Sight. System => Administration => Software Sources => "Updates" tab => install security updates without warning => done
No security update will make to reboot system (even Linux kernel update won't). Maximum it could force to restart Firefox, which nicely informs user about this stuff and saves all info about abs anyway.
This post demonstrates huge problem of Slashdot these days - it's full of clueless posters and clueless moderators when talking is done about how Linux is lacking features to be useful desktop. Sorry for flame-bat, but I think it's deserved (yes, you can mod me down and don't feel bad if you disagree).
Well, I have been sysadmin for last 10 years for every desktop OS I can imagine and I have to say that binary installers are least of the reasons for both OS marketshare. For some time Linux was "compile yourself" project, but for last 4 years it has been complete reverse. With nice guis to install individual deb and rpm packages, or software for repos, or with newest Ubuntu software center with PPA support, it is practically easier to add software to Ubuntu than to Windows. And commercial vendors still can provide manual installers, which usually have no problems to install app in user home directory and run it.
I think, Linux desktop community did it with excellency - it didn't compromised their core principle of updating your computers software trough single mechanism (there are two package formats, but gui are standartised, and repository and depency stuff are practially the same), and provided nice tools for users to install individual apps.
It is not sea of content I usually like to see in BBC website (it's nice touch though), it is the news - unspoiled, objective, rich with context news with additional references where to look for more information. I rather doubt that -25% will do wonders like making suddenly BBC to loose their integrity and turning all BBC readership to commercial news feeds.
In overall, someone (or some forces) seems like want to gain more control over BBC - or make it so that it feels vulnerable, so it doesn't get into the way for some yet unknown motions.
"How many motherfuckers are there in the US army who still can't grasp the fact that *they* are the invading power in this war? you're there, you can answer me can't you?"
Well, if they are invaders, what they invade? Peace loving Taliban? "Humbaja" singing Al Queda? What *exactly* is wrong with Afghanistan? It is quite easy to say "war is wrong", I say it all the time, I strongly disagree with every use of force (unless there is no other way for people to protect them from direct threat and other options are maxed out), but at least I try to understand reasoning of both sides. I have two sides - one fights for ultimate Islam state which covers all world (and very important point - people not believing in right deity are destroyed), and one fights for mercantilism and capitalism. Both are not things I like or respect, but I see some common sense in second than first one. Strangely how living for some time in pervertedly twisted absolutism (like Bolshevism) changes perspective of the things (nevermind I still believe in some kinds of socialism).
Sometimes - *gasp* - you have to actually stop bad guys. Question is - how good are you doing it. It is quite clear that US army maybe is not the right tool for the job. But in overall Afghanistan makes more sense than Iraq, which has been absolute failure from the start.
And it is Ubuntu UK Podcast. Profesionally done, nice on topic talks about interesting open source and Ubuntu topics, very good interview section, etc. Very recommended for non-geeks. Yeah, no gags and no jokes like LUGRadio or shot Shot Of Jaq, but that's what I need. I like diversity that we have in Linux podcasting, because sometimes I like to switch my brain off and laugh like crazy with Bacon and friends.
You are trying to propose emotionally balanced and practical approach to problem. Nice, but it won't work, because it won't bring profit to anyone - nor politics, nor media. Hysteria sells. It gives politician's populism a base and possibility to be taken serious and voted in where you want to be. For media, it sells newspapers. And more or less, people don't want to think, they want to react and act. That's how we are built, to response to *stereotypical* threat. And if you point out that they can hurt lot of innocent people, that it can be treatible, and that you can actually try to forgive those people - it conflicts with their way how they're reacting to threats. It confuses them.
It is easy to "kill" the threat than act responsible. Like it or not, people's minds don't change so fast as we would like to, unfortunately.
Yes, Internet maybe is a mess, full of useless web, pr0n, even radical entities who calls for killing people because of race/religion/conditions/etc. But, in same time, it's wonderful media to help people in Iran to spread the truth about what's going on here, to help people in Haiti with all great web projects which (I really hope) helped rescuers on the ground (accidents report, map crowdsourcing from satphotos and info from the ground, etc.). For each useless and oxygen-waste sales-man who tries to spam every mail box I see young and older people who are really excited about posibilites of the Net - and they actually do and use it for what they intended it for - exchange information. OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia, even Slashdot - it all encourages exchange of ideas, of information. Maybe we even disagree strongly with each other, but we are seeking peace, because we are talking.
For those who want to know: Launchpad blueprints are ideas converted in subprojects. For example, there have been thousand blueprints which while have been completed, have never been implemented.
So first - no official announcement in mailing list, no blog post, but a *blueprint* is a basis of the whole fact in this blog (which is full of ads and snags). Impressive.
Wow, first of all, it's for ARM UNE (small subvariant of Ubuntu Netbook Edition), implementation is not started yet and motivation is more clear than ad-riddened blog wrote - OO.o is simply slow on ARM. Yes, you can try to use Abiword, but I think it is not tweaked to run ARM too.
They aren't interested to release anything in PD, because it a) will cause shareholders uproar b) will create competition for current crap, which they shall keep saling to keep their ship floating.
OpenShot will never be in default by Ubuntu, and it is because of reliance to ffmpeg library, which is used by MLT framework.
Gstreamer have done this right - split plugins and do proper releases for them. Installable seperately, it gives freedom companies to release distros without being frightened by patent nukes ffmpeg will definitely attract. You said: "While it seems Pitivi support for gstreamer export would work really well, in practice I only found 1 maybe 2 useful export formats that Premiere would work with.". For this maybe install ubuntu-restricted-extras package, which contains all gstreamer plugins and gstreamer-ffmpeg plugin, which gives you exactly all the same formats MLT supports.
"It looks like the author of this program spent(wasted?) a lot of time trying to use Gstreamer as the back-end for his project but basically ran into a brick wall."
He didn't run into brick wall, he just felt that MLT will be better used for his project and he lacked initiative to communicate with Gstreamer/Gnonlin people (I have done it many times and I can say that Gstreamer guys are most accessible in Linux multimedia playground). Problem is also that Gstreamer and Gnonlin is complex for new beginnners who wants just drop the code and go. It requires insight and planning your app around framework actually. Some devs don't like it. Well, it's their choice.
"If I remember correctly the developers of another Linux NLE called diva finally gave up on Gstreamer after years of struggling with it and subsequently abandoned their project altogether. Didn't the Diva developers also clash with the Gstreamer developers?"
First, Diva was written in C#, which is not exactly a power horse, and it was also written in time when Gnonlin wasn't quite developed and wasn't ready for prime time. They also rewrote lot of stuff internally and in the end imho it was scrapped because of financial problems of Novell. And I really didn't saw them clash with Gstreamer guys.
"So it appears that the above developers put a lot of effort in writing Linux NLE's using Gstreamer but still ultimately failed at their attempts. Is there something inherently flawed with Gstreamer/Gnonlin? If Video software using Gnonlin as its back-end(Pitivi) can only be written by its author(Edward Hervey), Gstreamer must be too cryptic for mere mortal programmers. I wonder if anything formidable will ever come of Pitivi."
Gnonlin is used in at least one other media editor which uses Gstreamer as backend - Jokosher. I have been personally involved in it and can say only kind words of Edward. Sometimes he is sharp, but more or less he helped with every problem we came across using Gnonlin. Jokosher was glitchy also for some time, but for last releases it has been quite stable.
And most important - Pitivi has serious commercial backing now and there are four core coders (including Edwards of course), all paid by commercial entities, to write it. I really put my money on Gstreamer stuff and apps, because of long term strategy Gstreamer community and app devs have. They are serious about what they doing.
"Gstreamer must be too cryptic for mere mortal programmers"
Well, I know hundreds of commercial coders who develop Gstreamer solutions for day's systems, like TVs, DVRs, mobile phones, etc. They must be zombies, because mortals can't handle it. Yeah, right:)
"The information was high quality if you wanted one group's opinion, yes. The thing is, today we try to cover news stories from all possible angles. Back during WWII no effort was made to try to tell the war from Germany's or Japan's point of view, today every conflict even recent ones such as Iraq and Afghanistan have reporters trying to find out both sides of the story. No longer is it ok to just blindly accept the government's viewpoint."
Why not? Sometimes it is just nice how bad guy's actions talk about themselves.
I think there is a fine line after which bad guys are simply ignored, at least for self-reservation sake. What journalists must make sure that we all know where this fine line is. Hitler also tried to sell PR that his war is against commies. It didn't work, because West already knew he crossed line very very long time ago.
Let's check. Taliban? Sharia law and everyone who doesn't believe in their particular version of Islam dies. They have claimed it many times. Yeah, right. My dream order of the world. Check. Al Queda? Even more, tried to attack US *civilians* and where very proud about that. Sorry, Bush was fully wrong about Iraq, but it doesn't make Afghanistan false reality too. Yeah, it's a mess but mess for totally different reasons. Check. North Korea? Dreams about nuking Japan and US and doesn't even hide their plans. Iran? With silent coup within their hands, "uber Islam" freaks are closing in for nuke to make Israel and US suffer. I was very skeptical at first (thinking US were overreacting), but seeing what happening after elections that radical clerics are simply throwing their facade away. Yeah, for lot of people in Iran it was quite a surprise, judging from very strong opposition. Very huge check.
Actually, yes, I know, lot of these things are consequences of bullshit politics in the past. You reap what you saw. But it doesn't change current situation. It doesn't change fact that these freaks are out there to destroy everything we hold as basis of our society. Our society aren't perfect, but it is best what we got.
Because non-Flash ads are usually less intrusive and annoying (read: less flashy smooth movements), so Google have some truth in this; also GIF animations can be turned off. I don't care about text ads, because they are usually very low-key.
Actually AMD/ATI has changed their attitude in last two years and have pushed lot of stuff which is obsoleted from binary driver into open source 'radeon' one, giving docs to developers along the way. It might be slow and some cards in the middle are left out in the cold (when distros and Xorg fail to include open sourced support in time), but it's improving. For two years I had laptop which has ATI Radeon Mobility X1600 (I think), which support in binary drivers starting with Ubuntu Gutsy was nightmare. And vola, in next release support was already in free 'radeon' driver! I was quite surprised.
In result, I have a little bit more faith in AMD than with Nvidia, which in fact have no plans at all to ever opensource or provide docs for any cards, even stuff they don't even sell anymore. Therefore nouveau effort is that important. When Nvidia will be gone or they will drop support for old cards, there will be nowhere else to go but with nouveau.
"Google has released some SW into the community, but it's getting notorious for bundling proprietary apps with its distros (like the apps in Android). And while producing new distros and variants like Android is giving back to the community, Google benefits more than the community does, $BILLIONS more."
Yeah, and SoC every year is something a afterthough, a mistake. Ups, it's not. Also about hundred of hours devoted by google engineers to extend such projects as django, hibernate, apache, tomcat, etc. is something imaginary, it doesn't exist.
I think Google as coorporation has found very good ways to contribute back to community - support new developers trough SoC (therefore introducing new people in community), extending stuff they use so functionality gets richer, providing rich APIs for their services, etc.
"Google benefits more than the community does, $BILLIONS more."
Wouldn't like to be more precise? How much more? How do you measure that?
"Google's got the resources, both financial and personnel, to maintain Linux versions of SW Google produces (or acquires and continues to produce). But Gizmo5 isn't the only extinct Linux species Google could instead be injecting new life into. Google's main content production suite is SketchUp, the 3D modeling app and related integrated tools. But no Linux version, though the app is well into version 7. It runs unevenly at best under Wine, and cannot integrate with Google Earth in that mode."
Yes, but they are not willing to duplicate efforts. Gizmo5 is SIP application. There are numerous SIP applications in Linux (like KPhone, Ekiga), which are more popular and more supported. It is easier to test them and provide patches if needed to them that trying to support another application which not everyone will use. SketchUp is another story which I can't fully explain. Maybe problem to support it fully in Wine.
Anyway, I think you color Google too dark, as they are only corporation who tries it's best to be good community citizen. They have issues, they have flaws, but that's it.
"I don't care whether your software is open source or not, Linux is a support nightmare. It's the dozens of distributions. What works on Red Hat won't necessarily work on Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Arch, OpenSuSE, Mandriva, etc. In each case, due to minor differences in libraries, where libraries are stored, customizations of KDE and GNOME, other window managers, different xlib versions, and countless other things, apps often have to be PORTED from one Linux distro to another. And you certainly can't make a binary distribution (even if just for convenience), because those are even more brittle."
You seemingly don't care or have actual knowledge what LSB means or how distributions are supported in real world. First of all, there are Redhat/Fedora and Ubuntu/Debian group. This fully covers about 80% of casual Linux users. Debian packages, carefully put together, are usable and easy to support on Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Mint, etc. etc. etc. RedHat/Fedora - the same. Just be careful with depencies and whola - you have 80% of the market covered, and propably 99% of users covered who cares about your product anyway. Problem solved.
About LSB - it about package naming, where you get info from system, etc. And it actually works in systems which care to implement LSB. That is Debian and friends.
But of course it is much easier to spread this myth that parse actual situation. Typical Slashdotism at best.
"As far as the internet -- do we really want it to be a tool that enables a person's past mistakes to haunt them forever? That any personal information, once released into it, somehow becomes public property?"
It is not that I disagree with sentiment of your post, but what has right to privacy to do with public record about such criminal activity as murder (and following judgement)?
When you start killing people, everything about these killings, including fact that you did it, cease to be private information. It is public interest to know this fact. For historical, for human reasons. People will find out anyway. What is better - full court documents that may indicate remorse of killers, reasons why and what happened, or that just rumors spread out?
Slashdot Mirror
About P2P social network - XMPP aka Jabber just allows that :)
Sight. System => Administration => Software Sources => "Updates" tab => install security updates without warning => done
No security update will make to reboot system (even Linux kernel update won't). Maximum it could force to restart Firefox, which nicely informs user about this stuff and saves all info about abs anyway.
This post demonstrates huge problem of Slashdot these days - it's full of clueless posters and clueless moderators when talking is done about how Linux is lacking features to be useful desktop. Sorry for flame-bat, but I think it's deserved (yes, you can mod me down and don't feel bad if you disagree).
Well, I have been sysadmin for last 10 years for every desktop OS I can imagine and I have to say that binary installers are least of the reasons for both OS marketshare. For some time Linux was "compile yourself" project, but for last 4 years it has been complete reverse. With nice guis to install individual deb and rpm packages, or software for repos, or with newest Ubuntu software center with PPA support, it is practically easier to add software to Ubuntu than to Windows. And commercial vendors still can provide manual installers, which usually have no problems to install app in user home directory and run it.
I think, Linux desktop community did it with excellency - it didn't compromised their core principle of updating your computers software trough single mechanism (there are two package formats, but gui are standartised, and repository and depency stuff are practially the same), and provided nice tools for users to install individual apps.
It is not sea of content I usually like to see in BBC website (it's nice touch though), it is the news - unspoiled, objective, rich with context news with additional references where to look for more information. I rather doubt that -25% will do wonders like making suddenly BBC to loose their integrity and turning all BBC readership to commercial news feeds.
In overall, someone (or some forces) seems like want to gain more control over BBC - or make it so that it feels vulnerable, so it doesn't get into the way for some yet unknown motions.
Disclaimer: I am from Europe
"How many motherfuckers are there in the US army who still can't grasp the fact that *they* are the invading power in this war? you're there, you can answer me can't you?"
Well, if they are invaders, what they invade? Peace loving Taliban? "Humbaja" singing Al Queda? What *exactly* is wrong with Afghanistan? It is quite easy to say "war is wrong", I say it all the time, I strongly disagree with every use of force (unless there is no other way for people to protect them from direct threat and other options are maxed out), but at least I try to understand reasoning of both sides. I have two sides - one fights for ultimate Islam state which covers all world (and very important point - people not believing in right deity are destroyed), and one fights for mercantilism and capitalism. Both are not things I like or respect, but I see some common sense in second than first one. Strangely how living for some time in pervertedly twisted absolutism (like Bolshevism) changes perspective of the things (nevermind I still believe in some kinds of socialism).
Sometimes - *gasp* - you have to actually stop bad guys. Question is - how good are you doing it. It is quite clear that US army maybe is not the right tool for the job. But in overall Afghanistan makes more sense than Iraq, which has been absolute failure from the start.
And it is Ubuntu UK Podcast. Profesionally done, nice on topic talks about interesting open source and Ubuntu topics, very good interview section, etc. Very recommended for non-geeks. Yeah, no gags and no jokes like LUGRadio or shot Shot Of Jaq, but that's what I need. I like diversity that we have in Linux podcasting, because sometimes I like to switch my brain off and laugh like crazy with Bacon and friends.
You are trying to propose emotionally balanced and practical approach to problem. Nice, but it won't work, because it won't bring profit to anyone - nor politics, nor media. Hysteria sells. It gives politician's populism a base and possibility to be taken serious and voted in where you want to be. For media, it sells newspapers. And more or less, people don't want to think, they want to react and act. That's how we are built, to response to *stereotypical* threat. And if you point out that they can hurt lot of innocent people, that it can be treatible, and that you can actually try to forgive those people - it conflicts with their way how they're reacting to threats. It confuses them.
It is easy to "kill" the threat than act responsible. Like it or not, people's minds don't change so fast as we would like to, unfortunately.
Yes, Internet maybe is a mess, full of useless web, pr0n, even radical entities who calls for killing people because of race/religion/conditions/etc. But, in same time, it's wonderful media to help people in Iran to spread the truth about what's going on here, to help people in Haiti with all great web projects which (I really hope) helped rescuers on the ground (accidents report, map crowdsourcing from satphotos and info from the ground, etc.). For each useless and oxygen-waste sales-man who tries to spam every mail box I see young and older people who are really excited about posibilites of the Net - and they actually do and use it for what they intended it for - exchange information. OpenStreetMap, Wikipedia, even Slashdot - it all encourages exchange of ideas, of information. Maybe we even disagree strongly with each other, but we are seeking peace, because we are talking.
If you could give a link to that other one, it would be great. Otherwise LP Blueprints search doesn't show it.
For those who want to know: Launchpad blueprints are ideas converted in subprojects. For example, there have been thousand blueprints which while have been completed, have never been implemented.
So first - no official announcement in mailing list, no blog post, but a *blueprint* is a basis of the whole fact in this blog (which is full of ads and snags). Impressive.
https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/mobile-lucid-arm-webservice-for-office
Wow, first of all, it's for ARM UNE (small subvariant of Ubuntu Netbook Edition), implementation is not started yet and motivation is more clear than ad-riddened blog wrote - OO.o is simply slow on ARM. Yes, you can try to use Abiword, but I think it is not tweaked to run ARM too.
...after you're already slipping, can you?
This will a) provide nothing b) will destroy a lot c) won't cure paranoia
Dear God help us.
They aren't interested to release anything in PD, because it a) will cause shareholders uproar b) will create competition for current crap, which they shall keep saling to keep their ship floating.
OpenShot will never be in default by Ubuntu, and it is because of reliance to ffmpeg library, which is used by MLT framework.
Gstreamer have done this right - split plugins and do proper releases for them. Installable seperately, it gives freedom companies to release distros without being frightened by patent nukes ffmpeg will definitely attract. You said: "While it seems Pitivi support for gstreamer export would work really well, in practice I only found 1 maybe 2 useful export formats that Premiere would work with.". For this maybe install ubuntu-restricted-extras package, which contains all gstreamer plugins and gstreamer-ffmpeg plugin, which gives you exactly all the same formats MLT supports.
"It looks like the author of this program spent(wasted?) a lot of time trying to use Gstreamer as the back-end for his project but basically ran into a brick wall."
He didn't run into brick wall, he just felt that MLT will be better used for his project and he lacked initiative to communicate with Gstreamer/Gnonlin people (I have done it many times and I can say that Gstreamer guys are most accessible in Linux multimedia playground). Problem is also that Gstreamer and Gnonlin is complex for new beginnners who wants just drop the code and go. It requires insight and planning your app around framework actually. Some devs don't like it. Well, it's their choice.
"If I remember correctly the developers of another Linux NLE called diva finally gave up on Gstreamer after years of struggling with it and subsequently abandoned their project altogether. Didn't the Diva developers also clash with the Gstreamer developers?"
First, Diva was written in C#, which is not exactly a power horse, and it was also written in time when Gnonlin wasn't quite developed and wasn't ready for prime time. They also rewrote lot of stuff internally and in the end imho it was scrapped because of financial problems of Novell. And I really didn't saw them clash with Gstreamer guys.
"So it appears that the above developers put a lot of effort in writing Linux NLE's using Gstreamer but still ultimately failed at their attempts. Is there something inherently flawed with Gstreamer/Gnonlin? If Video software using Gnonlin as its back-end(Pitivi) can only be written by its author(Edward Hervey), Gstreamer must be too cryptic for mere mortal programmers. I wonder if anything formidable will ever come of Pitivi."
Gnonlin is used in at least one other media editor which uses Gstreamer as backend - Jokosher. I have been personally involved in it and can say only kind words of Edward. Sometimes he is sharp, but more or less he helped with every problem we came across using Gnonlin. Jokosher was glitchy also for some time, but for last releases it has been quite stable.
And most important - Pitivi has serious commercial backing now and there are four core coders (including Edwards of course), all paid by commercial entities, to write it. I really put my money on Gstreamer stuff and apps, because of long term strategy Gstreamer community and app devs have. They are serious about what they doing.
"Gstreamer must be too cryptic for mere mortal programmers"
Well, I know hundreds of commercial coders who develop Gstreamer solutions for day's systems, like TVs, DVRs, mobile phones, etc. They must be zombies, because mortals can't handle it. Yeah, right :)
"The information was high quality if you wanted one group's opinion, yes. The thing is, today we try to cover news stories from all possible angles. Back during WWII no effort was made to try to tell the war from Germany's or Japan's point of view, today every conflict even recent ones such as Iraq and Afghanistan have reporters trying to find out both sides of the story. No longer is it ok to just blindly accept the government's viewpoint."
Why not? Sometimes it is just nice how bad guy's actions talk about themselves.
I think there is a fine line after which bad guys are simply ignored, at least for self-reservation sake. What journalists must make sure that we all know where this fine line is. Hitler also tried to sell PR that his war is against commies. It didn't work, because West already knew he crossed line very very long time ago.
Let's check. Taliban? Sharia law and everyone who doesn't believe in their particular version of Islam dies. They have claimed it many times. Yeah, right. My dream order of the world. Check. Al Queda? Even more, tried to attack US *civilians* and where very proud about that. Sorry, Bush was fully wrong about Iraq, but it doesn't make Afghanistan false reality too. Yeah, it's a mess but mess for totally different reasons. Check. North Korea? Dreams about nuking Japan and US and doesn't even hide their plans. Iran? With silent coup within their hands, "uber Islam" freaks are closing in for nuke to make Israel and US suffer. I was very skeptical at first (thinking US were overreacting), but seeing what happening after elections that radical clerics are simply throwing their facade away. Yeah, for lot of people in Iran it was quite a surprise, judging from very strong opposition. Very huge check.
Actually, yes, I know, lot of these things are consequences of bullshit politics in the past. You reap what you saw. But it doesn't change current situation. It doesn't change fact that these freaks are out there to destroy everything we hold as basis of our society. Our society aren't perfect, but it is best what we got.
Just my imho, of course.
LGPL *is* free software.
What do you mean with saying that speed limits are broken as a law? Please clarify.
...which is all good and great, because he cares about end users - which matters most for Ubuntu Linux to succeed.
Because non-Flash ads are usually less intrusive and annoying (read: less flashy smooth movements), so Google have some truth in this; also GIF animations can be turned off. I don't care about text ads, because they are usually very low-key.
Actually AMD/ATI has changed their attitude in last two years and have pushed lot of stuff which is obsoleted from binary driver into open source 'radeon' one, giving docs to developers along the way. It might be slow and some cards in the middle are left out in the cold (when distros and Xorg fail to include open sourced support in time), but it's improving. For two years I had laptop which has ATI Radeon Mobility X1600 (I think), which support in binary drivers starting with Ubuntu Gutsy was nightmare. And vola, in next release support was already in free 'radeon' driver! I was quite surprised.
In result, I have a little bit more faith in AMD than with Nvidia, which in fact have no plans at all to ever opensource or provide docs for any cards, even stuff they don't even sell anymore. Therefore nouveau effort is that important. When Nvidia will be gone or they will drop support for old cards, there will be nowhere else to go but with nouveau.
"Google has released some SW into the community, but it's getting notorious for bundling proprietary apps with its distros (like the apps in Android). And while producing new distros and variants like Android is giving back to the community, Google benefits more than the community does, $BILLIONS more."
Yeah, and SoC every year is something a afterthough, a mistake. Ups, it's not. Also about hundred of hours devoted by google engineers to extend such projects as django, hibernate, apache, tomcat, etc. is something imaginary, it doesn't exist.
I think Google as coorporation has found very good ways to contribute back to community - support new developers trough SoC (therefore introducing new people in community), extending stuff they use so functionality gets richer, providing rich APIs for their services, etc.
"Google benefits more than the community does, $BILLIONS more."
Wouldn't like to be more precise? How much more? How do you measure that?
"Google's got the resources, both financial and personnel, to maintain Linux versions of SW Google produces (or acquires and continues to produce). But Gizmo5 isn't the only extinct Linux species Google could instead be injecting new life into. Google's main content production suite is SketchUp, the 3D modeling app and related integrated tools. But no Linux version, though the app is well into version 7. It runs unevenly at best under Wine, and cannot integrate with Google Earth in that mode."
Yes, but they are not willing to duplicate efforts. Gizmo5 is SIP application. There are numerous SIP applications in Linux (like KPhone, Ekiga), which are more popular and more supported. It is easier to test them and provide patches if needed to them that trying to support another application which not everyone will use. SketchUp is another story which I can't fully explain. Maybe problem to support it fully in Wine.
Anyway, I think you color Google too dark, as they are only corporation who tries it's best to be good community citizen. They have issues, they have flaws, but that's it.
"I don't care whether your software is open source or not, Linux is a support nightmare. It's the dozens of distributions. What works on Red Hat won't necessarily work on Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Arch, OpenSuSE, Mandriva, etc. In each case, due to minor differences in libraries, where libraries are stored, customizations of KDE and GNOME, other window managers, different xlib versions, and countless other things, apps often have to be PORTED from one Linux distro to another. And you certainly can't make a binary distribution (even if just for convenience), because those are even more brittle."
You seemingly don't care or have actual knowledge what LSB means or how distributions are supported in real world. First of all, there are Redhat/Fedora and Ubuntu/Debian group. This fully covers about 80% of casual Linux users. Debian packages, carefully put together, are usable and easy to support on Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Mint, etc. etc. etc. RedHat/Fedora - the same. Just be careful with depencies and whola - you have 80% of the market covered, and propably 99% of users covered who cares about your product anyway. Problem solved.
About LSB - it about package naming, where you get info from system, etc. And it actually works in systems which care to implement LSB. That is Debian and friends.
But of course it is much easier to spread this myth that parse actual situation. Typical Slashdotism at best.
It has issues, but is has serious development team behind. It supports lot of codecs, including industrial standards and commercial ones.
I really hoped that it will solve all our problems for good. Now we will have to do something about ourselves. Damn.
"As far as the internet -- do we really want it to be a tool that enables a person's past mistakes to haunt them forever? That any personal information, once released into it, somehow becomes public property?"
It is not that I disagree with sentiment of your post, but what has right to privacy to do with public record about such criminal activity as murder (and following judgement)?
When you start killing people, everything about these killings, including fact that you did it, cease to be private information. It is public interest to know this fact. For historical, for human reasons. People will find out anyway. What is better - full court documents that may indicate remorse of killers, reasons why and what happened, or that just rumors spread out?
Hiding something is never a good idea. Never.