I agree. IRC is a great resource for getting help. It's one of the things I show to new Linux users so they can get help when they get stuck. The community is very helpful and friendly.

LOL! Brilliant. :P

I've been using Kubuntu 9.04 since Alpha 5 (it was stable enough for daily use even then) and its easily the best release of Kubuntu ever. KDE 4.2.2 is great, KPackageKit integration with System Settings is wonderful, the selection of apps is very pleasant, Ext4, vastly faster boot time and more... Kubuntu 9.04 is a huge improvement over previous releases. I would hardly call it garbage...

"Nepomuk, for example, was supposed to launch us into the era of the semantic desktop" Was ? Its in progress, no one has dropped the ball on that one, these things don't happen overnight you know. "Developers for Amarok and Digikam, two major KDE apps, have both stated that they have no interest in integrating with Nepomuk for the time being." What the ? Amarok has been working with Nepomuk for some time...

The nature of Novell's relationship and agreements with Microsoft, the way it advertises its wares to customers ('do you want the product that is compatible with Windows or the one that isn't ?'), its love of all things Microsoft and Anakin de.. err Miguel de Icaza; these things are more than enough for me to want to scrutinize every line of code that comes out of Novell. The entire free software world should be duly concerned. And yes, I'd support the Linux kernel moving to GPLv3, absolutely.