the majority of people who obtain an iPhone find the terms to be reasonable and non-oppressive.
The majority of people who own an iPhone are stupid and brainwashed by what the baby boomers are calling "kapitalizm." Really, this is asshole companies (namely Apple and Microsoft) who are taking advantage of people who don't have technical knowledge about computers and electronics or the concept of property.
They sell something, then claim you "licensed" or "rented" it after the sale and limit what you are allowed to do with the device. And no, paying half up front, then 2 years of absurdly high payments does not justify them saying you do not own the device.
Their behavior make Richard Stallman's rants seem reasonable. As for what the users think: I imagine if you did a poll in China, the people would say their government is "reasonable and non-oppressive." It does not make it true.
Indeed. I bought the DVDs to Gilligan's Island a while back, and...well I am quite glad I do not have the bluray version! Sunburned skin, caked on makeup, and the women didn't look very good either. Ruined my memory of the series.
BTW, are they releasing it bluray only? I wonder if Hollywood will start bluray only releases. I, for one, don't plan on buying anything which will play that format at all. Oh well, I probably shouldn't give those scumbags more money anyway...
Also, most people with Down's Syndrome babies have them when the mother is older, and they're much better able to take care of them than people who had their kids at 20.
Not that I am advocating anything either way, but who will take care of the person with down's syndrome after the parents grow old and die? Your point doesn't seem so great then.
At the dialysis center I go to, there is a woman in her 60s or 70s who has to bring her thirty-something daughter with her, presumably because the daughter can't be left alone.
In fact, where I was living several years ago and taking the bus, I'd see people with downs syndrome who were at least in their 50s and 60s, and they had to have "trainers" watch over them constantly. Seriously, you never knew if one of them would attack someone or what. One guy would sit next to women and use his elbow to touch women's breasts, and it was "okay" because he wasn't using his hands.
This brings up the question: how far should society go to take care of someone? Then again, most people (at least in the US) would rather go with the self-righteous option, but then push the consequences onto someone else.
Such as insisting assisted suicide be illegal, but then complaining about dying people costing insurance companies and government programs lots of money. Maybe they should "enjoy" suffering a long and painful death without any medical assistance or even medication to relieve symptoms (more than just pain happens.)
What about Dragon's Lair or Space Ace? Or how about all the "games" out there which are mostly noninteractive cut scenes?
Hmmm...I see the big game studios may be moving back to those "choose your own adventure" video titles of the late 1990s...except in 3D!!!! Mwahahaha! (**cue cheesy villan is victorious music**)
Though I did think the Star Trek: Klingon one was a bit cool...
It would be far cheaper to just use a computer monitor than buy a HDTV setup. They have as good or better quality than any given TV. Last time I checked, you can buy ATSC card for the computer, so you won't miss out on anything.
Stringing your house with ethernet costs less than with HDMI cable, and you can do more with computers than just a TV.
I would suspect they do this because of the clueless minions brainwashed by Microsoft. You know the type. They insist everyone must use a Microsoft OS, even if it is not suitable.
Then you also have the people who need / want to use software they bought somewhere which isn't Linux compatible, and don't know Ubuntu is a different OS. If, for example, this person bought a car and was mad because the wheels he bought without checking didn't fit, would you think him reasonable?
Oh, and since this is slashdot, I should mention they probably don't offer a Linux option because the guy who decided belongs to the cult of Microsoft. That or Microsoft is back to their anti-trust law violating ways. Would not be surprising since they weren't really punished the first time.
And to keep this on topic... I'd rather watch Gentoo compile all my source for days and days than watch any cable TV.
Not strange. It means you can install Ubuntu if you want it. Just because they don't sell you a system with Ubuntu preloaded doesn't mean it won't work. It also tells you it probably also works with other Linux distros too, since Ubuntu runs mostly the same software.:-)
It is because of the actor's union (Screen Actors Guild - sag.org). The big music companies hire untalented musicians for cheap because they have no union.
To sum it up for the entertainment industry:
Union: untalented employees get paid absurd amounts of money.
No union: employees get paid almost nothing. Anyone with a brain would not bother, so they get untalented employees.
In both cases, the people buying products produced by these systems get screwed.
I am a big sports fan, but you do have a point with sports and image resolution. If you think about it, all the cameras are just a poor substitute for one high resolution shot of the entire field.
Perhaps you should give her a digital camcorder for christmas and plant the suggestion she make her own fashion program. You could even offer to help edit the video. If she is like most women I know, you won't need cable TV for much longer. Really, who doesn't want to have their own TV show?
When one is a child, one needs to watch and learn, but when one becomes an adult (or teenager), one can produce one's own content. A lesson not learned by generations who grew up watching TV I suppose. We must learn this lost lesson. In fact, the generation which grew up with the internet seems to already know this...at least from what I have seen.
So it is not okay to do that during wartime, but if you do it during peacetime, it is okay? How? Allowing collective punishment is insane.
So you think if a store owner know one out of a group of ten people must be the shoplifter, you think it is okay for the police to lock up all ten people?
Or how about if two people are suspected for murder. They know for a fact one has to be the murderer and one is completely innocent of the crime. So, according to you, both of them should be punished for the murder?
I would suppose that the flash code could be put in the comment section. Then most programs would copy it as they try to preserve comments. There are other types of sections for jpeg files too, as I recall.
Is there a binary pattern one can search to detect possible flash code? It would probably be something to put in your CGI script to receive files...
I suppose you would say greed is naturally more common.
Greed is common when society lets psychopaths run amok with no controls, and society encourages and teaches psychopathic behavior. It also helps to make up fantasy worlds for these people to live in, such as you will get $some_great_reward after you die if you do what we say....or group of people $x are evil, so blame everything which goes wrong on them. & etc.
Altruism is common when society lets honor run amok, and socety encourages and teaches altruistic behavior. It also helps to focus on reality other than what one wants the fantasy to be and be reasonable towards other people.
Greed isn't deviant. In fact, it's rather common, and to some degree, universal. What we call "greed" is just the manifestation of game theory. Every organism acts in its own interest, or more precisely, in the interest of its genes....
Then, by your definition, murder isn't deviant behavior. Civilization works because people recognize there are other people than themselves, and wish to assist society as a whole. While they recognize they have self interest, they avoid putting a burden on others or society as a whole. In extreme circumstances, one has to make difficult choices, but sometimes choosing yourself over society (when reasonable) is okay. However, always choosing yourself even when you will gain just a little benefit and many people will be screwed is not okay.
You are describing honorless psychopaths who are parasites which drag down society and are not civilized. The methods you describe exist to control psychopaths. Since in my country (USA) there are so many people who think selfishly as you, my country is going down the toilet.
People buying mansions they can't afford, banks lending knowing they can't afford it and giving them adjustable rates, so they can jack up the interest. Endless bailouts, Patent and copyright fraud, all sorts of crap which is resulting in the bailout baby boomer generation's children and grandchildren to live in conditions worse than their parent's. Anyone wonder why the disability rate is rising in the US? Boomers will say the reason is the later generations are lazy and faking it. The real reason is their selfish behavior has put dangerous substances into the food supply, they are working us to death (look at productivity--note much of the money non-baby boomers have earned has "mysteriously" disappeared during the bailout fiasco), and they essentially took away our medical care, so even minor medical problems grow into big ones.
Thanks for making a great country into a shitty one.
I always thought one had to register a trademark for it to be valid. I thought the the (tm) mark was for pending trademarks. It looks like I was wrong.
I think the whole fighting over the "go" name is stupid. Seriously, what kind of idiot would think no one used such a commonly used word, especially since most people would equate a programming language with an action. (Yeah, and someone actually used the word "Action!" as the name of their programming language.)
No. No. No. You should tackle it like a philosophy alchemist would:
If you bring a bomb, and a terrorist brings a bomb, they will clearly mate as they do in the wild. Therefore, you will not have two bombs, but three: two adults and one child. Therefore it is not very likely you will have two bombs for long!
However if only you bring a bomb, and no terrorist shows up to bring a bomb, the bomb will have no mate, and thereby will not be able to produce a child.
**ahem**... Dr. Livingstone, if I may interject here, if there is only one bomb, then one could postulate that it would wish to reproduce? Yes? Therefore, I say a lone bomb would produce pheromones to attract other bombs, and so many bombs would "show up to the party" as it were, they would mate, and you would indeed have a great number of bombs.
One can suppose from this it is not only highly unlikely to have two bombs upon a plane, but it is also highly unlikely to have only one as well, and in fact there would be a great many bombs upon this great plane, yet I see none.
My end postulate is this: bombs are just a figment of your imagination, and if you continue to claim you see them, I will be required to assign you to the looney bin, post haste.
Dying isn't the only thing which can happen to you if you don't have proper medical care. It can also make you permanently disabled, when with medical care, you'd be fine.
Another problem is that "insurance" and government programs try to keep from covering you for afflictions you legitimately have and need treatment, so in some ways you are the same as not having any insurance or government help at all. One way to help solve this is to guarantee everyone the right to pay cash for treatments and tests if they have the money and wish to do so.
In the nineties, Medicare didn't want doctors to allow people on social security to pay cash for treatments / tests because it would prove they needed medical treatment. Their agency would be responsible for paying that treatment. They even went as far as telling doctors they couldn't see Medicare patients if the doctor would also take cash from anybody. This is why if you needed to see a doctor in the late 1990s and didn't have medical insurance, most of them would not see you at all. (Medicare makes up a major percentage of money spent on medical in the US.)
This problem was worse, because most medical insurance companies were fitted towards selling to employers and large organizations. The government did make requirements for employers to supply medical insurance, but there were plenty of exceptions (if they could classify you as part time or temporary), so essentially those requirements were useless because the only people who benefited were those who would have insurance anyway.
And about the cost of insurance. How do these people expect someone to pay $13k when they make that much or less? Federal min. wage is $7.25 per hour, correct? Even assuming someone is able to work 40 hrs/wk with no days off (no vacation, no sick days) 7.25 * 40 * 52= $15,080 per year. Even if they were homeless, they still wouldn't be able to pay for food. Totally unrealistic.
Also realize unless they came from rich families with connections, most people starting out at life (and those suffering from discrimination) are usually paid at low wages (often minimum wage) and their employer is exempted from giving them health care, so if they become sick, the only answer is death or disability? How nice. More likely another example of how the selfish bailout generation thinks they should have everything, while everyone else should have nothing.
No, the primary purpose of real security is to keep from getting infected or allowing the malicious to gain an advantage.
The primary purpose of antivirus is to do an AIDS test 10 years after you had sex without bothering to use a condom. Maybe you should wear the condom first, and when you get the AIDS test as a precaution, you won't be too worried about it being positive.
Gaming companies don't use millions of dollars and hundreds of people working. They spend millions of dollars to get hundreds of people working for them. Open Source have people volunteer to do the work for free because they enjoy it. What, do you think game companies spend those millions on bricks and steel and machinery and sets for actors?
The main problem with OSS games has been there haven't been enough creative and graphic design people helping out. Have you seen what the modders do? Plenty of them produce similar quality work as game companies, but they also have a more creative edge because they are doing what they think is cool and what they want, not what they think will deliver repeatable profits.
Essentially what modern game companies put out are just crappy FPSs that have had lots of graphic and sound work done on them to make them look really nice and require the most expensive latest and greatest hardware.
It seems great to a superficial person, but normal people think it is stupid and undesirable. They want games which are actually fun, and many of them don't want to spend thousands of dollars every year just so they can play video games. Contrary to what Hollywood says, looks aren't really important.
Almost all the games coming out of the big companies are the same sort of crap in low grade action movies where they end up in the bargain bin a few months after being released to DVD. After which, they disappear into the void never to be seen on store shelves. I suppose this is why if you wait a few months after release, you can't buy the game anymore...
Or maybe all those modders will get fed up with the proprietary controls and just start learning to write their own games. Could it be a new era for open source games? I haven't really focused on gaming that much lately--especially since all the commercial offerings seem disappointing to me, but from what I've seen, open source games seem to be improving.
My guess would be peer to peer. After all, it would be easier if you didn't have to set up a server to just play in a LAN party.
Then again, if it would be p2p, I don't understand why he wouldn't say that instead of being glad Rage did not lead the way away from dedicated servers...
Actually, I found this article referenced from linuxgames.com stating that it will just be geared toward single player and co-op, so maybe they think no one will care.
Have you noticed how that 'Check for updates...' thing simply does not work at all with Firefox on any distribution? Can you hazard a guess as to why?
I don't need to guess. I know why. Linux has this thing called "filesystem permissions."
Allowing normal user level programs connected to random internet sites to write system program files is a security nightmare waiting to happen.
Even the programs which pull packages (such as apt-get) are significant security risks. How do they know the DNS wasn't hijacked? Digital signatures help with that, but you have to be careful.
You are just from the home luser crowd who doesn't care jack shit if some script kiddie breaks into the computer.
I also don't know why the hell any of you are arguing about how many architectures to support. Even Open Source developers usually only support one architecture. (guess which one)
As for different packaging formats and binaries across distributions, I don't see why this is a problem. I use slackware, and I pull the binaries out of deb and rpm packages all the time. rpms convert just fine with rpm2tgz and I use the slackware package installer. I use ar and tar to extract deb files, but now that I think about it, I could probably just use the slackware installer on the data.tgz file.
Slashdot Mirror
The majority of people who own an iPhone are stupid and brainwashed by what the baby boomers are calling "kapitalizm." Really, this is asshole companies (namely Apple and Microsoft) who are taking advantage of people who don't have technical knowledge about computers and electronics or the concept of property.
They sell something, then claim you "licensed" or "rented" it after the sale and limit what you are allowed to do with the device. And no, paying half up front, then 2 years of absurdly high payments does not justify them saying you do not own the device.
Their behavior make Richard Stallman's rants seem reasonable. As for what the users think: I imagine if you did a poll in China, the people would say their government is "reasonable and non-oppressive." It does not make it true.
Maybe Cinepaint will be more palatable? It is a fork of GIMP.
Indeed. I bought the DVDs to Gilligan's Island a while back, and...well I am quite glad I do not have the bluray version! Sunburned skin, caked on makeup, and the women didn't look very good either. Ruined my memory of the series.
BTW, are they releasing it bluray only? I wonder if Hollywood will start bluray only releases. I, for one, don't plan on buying anything which will play that format at all. Oh well, I probably shouldn't give those scumbags more money anyway...
Not that I am advocating anything either way, but who will take care of the person with down's syndrome after the parents grow old and die? Your point doesn't seem so great then.
At the dialysis center I go to, there is a woman in her 60s or 70s who has to bring her thirty-something daughter with her, presumably because the daughter can't be left alone.
In fact, where I was living several years ago and taking the bus, I'd see people with downs syndrome who were at least in their 50s and 60s, and they had to have "trainers" watch over them constantly. Seriously, you never knew if one of them would attack someone or what. One guy would sit next to women and use his elbow to touch women's breasts, and it was "okay" because he wasn't using his hands.
This brings up the question: how far should society go to take care of someone? Then again, most people (at least in the US) would rather go with the self-righteous option, but then push the consequences onto someone else.
Such as insisting assisted suicide be illegal, but then complaining about dying people costing insurance companies and government programs lots of money. Maybe they should "enjoy" suffering a long and painful death without any medical assistance or even medication to relieve symptoms (more than just pain happens.)
What about Dragon's Lair or Space Ace? Or how about all the "games" out there which are mostly noninteractive cut scenes?
Hmmm...I see the big game studios may be moving back to those "choose your own adventure" video titles of the late 1990s...except in 3D!!!! Mwahahaha! (**cue cheesy villan is victorious music**)
Though I did think the Star Trek: Klingon one was a bit cool...
It would be far cheaper to just use a computer monitor than buy a HDTV setup. They have as good or better quality than any given TV. Last time I checked, you can buy ATSC card for the computer, so you won't miss out on anything.
Stringing your house with ethernet costs less than with HDMI cable, and you can do more with computers than just a TV.
I would suspect they do this because of the clueless minions brainwashed by Microsoft. You know the type. They insist everyone must use a Microsoft OS, even if it is not suitable.
Then you also have the people who need / want to use software they bought somewhere which isn't Linux compatible, and don't know Ubuntu is a different OS. If, for example, this person bought a car and was mad because the wheels he bought without checking didn't fit, would you think him reasonable?
Oh, and since this is slashdot, I should mention they probably don't offer a Linux option because the guy who decided belongs to the cult of Microsoft. That or Microsoft is back to their anti-trust law violating ways. Would not be surprising since they weren't really punished the first time.
And to keep this on topic... I'd rather watch Gentoo compile all my source for days and days than watch any cable TV.
Not strange. It means you can install Ubuntu if you want it. Just because they don't sell you a system with Ubuntu preloaded doesn't mean it won't work. It also tells you it probably also works with other Linux distros too, since Ubuntu runs mostly the same software. :-)
It is because of the actor's union (Screen Actors Guild - sag.org). The big music companies hire untalented musicians for cheap because they have no union.
To sum it up for the entertainment industry:
I am a big sports fan, but you do have a point with sports and image resolution. If you think about it, all the cameras are just a poor substitute for one high resolution shot of the entire field.
Perhaps you should give her a digital camcorder for christmas and plant the suggestion she make her own fashion program. You could even offer to help edit the video. If she is like most women I know, you won't need cable TV for much longer. Really, who doesn't want to have their own TV show?
When one is a child, one needs to watch and learn, but when one becomes an adult (or teenager), one can produce one's own content. A lesson not learned by generations who grew up watching TV I suppose. We must learn this lost lesson. In fact, the generation which grew up with the internet seems to already know this...at least from what I have seen.
So it is not okay to do that during wartime, but if you do it during peacetime, it is okay? How? Allowing collective punishment is insane.
So you think if a store owner know one out of a group of ten people must be the shoplifter, you think it is okay for the police to lock up all ten people?
Or how about if two people are suspected for murder. They know for a fact one has to be the murderer and one is completely innocent of the crime. So, according to you, both of them should be punished for the murder?
Absurd!
I would suppose that the flash code could be put in the comment section. Then most programs would copy it as they try to preserve comments. There are other types of sections for jpeg files too, as I recall.
Is there a binary pattern one can search to detect possible flash code? It would probably be something to put in your CGI script to receive files...
I suppose you would say greed is naturally more common.
Greed is common when society lets psychopaths run amok with no controls, and society encourages and teaches psychopathic behavior. It also helps to make up fantasy worlds for these people to live in, such as you will get $some_great_reward after you die if you do what we say. ...or group of people $x are evil, so blame everything which goes wrong on them. & etc.
Altruism is common when society lets honor run amok, and socety encourages and teaches altruistic behavior. It also helps to focus on reality other than what one wants the fantasy to be and be reasonable towards other people.
Then, by your definition, murder isn't deviant behavior. Civilization works because people recognize there are other people than themselves, and wish to assist society as a whole. While they recognize they have self interest, they avoid putting a burden on others or society as a whole. In extreme circumstances, one has to make difficult choices, but sometimes choosing yourself over society (when reasonable) is okay. However, always choosing yourself even when you will gain just a little benefit and many people will be screwed is not okay.
You are describing honorless psychopaths who are parasites which drag down society and are not civilized. The methods you describe exist to control psychopaths. Since in my country (USA) there are so many people who think selfishly as you, my country is going down the toilet.
People buying mansions they can't afford, banks lending knowing they can't afford it and giving them adjustable rates, so they can jack up the interest. Endless bailouts, Patent and copyright fraud, all sorts of crap which is resulting in the bailout baby boomer generation's children and grandchildren to live in conditions worse than their parent's. Anyone wonder why the disability rate is rising in the US? Boomers will say the reason is the later generations are lazy and faking it. The real reason is their selfish behavior has put dangerous substances into the food supply, they are working us to death (look at productivity--note much of the money non-baby boomers have earned has "mysteriously" disappeared during the bailout fiasco), and they essentially took away our medical care, so even minor medical problems grow into big ones.
Thanks for making a great country into a shitty one.
I always thought one had to register a trademark for it to be valid. I thought the the (tm) mark was for pending trademarks. It looks like I was wrong.
I think the whole fighting over the "go" name is stupid. Seriously, what kind of idiot would think no one used such a commonly used word, especially since most people would equate a programming language with an action. (Yeah, and someone actually used the word "Action!" as the name of their programming language.)
No. No. No. You should tackle it like a philosophy alchemist would:
If you bring a bomb, and a terrorist brings a bomb, they will clearly mate as they do in the wild. Therefore, you will not have two bombs, but three: two adults and one child. Therefore it is not very likely you will have two bombs for long!
However if only you bring a bomb, and no terrorist shows up to bring a bomb, the bomb will have no mate, and thereby will not be able to produce a child.
**ahem** ... Dr. Livingstone, if I may interject here, if there is only one bomb, then one could postulate that it would wish to reproduce? Yes? Therefore, I say a lone bomb would produce pheromones to attract other bombs, and so many bombs would "show up to the party" as it were, they would mate, and you would indeed have a great number of bombs.
One can suppose from this it is not only highly unlikely to have two bombs upon a plane, but it is also highly unlikely to have only one as well, and in fact there would be a great many bombs upon this great plane, yet I see none.
My end postulate is this: bombs are just a figment of your imagination, and if you continue to claim you see them, I will be required to assign you to the looney bin, post haste.
Dying isn't the only thing which can happen to you if you don't have proper medical care. It can also make you permanently disabled, when with medical care, you'd be fine.
Another problem is that "insurance" and government programs try to keep from covering you for afflictions you legitimately have and need treatment, so in some ways you are the same as not having any insurance or government help at all. One way to help solve this is to guarantee everyone the right to pay cash for treatments and tests if they have the money and wish to do so.
In the nineties, Medicare didn't want doctors to allow people on social security to pay cash for treatments / tests because it would prove they needed medical treatment. Their agency would be responsible for paying that treatment. They even went as far as telling doctors they couldn't see Medicare patients if the doctor would also take cash from anybody. This is why if you needed to see a doctor in the late 1990s and didn't have medical insurance, most of them would not see you at all. (Medicare makes up a major percentage of money spent on medical in the US.)
This problem was worse, because most medical insurance companies were fitted towards selling to employers and large organizations. The government did make requirements for employers to supply medical insurance, but there were plenty of exceptions (if they could classify you as part time or temporary), so essentially those requirements were useless because the only people who benefited were those who would have insurance anyway.
And about the cost of insurance. How do these people expect someone to pay $13k when they make that much or less? Federal min. wage is $7.25 per hour, correct? Even assuming someone is able to work 40 hrs/wk with no days off (no vacation, no sick days) 7.25 * 40 * 52= $15,080 per year. Even if they were homeless, they still wouldn't be able to pay for food. Totally unrealistic.
Also realize unless they came from rich families with connections, most people starting out at life (and those suffering from discrimination) are usually paid at low wages (often minimum wage) and their employer is exempted from giving them health care, so if they become sick, the only answer is death or disability? How nice. More likely another example of how the selfish bailout generation thinks they should have everything, while everyone else should have nothing.
Exactly, which is why antivirus programs are mostly useless.
No, the primary purpose of real security is to keep from getting infected or allowing the malicious to gain an advantage.
The primary purpose of antivirus is to do an AIDS test 10 years after you had sex without bothering to use a condom. Maybe you should wear the condom first, and when you get the AIDS test as a precaution, you won't be too worried about it being positive.
You fit your sig all to well.
Gaming companies don't use millions of dollars and hundreds of people working. They spend millions of dollars to get hundreds of people working for them. Open Source have people volunteer to do the work for free because they enjoy it. What, do you think game companies spend those millions on bricks and steel and machinery and sets for actors?
The main problem with OSS games has been there haven't been enough creative and graphic design people helping out. Have you seen what the modders do? Plenty of them produce similar quality work as game companies, but they also have a more creative edge because they are doing what they think is cool and what they want, not what they think will deliver repeatable profits.
Essentially what modern game companies put out are just crappy FPSs that have had lots of graphic and sound work done on them to make them look really nice and require the most expensive latest and greatest hardware.
It seems great to a superficial person, but normal people think it is stupid and undesirable. They want games which are actually fun, and many of them don't want to spend thousands of dollars every year just so they can play video games. Contrary to what Hollywood says, looks aren't really important.
Almost all the games coming out of the big companies are the same sort of crap in low grade action movies where they end up in the bargain bin a few months after being released to DVD. After which, they disappear into the void never to be seen on store shelves. I suppose this is why if you wait a few months after release, you can't buy the game anymore...
Or maybe all those modders will get fed up with the proprietary controls and just start learning to write their own games. Could it be a new era for open source games? I haven't really focused on gaming that much lately--especially since all the commercial offerings seem disappointing to me, but from what I've seen, open source games seem to be improving.
My guess would be peer to peer. After all, it would be easier if you didn't have to set up a server to just play in a LAN party.
Then again, if it would be p2p, I don't understand why he wouldn't say that instead of being glad Rage did not lead the way away from dedicated servers...
Actually, I found this article referenced from linuxgames.com stating that it will just be geared toward single player and co-op, so maybe they think no one will care.
I don't need to guess. I know why. Linux has this thing called "filesystem permissions."
Allowing normal user level programs connected to random internet sites to write system program files is a security nightmare waiting to happen.
Even the programs which pull packages (such as apt-get) are significant security risks. How do they know the DNS wasn't hijacked? Digital signatures help with that, but you have to be careful.
You are just from the home luser crowd who doesn't care jack shit if some script kiddie breaks into the computer.
I also don't know why the hell any of you are arguing about how many architectures to support. Even Open Source developers usually only support one architecture. (guess which one)
As for different packaging formats and binaries across distributions, I don't see why this is a problem. I use slackware, and I pull the binaries out of deb and rpm packages all the time. rpms convert just fine with rpm2tgz and I use the slackware package installer. I use ar and tar to extract deb files, but now that I think about it, I could probably just use the slackware installer on the data.tgz file.