Well, that's not true. If a company fucks something up, like take stock value over efficient delivery of the goods they provide, or prefer short term profit over long term investments, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Sure, you can go to a "competitor" who is equally bad because their bottom line is stock value as well, not consumer satisfaction or crap like that. How is that free market thing working out for you?

At least with a government run utility, you can vote them out of office. I totally agree that that's not working out for most Americans either, but at least you can theoretically change that with your vote.

Also, you don't really think you're not paying for the private companies' investments, right? You're paying for them after the fact, which is good, but you keep on paying for them even when they're paid off. Which bad, unless you own stock in the company... which you're funding by yourself, partly.

Please read the GP. He's talking about the difference between Miss Kittin and Scooter. Scooter! There's a difference between "broadening your taste" and licking out a septic tank.

Are you aware of the Chrome (not Chromium) binaries?

http://dev.chromium.org/getting-involved/dev-channel scroll down to Mac and download the dmg.

Exclusivity agreement with the telco.

Though your point is fair, the other side is what you have now. Bottom line is (short term) profit measured in dollars American, not customer satisfaction or cultural significance or being leaders in the online community or any of that socialist crap. Shiny green dollars.
So what if you live in a moderately large city without a good deal on dsl? So what if your neighboring city does have decent broadband? So what if your connection is flaky? There is no competition due to the exclusive license and the way to make the most money is to squeeze every last cent out of you through dialup, then low cost dsl.
Sure, there's loads of dark fiber, but that would screw with the current business model.

All the while, Japan and Europe, especially Scandinavia, are laughing at your slow and expensive connections.

See, I understand where this is coming from, the status quo and a thorough belief in free markets and all. What I don't understand is that if there's a clearly better alternative that would involve government involvement or anything remotely socialist, suddenly loads of people (who would directly benefit from the change!) are against it.

"What is a Social Contract?"

Correct! For $1000!

The Atom is nothing to sneeze at and should do more than fine for a SOHO fileserver, but it's not a C2D processor. The Mini as advertised here is a full blown desktop PC with all bells and whistles, and it _still_ only uses 16W idle. That's where the additional cash goes.
Also, it's not easy to find a decent (80+) PSU with good efficiency in the lower watts. The PicoPSU is great, but adds another $40 plus around $40 for an adapter. Which should also be 80+ again.

With EXTREME PREJUDICE???

Also the Hero has Windows Mobile 6.5.

Yeah, and what's with the name: Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft?

Copyright Theft? Is that where I catburgle Universal HQ and make off with the copyright papers for the latest hit artist? How can a copyright be stolen?

On the other hand, have you ever seen a Mac with a virus scanner? Sure, you can get them for free too and they're not half bad, but most users will go for brand names anyway, like Symantec or McAfee. And what about spyware scanners? The good ones are free, but is the time spent scanning for *ware free as well? You could have been doing actual work.

- Strong command line (svn, ssh, scp, grep, the entire unix command suite like diff and tail -f and tee and xargs etc)

- Very decent and free native IDE (XCode)

- My current favourite IDE for Java, IntelliJ IDEA, runs well, no crashes or slowness (though it works well on Linux and Windows, too)

- Built-in apache, native mysql, all in a server-like environment due to the BSD underpinnings

- Hard to describe and very cliche sounding, but OSX has a high get-out-of-your-face value. No big borders, no nag screens, no activation, just the apps you need

Downsides:
- No TortoiseSVN (I don't mind, the command line svn and IntelliJ's built-in client are enough)

- MySQL tools are lagging behind Windows development sometimes

- Sometimes slow with the Java updates

OS's these days have to be usable by anyone, from grandma to hardcore developers. Windows solves this by going lowest common denominator on you. You can bend the OS to your will, no problem, but the nagging is always there (sure you want to open the program files folder? I mean, you could break something!!) OSX is easy enough to use for a granny as well and definitely has its quirks, but you only have to whip open the terminal, type sudo and you have true access to everything.

Careful package selection can help you with that. What's more, distros like Ubuntu and Debian do the selection for you. You will find it hard to break a system by just using apt-get update/install.

The downside is that you won't be able to use cutting edge software or latest versions as soon as they come out (Firefox comes to mind). Unless you really really need them, what's the big deal? And if you do need the latest python version, you can go to a beta version of the distro. Sure, it's beta, but since you know what you're doing, you're probably going to be OK. And if you don't know what you're doing? I'd say, then you probably won't need the latest python version either.

> Re: IIS: MS spent as much effort on the UI as they did on the actual product. This is very different than FOSS.

But, why would they? The "obscure" configuration file has its benefits. Easily synchronised over multiple servers, easy to back up your entire configuration, easy to grep for a specific settings that's somewhere in there. Apache even comes with a tool that checks your syntax for you, so no need to break your server. And hey, if it really doesn't work? cp httpd.conf_backup httpd.conf and you're back in business.
For a server product, I'd actually want them to spend more time on the product than on the UI. Servers are usually operated by people who know about computers, so there really is no need for something that is "easy", especially if that means you have to dig down deep for a specific setting (over multiple servers, can be a pain...)
You could argue that IIS is not only marketed to professionals, it can even be operated by laymen! I would say that's a downside. This means dumbing down the UI for the beginner's sake.
On the other hand, for desktop products, I agree with the statement. FOSS needs more and better UI people.

> Again, writers, proofreaders and editors want to get paid for their work.
You go by the assumption that FOSS developers do not get paid for their work. This is not true. Sure, there are lots of volunteers, but loads of people get paid to contribute to open source software. A couple of examples: Java (Sun/IBM), Linux (Linus gets paid!), Apple just open sourced Grand Central Dispatch, Guido the python guy is employed, Qt is open source, a bunch of Google code is open source, Red Hat employees get paid, etc.
I think the focus is less market driven, so there's less need for a finished product-in-a-box like Windows 7 or Adobe Photoshop. Since the software is constantly being developed, bugfixed and upgraded, the tech writers are writing against a moving target.
In cases where there is a finished product, for example a specific Ubuntu or RedHat version, you will find there is ample documentation, both "official" and community provided.

> Mostly free software is exploiting programs to give their work away for free
I think you meant to say "programmers", and I wholeheartedly disagree. No-one is being exploited. We're not talking forced labor here. See above, lots of programmers are getting paid to do FOSS. Loads more are happy to volunteer their time and expertise, for fame, for gratitude or because they wanted a feature in the software they're using and it's not in there yet.
Designers, editors and proofreaders don't not "fall" for it, as you say. There is nothing to fall for. Either you give something back to the community for letting you use the software for free, or you don't. Your choice. I guess the mindset of the aforementioned groups is different from programmers.

Bang for the price-of-admittance buck or bang for the total-cost-of-ownership buck?

See, not only server farms need to pay their electricity bills. A modest system can be built in the under 50W range, where gamer systems don't have the 1000W PSU for nothing. There is a huge difference at the end of the month.