Thieving, lying, completely dishonest. I think that describes much of what goes on the USA as well.

Let's not vilify Android because it is free. Let's stop prosecuting companies for competing. Let everyone build the best products they can at the best price they can offer and let the cards fall where they may. In this way consumers will have the most choice and the least expense for the products they choose to purchase. Or... we can continue with the patents malarkey so that no small company will want to innovate and we will end up with an oligarchy of only the biggest companies with the most lawyers. I promise you won't be happy about that.

http://mariadb.org/ - I watched a google tech talk on this. Looks quite good. Might be worth a look for those who would like to remain in familiar territory but not have to worry about Oracle.

If a company or individual provides the best product at the best price and lots of people like it and decide to voluntarily purchase that product and you call it a monopoly then I am happy with that monopoly. If the monopoly is not voluntary, that is, force or coercion is used to enforce that monopoly then I am not happy. Do you suppose that Google uses force or other coercion to enforce their (supposed monopoly)? Or is it that they just provide a product that lots and lots of people like to use and do so voluntarily? Are you free to use other search engines, or is Google the only one you can use? If someone comes up with a better search engine alternative will they be permitted to choose to purchase that product?

Because the rules don't apply to the rulers. Just you.

The US dollar has lost over 95 percent of its purchasing power since its inception. No one seems to notice. Pick your poison.

It would be nice if I worked with support people who knew what they were doing. I don't have access to certain environments but if something goes wrong I'm supposed to fix it somehow. But then again, I work in a robot clone environment where software development is some sort of alien concept. I need a new job.

Since I've been a part of audio production in the past, I happen to know that the whole DRM thing, at least as far as music goes is kind of silly. I'm sure I'm not the first person to say that. But the thing is, all it does is theoretically keep people from making digital copies. But I can still play that audio through an analogue audio system. So, it is simple to make a digital copy of the analogue signal. If the source is anywhere near decent the digital copy of the analogue signal will be almost identical to the original. And for nearly everyone, that's close enough. Most people couldn't tell the difference between the original CD and an analogue to digital copy if its done on reasonably good equipment. Don't forget, people used to be ok with making casette tapes via an FM radio signal. That was pretty bad quality but people still did it. An analogue to digital copy is very close to the original. Once a DRM free digital copy is out there it is game over for the DRM stuff. Inevitably, copies can be made, that is, if DRM actually worked, which it doesn't. So, in the end, I don't think DRM can work, so for now it is making some people some money for these so called solutions, and harming consumers. Awesome.