True. And I also thought that half of the RIAA's arguments were that when you bought a CD, you were buying a "license" to use that CD and that you didn't actually own the music on it anyway... or was that what Microsoft was saying about software? Something like that, anyway.

So do we own it, or do we not?

Don't get me wrong, I've used SuSE 8.0/8.1/9.0, Slackware 10, Fedora 4/6/8/9 and now Fedora 10 and I have no designs of creating a "Windows" box. But there is functionality that I'm denied because of that choice, and I wish there wasn't. Yes, it's the hardware companies' fault, but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem. And it doesn't mean that Windows doesn't do it better (in general).

I only wish Linux had numbers like this. For all the hours I've spent building ndiswrapper or ATI display drivers on any number of boxes... I don't even have that much weird hardware, but Linux printing support is way behind, 3D display is way behind, sound support is sometimes flawless and sometimes nonexistent.

Not that I'm about to use Windows, but it would be nice.

If we're to expect a degree of research and professionalism from newspapers and magazines, then I need a dueling sword... bring on the journalists!

"the point of the entire exercise of voting: make the people feel like their voice counts in their government"

I thought it was so that their voice actually DID count in their government?