Years ago, back when Java was closed source, Red Hat solved this problem by using gcj for the Java parts. So I don't see why Oracle would be unavoidable now.

Mine tended cost around $50-120 and if you sold it back in mint condition you might get half of that back.

It sounds like you used the university's book store. Most offer similarly horrible buyback deals. Don't do that. Boycott the campus book store. Buy used online, sell used online. Except for when a new edition just came out, you end up coming pretty close to breaking even.

Plenty of journalists have said that. Journalists say lots of silly things. But scientists? Source? We won't even finish building ITER for another 10 years.

Would all of those licenses have arisen if the FSF didn't prove it was a feasible strategy with the success of the GPL?

Once again, Opera is ahead of the game. Opera Unite came out last year.

That's a bit of an exaggeration. Net neutrality doesn't protect them from that because net neutrality doesn't currently exist. If net neutrality really was the only thing that prevented that situation from arising, we'd already have those tiered plans now.

We have bankruptcy laws for a reason. Companies go bankrupt all the time. It doesn't mean we have to immediately fire all their workers, cancel all their contracts, and burn down their facilities.

They they should make some explicit, legally binding agreement like the agreement between KDE and Trolltech that guaranteed Qt would be released under a BSD-type license if Trolltech (or someone who bought Trolltech) ever turned Qt proprietary. This protects against situations like bankruptcy, which might now allow Gabe to do whatever he wants.

"Academics" is a broad category. And "academics" is far removed from "most people". FWIW, in my academic experience (computational biology), none of my labmates use any Microsoft programming languages. Various people at various times have used C, C++, Perl, Python, PHP, and MATLAB. No ruby.

I can understand that poor people might be less likely to use Google, thus skewing the results. But I doubt there are large socioeconomic differences between users of various distros like there are between citizens of different countries and members of different religions. The problem is that more people use Ubuntu, so more people have problems with Ubuntu.

it has a linux version. i've been using it for years. http://www.amazon.com/gp/dmusic/help/amd.html

also, some linux media players are integrating the amazon mp3 store directly: http://abock.org/2010/07/13/amazon-mp3-store-in-banshee

Malware authors are not the first dishonest people to make money off of children and old people. I doubt they care if you think they are "pathetic losers". I doubt they take pride in what they do. I doubt they're doing it for sport. They just want some money.

Look at home many people let google read their emails rather than paying Apple $100 a year.

Or... Look at home many people let google read their emails rather than paying Apple $100 a year to let Apple read their emails. Seems like an easy decision.

For example: Assange claimed for years, Wikileaks contributors are protected by the Swedish law, he even threatened to sue anyone who tried to expose a Wikileaks source.

Source? I don't remember that, and it's hard to Google for his past opinions on the matter due to recent developments.

It is possible that On2 didn't join MPEG-LA so they could be patent trolls later. If so, it would be ironic that their patents would then be used for good by Google.

Similarly, it is also possible that On2 didn't join MPEG-LA so that they would be more attractive to being bought be another company who wanted to acquire patents on some part of H.264.

I have no idea how likely either scenario is, but they don't seem totally implausible.