Free trade is where I say 'hey, I've got this widget, you want to buy it?' and you say 'sure, here's $10' and we exchange cash for widget, without the government interfering at any point.
You don't need huge treaties for free trade, you just need governments to get out of the way.
Sounds nice but is completely incorrect. A huge percentage of the present US economy is based on intellectual property: computer software, television shows, movies, music, the designs of complex things (computer chips, etc.).
The only way to generate money from IP is to use governments to create and enforce laws. Otherwise, people will just make free copies of things.
Now, note that if you want to say that this is OK, that is fine, but it's a completely different argument. You would be destroying the present US economy and our present bad economic situation and huge US debt would be made much, much worse. The argument at hand is the
Also note that there are different flavors of IP: trademarks, copyrights, patents. Mostly what we're talking about here is copyright, so let's not get into the software patent quagmire.
The question now: Is the Linux driver that good or the Windows driver that bad?
Wrong question. In fact, that's not even a real question; it's just two sides of the same coin. The real question is whether the Linux driver performs better because it's coded better than the Windows driver, or whether it's because of some deficiencies in the Windows driver architecture, Windows graphics stack or the Windows OS itself. In other words, is this truly a case where Linux is better than Windows? Or is this just a case of one driver being better than another. If it's the latter (as the "question" above implies), they could just write a better Windows driver. Not all that interesting in that case.
"Chinese researchers have realised that a sheet of nanotubes behaves like a speaker when you send an audio current through it.
None of that boring old electrical current for them.
A freelance is one who gets paid by the word -- per piece or perhaps. -- Robert Benchley