I disagree that the Ubuntu repository system is something that companies should be aiming to implement as (at least in my opinion) it has a lot of faults of its own. Consider:

- What if I want to install a version (minor/major/whatever) of something that is not in the repos. Satisfying the dependencies can be a complete pain for even advanced users, let alone your average Ubuntu newbie. For example, back when I was using 9.10 I wanted to install the latest stable version of a Eclipse. Of course it wasn't in the repos and required the latest version of the JDK which also wasn't in the repos. A couple of hours later, after much Interweb browsing, I managed to get a satisfactory install. I don't think it is an unreasonable request to be able to simply click a button and install the version of software that I want.

- The whole concept of dynamically linked libraries. I can understand why they exist from the PoV of older systems that have limited hard disk space and the PoV of business where more libraries equal higher costs. However, from the perspective of many home owners hard disk space has never been cheaper and many users have much more hard disk space than they can use. It seems silly to needlessly complicate the install process with dependencies stemming from the use of dynamically linked libraries when many users won't benefit from doing so. I am not saying never use dynamically linked libraries, what I am saying is give users a choice of an "easy mode" that takes up more disk space and a "hard mode" that takes up less. Nevertheless, I do recognize that there are legal ramifications and that this couldn't be used in every situation.

In my humble opinion, for the reasons stated above repos are one of the primary things that are holding back the uptake of Linux.

I think the bottom line is, regardless of where Twitter is based, it has an ethical obligation to abide by EU laws if it wants to serve content to EU citizens. No one forced Twitter to serve content to the EU, they could have easily put up one of those (rather common) "XYZ content is not available in your country" pages. Not to mention that the fact that (to point out the blatantly obvious) EU citizens are (for the most part) not US citizens/residents, and therefore, the US has >> no right to our data; we're nothing to do with the US. If the US did want the data for some legitimate reason they could always ask through the proper channels. I have no idea whether there would even be a chance of them getting it, but that's not the point. Before going any further I would like to say I am NOT anti the American people (emphasis on people), in fact I quite like Americans. Nevertheless, the American government (emphasis on the government being different from people) has been getting up to much douchebaggery of late and a lot of us in the EU are getting quite annoyed about it. I think it's about time someone gave them a kick up the backside. Frankly I hope the next US government actually has a decent foreign policy. Over the past 10 years the Bush and Obama administrations have been alienating people overseas, increasingly isolating the US; and that's not good for anyone!