You would expect a system that benefits all people equally would maintain a relatively close distribution of wealth over time.

Why would you expect that?

That's idiotic. It goes to other places so other people can do stuff with it. That's what investment means.

Your apparent desire to steal from people is disgusting.

The two most important items in my office are my Model M keyboard and my big fat Logitech trackball. I've got big hands, and typing on those shitty little throwaway keyboards (you know, the identical black HP keyboard that came with everyone's tower) scrunches me up in a weird way. I have more typos, and by day's end my wrists fucking hurt. A physically larger keyboard with bigger, more spaced-out keys is such a Godsend.

The trackball is really nice too. Hard to get used to if you've never used one before, but it also really saves my wrist. Working at other workstations (I do a lot of contract stuff, in all kinds of places) really gets to me, and I find that as I get older (even though I'm only 30) I have less tolerance for it. Within an hour or two, I can feel it in my tendons. But I can work at my own desk all day long and be totally fine.

I just wrapped up a contract gig for a government agency who shall remain nameless. I had a sit/stand workstation there. God, it was nice. I'm gonna start saving up for one at home. I agree that keyboard trays are teh dumb.

I don't really like the split keyboard setup, but one thing I've noticed doing a lot of work at home (on my Model M) and at various contracts (who all have the same identical el cheapo HP keyboard) is that a physically larger keyboard helps me immensely. Whenever I'm using one of those tiny little jobs, I feel like I have to scrunch my hands into a weird contortion, and by day's end, my wrists invariably ache.

So why don't you install Debian and be done with it?

Okay, don't get me wrong... it's far from certain anything will get fixed, but most of the time you get good lip service.

Well that's just ducky.

Only they have the source code, only they can fix it

Huh. Can't imagine why that doesn't work.

In open source you have the power to trump all that make a patch, regardless if it's important for anyone but you

Cool, huh?

But that is more the exception than the rule, most of the time I can live with the bugs

Then by God, do so.

So in summary, what you are saying in this post is that all the things you said in your previous post were false?

if one will get you "Thanks we're always interested in the bugs our (paying) customer are experiencing"

I can't imagine which one you are talking about, but it's not one that I've ever seen.

That's not a very good argument. "They" (whoever they are) also won't make you buy health insurance if you're never going to...live.

How do you vote with your feet if there is barely any choice in the so-called "marketplace"?

What market are you referring to? There's broad choice in the PC market.

And if you vote with your wallet, will that count against the votes of others whose wallets are rather thicker than yours?

Yes, if there's enough of you.

It doesn't, you fucking idiot.

Of course not. Then the OP would have said something like this: "Richard Stallman, founder and president of the Free Software Foundation, marketing for Apple, Inc." Your freedom to swing your fist stops at my face.

Thoughts?

The hell with them all. There's more freely licensed, widely available music (and film, and television, and literature) now than ever before in our history, and that's just the beginning. Free culture is just beginning. The number of artistic works released under Creative Commons licenses is growing exponentially, and it's just beginning. I don't have to play ball with those greasy fucking peckerwoods in "The Industry" anymore. Enjoy your Rhapsody or your Spotify or whatever. I'm living at the beginning of a renaissance, and it's pretty fucking cool.

Oppressively, restricted licensed works of art and culture are bad. There's more freely offered and widely available music now than ever before. Broaden your horizons.

You're wrong. As I said to someone else above, there's more readily available, freely offered works of art and culture in the commons today than at any other point in history, and it's exploding. Free culture is happening, and it's happening more every day, and it's just getting rolling. One day history will see our generation as living at the beginning of a renaissance.