So wait, Red Hat, Canonical, Google and other companies are all warmly welcome to contribute and make improvements, but when it's Microsoft we should go "noo, we don't play with guys like that. go away."

They're all profiting (or as you say, exploiting) Linux just the way you describe.

I think you're under assuming recent generation low-end phones. They're perfectly capable of multitasking, surfing the internet, many even have cameras. They might not have so many features, the camera quality isn't really that good, but even the cheap phones now a day can do lots of stuffs. And I actually just looked from Nokia's site. Since hardware is the most cost, I think they can do it with their Linux solution since now they're using Symbian.

Uh no, they should really drop Symbian already. It's just pain in the ass. Both to use and develop for. Best would be to only have Win7 for high-end phones and Linux for the low-end.

You know, Microsoft hasn't been with war with Open Source or Linux for years. They contribute to open source themselves, they ask for slashdotters opinion to their open source Python IDE (where 95% of you acted like dicks btw) and is in every other way come forward. The rest of the world has let it go years ago. Maybe you should too.

Just a slight correction, $400 million an year of course. And so this isn't just self-reply... Nokia has always needed help with their UI and consumer friendly part in their smartphones. I think Windows 7 is a really good choice for that, as it's actually a really user friendly OS and it already as the marketplace and other stuff ready that Nokia never got off alone. But Nokia has also done good low-end phones and they're still selling really great in Asia and in Europe too. Linux is a good choice for those, as it can run on more low-end machine and Nokia already has knowledge about it gained from MeeGo.

This means the three friends Linux-Nokia-Microsoft will be in bed together. It's not surprising considering Nokia already developed Qt and they were developing MeeGo which is based on Linux. Their Nokia N9 phone is quite awesome, actually.

Now what's great about this is the fact that with Nokia's history they have proven to put out quality hardware. They can also really use this to fight against both iPhone and what's worrisome for some, Android. Android has lots of fragmentation and patent related problems. Just yesterday it was revealed that Microsoft alone gets $400 million a day from Android.

Yeah, from the beginning (I think it was his words) Slashdot was more like CmrdTaco's own blog.. And it still is.

This is the thing people forget when they just compare prices to cheaper countries. It's the same in Europe too. Products prices are higher, as are all costs and wages. This means it costs more to companies too, so they have to charge more in the prices too. Also, In Europe we have stuff like warranties in products that also take the price higher.

The good thing is that both Australians and Europeans win on this when they go travel to US or the cheaper Asian countries. Hell, in some Asian countries you can live like a king with just the normal western salary, but living isn't suddenly cheaper to the locals.

It's only like Japan where you can get fast connections cheaply. In rest of the Asia connections cost just as much, if even you even can get faster than 8/1 at all. Only Europe has it good, and it's just some countries too. I know, I live in both Europe and Asia.

Why couldn't they log? The submitter wasn't interested in that, he just wanted US ip to use. He's not using it for anything illegal.

And better yet, put a VPN server on it. It's a bit more work to configure, but is kind of requirement for streaming (over non-http), games and other such.

News-Service.com sold their services to the likes of Binverse and Usenext, so it's not really surprising. While it takes away sad piece of history, the leeches and warez destroyed it. While some people still use it for talking, for the common people and most of the world it's just like BitTorrent. Not like I agree with the situation, but if something that is a major problem needs to be shut down and for the few using it for legal purposes need to move to something else, well, it's not surprise move.

While still being somewhat similar to ISP's and contraty to popular belief here on Slashdot, it's the intent that counts. That's why ThePirateBay was also found quilty in court.