditionally yes, and this is a good thing which has saved me some trouble when copying settings between various servers. However there seems to be a new breed of Linux developer who stores their settings in binary files now, sorta akin to the Windows Registry, and if this trend keeps up then you won't be able to mark this as an advantage anymore.

I use Linux because I find it very attractive. Sure, there are problems I encounter but I'm committed to working through them. That's how I learn how computers work and I have learned more about how computers work with Linux than I ever have with Windows.

Are you sure you're learning about how computers work, or just how Linux works? I've had many problems with various Linux distros which I've managed to solve through shear determination, but I'm not convinced I've expanded my knowledge about the fundamentals of computers - rather I've expanded my knowledge about how to fix Linux-specific problems. There's a difference.

Also, I do enjoy learning how to fix problems. But only in my OWN TIME. I do not enjoy coming home to fix problems unless I'm in a mood to do so. If I come home and find that a kernel update I applied the night before had killed my wireless adaptor or my graphics drivers, this does not please me. I can fix them most likely (or boot an older kernel), but I don't want to have to deal with this shit unless I'm mentally in the mood to do so.

Apologies - Slashdot ate the keyboard shortcuts in my post. For reference the steps came from http://en.libreofficeforum.org/node/498

And to counter your argument, I'm still looking for the feature or features that Office has that Libre Office lacks

That's easy - there's no way to easily vertically/middle align text in Open/LibreOffice writer. In Word 2010 you can simply click Align Text -> Middle on the ribbon and that's that. In Open/LibreOffice writer the closest and quickest alternative I've see anyone manage to do this is as follows:

Write your text and select it ()
1.) Insert Frame by typing
M
2.) Set width automagically:

3.) Select vertical align
C
4.) Select reference:

select 'entire page' or 'page text area' - as you wish
5.) confirm by pressing

Even then you still aren't done, since you have to remove the frame's border if you want the result to be the same as the one in Word. People have asked for this, but it hasn't been implemented yet. Perhaps one day, but still it's little things like this that you only discover once you find a need for them, and you realize why people might be inclined to just pay money for the market leader and get on with life.

Note: I use LibreOffice at home since I want cross-platform support between Windows and Linux, plus I don't want to pirate Office and yet don't feel it's worth buying for the little I use it for. At the same time, if Office were cross-platform and really cheap (and didn't require activation and instead just a serial), I'd jump on it in a heartbeat.

I generally just watch "let's plays" on YouTube, however there's a lot of decent stuff at http://vodo.net/ (Pioneer One, Zenith, various documentaries, etc.). Another good place for free shows is http://revision3.com/ - my particular favorites are Scam School, The Ben Heck Show and Hak5.

As for games, try Urban Terror, Xonotic (not a huge number of online players though) and fs2_open (updated Freespace 2 engine, needs FS2 files though which are available legally if you know where to find them).

I used to think like that but then I realized that the amount of data I've got on my hard drive that I actually NEED or couldn't live without, is actually quite small. The bulk of my data is used up with movies and videos. I like having a lot of them, but I certainly wouldn't mind getting rid of some of it if it meant cleaning up the crud.

The more shit you have, the less likely you are to remember what you have. The treasures go unnoticed unless/until you go examine everything you've got. I still delete stuff off my HDD to make way for new stuff because it encourages me to not keep crap in my inventory.

Doesn't she know that she's now dependent on Neuropozyne for the rest of her life?

Not everyone in the world is a computer nerd.

True. But there seems to be this acceptance that it's OK if you are unable to fix things yourself, and that simply throwing money at a new revision of the product (or throwing money at someone to fix things) is a virtue. I know someone who had to call in an electrician because one of their household lights had blown (nothing special, just a regular old incandescent globe). Not because she was too busy, but because she simply didn't know HOW to replace a globe. To me that's rather sad.

I think it's very important that people have a least some ability to try to fix things themselves before spending extra money they don't have to. It's incredibly empowering to know you have the skills necessary to fix things either quicker than it takes to book a tradesman to come out, or cheaper than buying it new. Of course you can't fix everything, but there's tons of information on the net on how to self-fix things that really help also develop your ability to rely on yourself rather than be helpless and wait on others.

Sometimes I'm amazed at the compatibility which DOES exist in LibreOffice for reading MS Office files. As an example, at work we have a travel budget calculator in the form of an .xls (Excel spreadsheet) file. Out of curiosity I loaded it in LibreOffice 3.5.1 and it worked almost perfectly - it even understood all the macros. The only stuff wrong were some slight misalignment of some labels but I doubt anyone would notice or care since it's an internal document. Of course I have MS Office here as well but it was still an interesting test of the capability for reading such files in LibreOffice.