Huh?? Its ok for MS-Windows (Windows Media Player) but not for *nix?? That doesn't make a lick of sense.

This statement is incorrect. What is illegal is breaching the "technological copy protection."

This can cause some hilarious consequences. On one version of protected audio CD inserting it into a cd player BYPASSED THE COPY PROTECTION! I'm serious. CD Players don't recognize copy protection, because it isn't part of the standard. The same was true if you used the CD on any 'Nix based system (Linux, OSX, OS9, BSD, Solaris), the only operating system that the copy protection worked with was Windows. So anyone who played the CD in their car, was technically breaching the DMCA, and could have been arrested, charged, and convicted.

Then of course there's the wording of the act itself, which if I remember correctly uses the word "effective." Is a technical measure that is so easily broken "effective?"

And then there's the current Supreme Court case about patents (in re Bilski). If, for example, software patents are invalidated by the case, that means that any software implementation of a hardware patent would not be blocked by the hardware patent. It also means that under the "Free Speech" provisions of the Constitution that all software implementations are legal, that the DMCA cannot apply to software only implementations. It also means that licensing groups like the Fraunhoffer MP3 group wouldn't be able to collect licensing fees for software only implementations.

As to the DMCA, since I don't live in the United States, it has no effect on me. But I've got to admit that it's about the stupidest law I've ever seen, as well as being solid proof that the United States political system is no longer "for the people, by the people", but is now "for the corporations, by the corporations."

Because the vendors pay a licence fee for thier decoders to use the technology. This aint an open specification, so the opensource community made a libary (libdvdcss2) which essentially does a brute-force-crack in order to play copy protected DVDs.

P.S if you want it on ubuntu, use a repository called "medibuntu"

My definition of Geek is someone who has a good understanding of multiple operating systems. Anyone who has a good understanding of operating systems in addition to Windows, generally won't use Windows. Oh, they may repair it for other people, but they won't use it for themselves, except possibly for gaming.

Depends on your definition of "IT Professional". If you only work with Microsoft, I'd call you a "Microsoft Professional".

But you are right, if there was a mass move to non-Windows platforms it would put a lot of "Microsoft Professionals" out of work. Just think of Best Buy's "Geek Squad", without Windows Geek Squad would be out of business in short order, as no other operating system requires that much maintenance.

And no, it's not only hobbyists who "can afford to be extreme" about such things. Business owners like myself can save huge amounts of money by not using Windows, for example my business is 100% Mac, and quite frankly I'm saving a fortune. This may seem ridiculous when you look at base cost - you can buy a 15" Dell Laptop for about $600-700 and a 15 " MacBook Pro is about $1800.00, but the MacBook Pro is virus and spyware proof, networks like a dream (I don't have an IT department - don't need one), and just works.

In other words as a small business owner, competing against some really big players (they could buy me out of petty cash) I can't afford not to look to every possible cost saving, and the MacBook is giving me those cost savings.

Unix was designed in the 1960s when OS security was not exactly the buzzword that it is now. So how come it doesn't have the problems that Windows does when it was designed 20 years prior? Oh, and it did maintain decent backwards compatibility, even through many changes. Linux, while it doesn't share the code base, uses the same design decisions that Unix did. BSD and Solaris of course do share part of the ancestral Unix code base. Mac OSX is a BSD variant. It's easy to port programs from Unix, to Linux, to BSD, to Solaris, to Mac OSX because they share a common design heritage.

So when you put things into their proper perspective, Unix, being the older operating system, should have a lot more problems. It doesn't. Age isn't the issue. Architecture is.

My son was running the Beta of Windows 7 alongside XP on his gaming computer. He says it runs better than Vista, but the betas of Vista ran fairly well too, and the RTM ran like a pig. So I wouldn't be too optimistic.

Intolerant? Everything I've said has been accurate. If being right is intolerance, I hadn't heard that.

As to a "mass exodus" to Linux, as long as Microsoft can force the OEMs to pre-install Windows, we won't see that happening, as most people buy a computer to use, not to change, just as most people buy a car to drive, not to hot-rod.

So people aren't choosing Windows. They are having it forced on them, because if you go to Best Buy, or where ever that's all you see. There's no choice involved. Except to go to the Apple Store, which more and more people are doing now. Go to the Amazon computer pages, and look at their most popular lists. The only computers worth more than $1000.00 in the top 20 are Apples. Apple owns the high end of the market now.

And shortly we are going to see the ARM Netbooks arrive. ARM based systems can't run Windows 2k/XP/Vista/Vista 7, but they can run Linux or BSD, and there's a wide variety of software available. Oh, admittedly you could install Windows CE, but there's no software for it.

In actual fact ARM based Netbooks have been on sale here for over 2 years, using a BSD based operating system, and they've been selling like crazy. Think IPhone/IPod Touch. Yep. It's really an ARM based Netbook with an on-screen keyboard, and they are selling really well.

Now that's a really good explanation, that's so totally wrong in some ways. The Licensing by the DVD Consortium is based on patents that cover a hardware implementation. It therefore could be argued that a software implementation doesn't require licensing, at least in countries that do not recognize software patents (and of course in a country that doesn't recognize patents at all, hardware would not need to be licensed either).

This is why that there is so much attention being paid to a case that the US Supreme Court will be hearing shortly, "in re Bilski", which may decide as a side issue, if software patents are legal. If it decides against them, there may also be some rather interesting fallout in other areas as well.

OK, first off, I'm not American, so I don't understand your system 100%, and what you are getting, is what I see.

What it comes down to, is that the United States is a Corporate Plutocracy, not a democracy. In other words, the corporations rule, not the people (and I expect to hear a lot of screams about my saying this, however that is what it looks like to an outsider).

Take for example the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Supposedly according to the United States Constitution (and yes, I have read it) the legislative branch (House of Representatives and the Senate) have the ability to confer limited monopolies to encourage advancement in the useful arts. Copyright is an example of a limited monopoly, which was supposed to ensure that the artist was paid for their work, whether author, song writer, actor, singer, etc.

In effect the copyright act was taken over by the corporations. This happened because the costs of replication were such that an individual artist couldn't set up a volume printing press, or phonograph pressing plant. So instead, corporations built up the replication machinery, and then the distribution machinery, and due to their control of these, were able to bend copyright law in their own interests.

The first crack in the face of the "cost of replication/distribution" issue was the cassette tape, and quite frankly it had the recording industry terrified. I have several friends who have been doing all their own recording and distribution for over 30 years now, and while none of them are big names, several are making a living out of it.

The record companies were delighted when the CD became the next major format. At the time CD's couldn't be recorded easily, and they hoped it would wipe out the independent artists who were using tape. Unfortunately the switch to CD took just long enough that CD recording equipment came down in price, and the independents moved to CD. However this also meant that CDs, like cassettes before them could be duplicated.

And then of course the internet hit, and everyone panicked.

The result was the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, a piece of legislation which conferred no advantages to the people of the United States, in conflict with the Constitution. It was bought and paid for by the big media companies.

Now, as to why Windows Media is allowed to, and Videolan isn't, Microsoft paid the DVD Consortium for the right to play DVDs. Videolan, a Free Software project, couldn't do this, and didn't. So legally, installing Videolan is OK, but using it to play a DVD isn't, because you are bypassing the copy protection that the DMCA protects against being bypassed by the user.

In simple terms - if you live in the United States, you have no rights.

One thing PC users can do that Mac users can't.

Your whole post was just plain annoying, if people are comfortable with Windows, why do you care? Just give it a rest, you will always get people with different opinions, and as Tom Gunn said, rants like these are a waste of time.

My opinion is that all three operating systems are fine, each with their own advantages which appeal to different people.

Before I have tried out several different Linux distro's on several different pc's, and I can only say one thing: Linux really didn't convince me at all.
There are just too much things which went wrong: either the sound doesn't work, or my wireless network card, or there isn't a video driver available for my graphics card, etc...
Also while testing (and I always installed to my harddrive) I found out the systems were always painfully slow compared to Windows, just a very bad responsiveness, the applications don't interact well enough.
The distro's I tried were even unstable, and my machine hung multiple times.

So really, you can't blame me for using Microsoft stuff, I still have Windows 2000 machines which run better than every other operating system I've ever seen (fast + no crashes + no WGA + no windows activation).
So, why would I switch to a system which will only let me run into problems? Why? Wasn't there such a phrase like: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it." ?
Oh yes, and then we're going to begin about viruses and spyware and that Linux doesn't know them very well, well I can assure you: I already use my Windows 2000 machines for over a year without an AV, and I'm sure I still haven't got any viruses.

The only and only one system I've ever liked apart from Windows is BeOS, and now his more recent equivalent: Haiku.
The only problem with this system is that there's just too few software available, but believe me, it's going to change.
The system is incredibly fast and stable, it's the only system apart from Windows which I didn't have problems with.

I'm rather the person who hates the Anti-Microsoft kind of persons, and don't get me wrong: I never said Linux is a bad system, I (and my comp) just don't seem to like it.
Microsoft certainly can make good things, and it has already proven this more than one time.

Do it once, image the whole Windows installation, and put back the image when it's reinstall time. Let's see which one is faster now.

Theyll be about the same. Thats prettymuch all the ubuntu cd is (indeed you can remaster an existing installed system back into a livecd for easy reinstallation using a tool called remastersys)

But XP is 8 years old. 8 years old linux distributions were TERRIBLE with regards to driver support. Compare a recent version of linux to a recent version of windows (e.g. vista) and vista wins.

8 years ago it would have been redhat 7.x. See hideous looking screenshot below