Thanks for the link. It provided a real chuckle for someone who owns a couple of Apple products (plus lots of non-Apple ones), but has yet to experience any profound, life-changing epiphanies, and hasn't suddenly become cool, gay, or both through using them.
"Hasn't this Digital Home idea been in the making since the early 90's?"
They've certainly been trying to push the concept since then. It's become a meme like the Paperless Office was in the 1970s and 1980s.
"Hasn't this Digital Home idea been in the making since the early 90's?"
It failed because there's no evidence whatsoever to show that people want the sort of "digital home" that's being offered (which isn't a digital home at all, but a centralised digital entertainment system that belongs to the commercial media industry even though you have to buy it).
"I can probably see Sony coming out with a solution for this since they do have many products and the expertise."
But they're also a media company, so their products are frequently hobbled by draconian DRM systems. It goes without saying that the market doesn't react kindly to being expected to pay more for integrated systems that prevent them from doing things they're accustomed to doing with cheaper, non-integrated products.
"Plus do we really want everything to be controlled by software"
An incredible variety of everyday devices are already controlled by software. The fact that it's not obvious and can't communicate with the software in other devices doesn't mean it isn't there.
"The quote "If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization" comes to mind."
The problem with this quote is that it completely ignores the vast numbers of badly designed and shoddily constructed buildings that have been thrown up (and subsequently collapsed) since we stopped using caves as our primary indoor living spaces. It also ignores the fact that physical architecture is based on principles that were discovered by trial and error over tens of thousands of years, while programming has gone from teepees to skyscrapers in half a century.
"Smart-mouthing, a police officer, or other person, is not a crime."
I neither said nor implied that it was, so this is a completely redundant statement. Note also that a video of him talking to a policewoman didn't indicate that he was behaving unreasonably (although it doesn't show any subsequent interactions, so it's impossible to know what happened afterwards).
"Whether it looks like belligerance to them is irrelevant."
You are very naive indeed if you think that (a) behaviour does not affect the way others will react, or (b) that the police cannot cite a person for not cooperating with them (being belligerent is one way of not cooperating).
"You're holding a sign up which you have a right to hold up"
You're holding up a sign which you _think_ you have the right to hold up _in that particular place. Thinking you have a right is not the same as having a right.
"You don't have a specific judgement already in your hands detailing your right to hold the sign up (because this is a common law jurisdiction)"
Being in a common law jurisdiction doesn't mean you have the right to do things you don't know are prohibited, it gives you the right to do things that aren't prohibited. One is not the same as the other.
"A police officer tells you that you may be in breach of the Public Order Act and advises you to take the sign down"
Because the police at that time don't think you have a right to display it in that particular place. It's therefore up to the CPS, and if necessary, the courts, to decide whether you actually have that right, not you or the police.
"You take the sign down.
Congratulations, your right to hold that sign up means nothing, because the sign is now down"
Or perhaps it's because they managed to make a convincing argument about the illegality of the sign.
"and because the police officer was never actually forced to put their money where their mouth was with their advice, they won't be held responsible"
They won't be held responsible one way or the other unless they used unreasonable force or can be shown to not have had a good faith belief at the time that the sign _may have been_ unlawful.
"even though the sign you wanted to hold up is no longer up as a direct result of their threat."
He did not claim that the police threatened him. They politely asked him to take the sign down twice, had told him why they thought he should take it down, and when he refused, they cited him and took it away.
"And if a court decides that it wasn't?"
You get your property back.
"You seem to be proposing giving police summary power to take people's property with no oversight."
This is a complete straw man, because I proposed nothing, and neither suggested nor implied that there is no oversight, or should be no oversight. If you can't answer my points without using obvious lies, then there's no point in continuing this debate.
"Well, it seems you'd rather make up points to nitpick, than actually follow an analogy the way it's intended. "
This is true, if by "nitpicking", you mean "not letting you get away with moving goal posts around in a vain attempt to pretend that just about every point you've been making was factually incorrect".
"Hey, that's cool, I can totally dig the whole strawman thing."
I know, because you've built several in your attempts to steer things away from having to admit that you were utterly wrong about French vehicle laws.
"Here's a bunch of other analogies that you may want to nitpick at and ignore the forrest for the trees with:"
Or, to put it another way, another bunch of straw men intended to steer things away from the fact that you were profoundly wrong about nearly everything you said:
""Want a Big Mac with extra pickles? That'll be 50c extra. Want a Big Mac without any pickles? Sorry, no refund".
Pickles are (a) part of a Big Mac's basic hardware, and (b) don't have a EULA that must be agreed to before eating them. They are therefore equivalent to buying a computer that comes with more RAM than you need, and the dealer refusing to buy the excess RAM off you.
"sk to buy a new car. Say that you have your own, perfectly good tyres at home, and demand a refund on the new car's tyres. Do it without getting laughed out of the store."
Another rubbish analogy, because you can legally sell the excess set of tyres, but you're not allowed to sell or otherwise transfer ownership of an _OEM copy_ of Windows that's excess to requirements.
"Try buying an NVIDIA graphics card without the firmware. Let alone getting a refund on the cost of the firmware."
More tripe, because (1) firmware is the equivalent of a PC's BIOS, not Windows; (2) it's written by the hardware manufacturer, again unlike Windows; (3) you're allowed to sell it along with the card it's on (can't legally do that with OEM versions of Windows); and (4) it's not sold separately in addition to being shipped with nVidia cards (Windows is).
"Do the above for routers/switches, sound cards, network cards, portable media players, mobile phones, gaming console, microwave/washing machine/dryer, TV/STB/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-Ray/Stereo, digital camera/camcorder..."
See above.
"Ever hear the conundrum about hot dogs coming in packs of 10, but buns in packs of 8? Clearly, you should be able to take those 2 extra dogs back to the supermarket for a refund."
That's a US problem, and we already know that people in the US bend over and take it from their corporate overlords. in Europe, those countries that sell hot dog sausages have them in a variety of sizes and packs, and the same goes for bread rolls.
"Want a DVD/CD/Game/ANY DAMN CONSUMER PRODUCT without the packaging? Good luck getting this unbundled."
Only those who are addled would attempt to claim that there's any parallel between a physical item that protects its contents (or in the case of liquids, powders, and gases, contains them) and something that's non-physical, has a separate EULA, and instead of protecting or containing an item, makes it more vulnerable and fragile than the alternatives.
"I like Adobe Photoshop. But I really only use it for drawing basic shapes. I should get a refund because I don't want to use the other functionality, yes?"
Are you forced to buy Photoshop with virtually every name-brand PC? No. Do the French give people refunds for only using some of the functionality in Windows or Office? No. And that's why this is not only a straw man, but a pathetically obvious one.
"My light bulbs are rated at 40W. But in my house they're attached to dimmers, and I keep them running at half strength. How/where do I apply for my 50% discount?"
You've already had your discount in the form of 50% less electricity being used to drive said bulbs. Of course, I don't expect things like this to be apparent to someone who isn't capable of knowing the difference between an analogy and
"He stood up for himself in a rational, eloquent and non-violent way. I always remember being told that assertiveness was a good thing."
What you define as defending himself may well be seen by the police as smart-mouthing them. Similarly, what you term "assertiveness" might look like belligerence by them. Neither of us was there, and we haven't heard any testimony from neutral witnesses, so it's impossible for us to know which side was acting the arsehole (if indeed either of them were).
"There's no point in the powers of the police being limited if a person would have no recourse when they fold, having been incorrectly advised by the police that the extend of the police' powers is greater than it really is."
Citing somebody for what they think is a breech of one or more laws is well within police powers, as is the confiscation of property that they deem to be a contributing factor.
"It's crappy, but now that he's been adversely affected by this, (rather than voluntarily removing the sign), he can hopefully sue them into oblivion."
He can't (successfully) sue them for anything, because (1) they were responding to a complaint, and (2) there's no way to prove that they had any way of knowing whether "cult" was an appropriate description of Scientology, or as the complaining Scientologists said, an insult. The police aren't expected to be infallible interpreters of the law or experts on everything it covers, so unless there's a way of demonstrating that they weren't acting in good faith at the time, there's no case for them to answer.
"You have no rights if you stop what you're doing whenever an officer gives you an 'opportunity' to stop, without exposing themselves to any risk by doing so."
You also have no right not to be cited by the police when they have a good faith reason to _suspect_ you of having broken one or more laws. The DPP are the ones who get to say whether any laws were actually broken, and the courts decide whether you were culpable of the breach, and if so, what punishment to mete out.
The Catholic Church separated from the Orthodox Church in 1054 following a series of increasing irreconcilable schisms.
"A difference of opinions? YES!.. on who should be pope."
They have a large number of theological, doctrinal, linguistic, and political differences that were far more profound than concerns about popes (which the Orthodox Christianity doesn't have anyway -- they consider Jesus Christ to be the head of their church).
"I'd say that one group protested against the other's interpretation of some weird part of the religion. "
It's irrelevant what you say, because you obviously have no idea of their history. What historians call either the East-West Schism or the Great Schism was a two-sided dispute the culminated in each simultaneously excommunicating certain members of the other church.
"And that makes them protestant, in the true sense of the word"
The Orthodox Church was the original Christian Church, and it was Rome that split away from them rather than the other way around, so to fit your definition, you'd have to claim that the Catholic Church was Protestant.
"The Romans had an active policy of finding parallels between local gods and their own gods."
Because that was a good way of convincing conquered people to follow the Roman state religion. They did the same thing when they became a Christian empire for precisely the same reasons.
"They were actually very tolerant of other religion"
As long as the followers of other religions also followed the Roman state religion, and the other religion wasn't one that venerated Dionysisus or one of various other gods they didn't approve of (the usual penalty for worshipping a prohibited god or being a member of a prohibited cult was death, specially if one happened to be a woman).
"It's hard not to think that this would have been different if they were monotheists, resulting in much more oppression and bloodshed."
It's likely that Romans would have been exactly the same irrespective of what religion they had, because their religions were products of Rome rather than Rome being a product of its religions (even the ones they borrowed from others ended up being Romanised, including Christianity).
Would the Carthaginians, whose religion involved throwing living babies and small children into burning pits, have been better or worse if they'd been monotheists? The answer is that they'd be the same irrespective of whether they were sacrificing those children to a member of a pantheon of gods or a single all powerful one, i.e. a civilisation that, like the Romans and so many who came before and after them, had the ability to combine the finest aspects of the human spirit with horrific acts of depravity and cruelty.
We tend to rather conveniently forget that the works of Aristotle, Pythagoras, and Plato were written by people whose luxurious and contemplative lives were made possible by thousands of slaves who led short, brutal, and miserable ones, just as we forget that the brave Spartans who stood against the might of Persia at Thermopile had enslaved an entire Greek people who were worked under extremely brutal conditions and were used as living combat practice dummies by their warrior overlords.
"Christiandom is separated into 2 branches - catholic (who believe that the line of authority given by jesus was never broken, and they have the mandate of heaven to have a church..."
Fine so far.
"And Protestant, who protest the catholic church and believe that the authority to govern a church was lost"
But you went off the rails here, because there are some very notable Christian movements that aren't Catholic, but significantly predate the Protestant movement, e.g. the Eastern Orthodox Church, whose roots are of similar antiquity to Catholicism.
"Even worse than that, their libel laws are ridiculous: "Rich people and bad laws mean tough times for free speech""
That's a bunch of Americans moaning about the fact that unlike in America, British law doesn't let them get away with publishing lies about people. Those who make accusations without being able to back them up with some evidence can be successfully sued, but the article severely misrepresents the ability of British civil law to affect those who are outside its jurisdiction, and completely fails to mention the fact that there have been a number of high profile cases where the plaintiff lost after whoever was accused of libel produced evidence to support what they'd written.
"They are generally arrested for disobeying a lawful order from an officer. That's not exactly the same thing, is it?"
It's precisely the same thing. If you actually read the article in the link, the events were as follows:
1) The protesters show up in front of the Scientology HQ in London.
2) Scientologists complain to the police about the protesters' use of certain terms including, but not restricted to "cult", which they claim are threatening and insulting.
3) The police ask protesters who have placards with the terms they've received complaints about to remove them.
4) When this doesn't happen, the officers on the scene check with more senior police before reading parts of the public order act to this teenager, and strongly advising him to remove the sign.
5) He refuses, and then plays smart-arse with the police.
6) They confiscate the placard and hand him a summons.
It's perfectly clear that he wouldn't have gotten in trouble if he'd been carrying the same placard elsewhere, and that the police gave him two distinct opportunities to remove it before citing him. Furthermore, and in contrast with such cases in the US, he was not arrested, imprisoned, or in any way removed, but was left to continue demonstrating without the placard.
"If Britain was really such a great place that protected individual freedoms then Canada, the US, Australia, and India would be united as part of a British common wealth"
All three are members of The Commonwealth of Nations, which is headed by Queen Elizabeth II.
The British Monarchy are heads of state in both Australia and Canada, and the Queen has a defined constitutional role which is usually carried out in practice by an appointed Governor-General (who also performs many of their ceremonial duties when none of the Royal Family are present).
"The customer in the story bought a desktop, not a laptop."
I fail to see that this makes any objective difference. Why should people be forced to accept something from a small, possibly fly-by-night outfit or have to build their own machines? What the hell happened to the old retail adage about the customer always being right?
"So you have to go to another store. Or, god forbid, you should turn to an online store and save time and money in the process."
French law doesn't agree, and as is the case with the traffic laws you continuously misquote, they decide what laws apply in their country, not you or Microsoft.
"Has somebody told the UN about these poor oppressed French?"
The French seem to be managing to protect their consumers from the depradations of monopolists without any help from the UN. The same cannot however be said for the US.
"Great, so now not only are you discriminated against for not wanting to personally drive the vehicle, but now you're discriminated against for living in a different suburb."
If this is the best answer you can come up with, then I fail to see why you bother to keep on with this increasingly sad attempt to justify condemning France for not worshipping at the altar of the holy corporate overlord.
"you need licence and registration if a) You are a driving instructor of any kind"
The registration is for the instructor, not the vehicle or its owner (who does not need to be the same person who drives that vehicle).
"You are a sporting driver of any kind"
See above.
"You intend to drive on ANY public carriage way (not just "public highways" - believe it or not, France != USA)"
That's why I referred to public roads rather than highways in my posts -- carriageways are deemed to be public roads in France.
NB: I am not in the US, am not an American, and have never lived in or visited the US.
"You're perhaps talking about Vignette, which is commonly referred to as "road tax". For 50 years it required ALL car owners (not just drivers) to pay. Now it just applies to businesses."
It also applies to some campers, and any vehicle over 3.5 metric tons. Unless of course you don't drive them on public roads.
"Otherwise there is no such "road tax", only personal income tax (IRPP) which is used, among other things, for road maintenance. As are the council rates, taxe fonciere."
None of which are levied on vehicles, and none of which can be remotely described as a road tax. The fact that you even bother to raise them is therefore an indication of your increasingly desperate attempts to pretend that there is any parallel whatsoever between cars in France and the French being forced to pay Microsoft when buying a computer Microsoft didn't make, and which is capable of being used without requiring anything from Microsoft.
"So you're telling me, there are no computer stores in France that sell PCs or PC components that don't come bundled with Windows?"
I will go further, and tell you that it's impossible to buy a laptop with the features that an arbitrary customer may want _anywhere_ that doesn't come with Windows unless they're a corporate volume buyer (NB: not being made by Apple could well be a feature that's important to some customers).
"Which is kind of like how they have the option not to buy a Windows-bundled PC?"
It's absolutely nothing like it, because you can buy the car _from that dealer_ with or without the bundled insurance if you wish. So it's actually like going to a store that sells computers, and being able to buy (for example) a Sony Viaio with or without Windows.
"And this is possible in France?"
Private vehicles under 3.5 tons don't pay road tax in France anymore, so there's nothing to refund:
"Which requires some form of payment unless you own the tow truck (which needs to be registered) and fuel is free. And you're back to square one."
Most sellers of small vehicles such as cars and motorcycles will deliver them without charging anything if the buyer's within a reasonable distance of the seller, so you're not back to square 1 at all.
"All of which require registration in France."
Vehicles that don't go on public roads do not require any form of registration in France (i.e. no number plate is needed); vehicles that don't go on public roads can be driven without a license in France; it's not illegal to drive vehicles that aren't on public roads while drunk in France; and the mandatory French periodic road worthiness inspections aren't required for vehicles that don't use public roads.
"Uhh, what? If you pay taxes, you pay for road maintenance, end of story."
Balderdash. If you actually knew anything about French law instead of blathering, you would also know that (a) there's no road tax at all for the majority of domestic vehicles; and (b) vehicles that don't use roads are not required to pay for maintaining them. Owners of such vehicles have never been required to pay any road taxes on them, either when were bought, or subsequently.
"Irrespective of what refunds you may or may not get from using alternative fuels, which has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand."
I didn't say they got refunds from using alternative fuels, but that they don't have to pay the taxes that are levied on fuels for vehicles that use public roads, which cannot legally run on anything that hasn't had those taxes paid on it. And it has everything to do with the topic at hand, i.e. vehicle taxes in France (of which the fuel tax is one), and your utter misunderstanding of what they are and how they're applied.
"we are talking about Apple which we know would love to increase market share"
But Apple, like all sensible companies, have not displayed any desire whatsoever to achieve extra market share by reducing their profit margins or changing the Apple policy of making highly integrated and extremely tightly controlled devices that offer few or no options for end-user customisation, and use software and DRM systems they don't license to anyone else.
"They aren't like a Porche or some other high end maker that is only targeting the elite."
They're not much like Porsche, but have many parallels with Bang and Olufsen and similar purveyors of pricey electronic equipment which puts more emphasis on design and integration than specifications, and does not therefore appeal to hi-fi nerds or people with limited budgets.
Apple target five markets, all of which are niches in terms of global computer sales:
1) Home users who aren't gamers and don't want to get at a computer's innards. 2) Media professionals. 3) Education. 4) Small businesses. 5) Software developers serving (1) to (4) above.
"Apple wants their product in every house, every college campus, and every workplace."
I agree with the point about campuses. However, Apple are deliberately excluding a lot of homes with their pricing, integration, and control policies, and have not made any serious attempts to enter the corporate sector beyond shipping BootCamp with OS X 10.5 (selling to corporates was however a side effect of this rather than the reason for providing the capability to dual-boot Windows on Intel Macs).
"Removing context is just arguing for the sake of trying to sound smart."
Arguing that Apple are more concerned with profits than achieving raw market share is not removing context, because everything they've done since Jobs returned has indicated that they do put profits before raw market share.
"Since we really cannot tell how both indicators relate to the reality, we cannot even say that they are equally valid."
They're both equally invalid unless what's being measured is a new piece of commercial software that's never been offered in any prior form or version, the manufacturer offers a no questions money back guarantee even if the packet's been opened, and doesn't count items that are returned under that guarantee as being sales:
- If there have been prior versions, then sales of a new one have no relationship whatsoever with actual usage. A prime example of this is MS Office, where the major competitor for every new version is the very large number of those who are perfectly happy with an older one, and do not therefore see any reason to spend money upgrading it.
- Sales of software that doesn't offer quibble-free money back guarantees after the customer has had an opportunity to try it out for themselves on their own machine(s) also bear no relationship whatsoever to usage, because it counts those who decided they didn't like it enough to continue using it. There have been more than a few occasions where buggy and / or badly designed software has resulted in actual users being only a small minority of the people who bought it.
- Companies who don't subtract returns from their sales figures are deliberately trying to pretend that they have far more users than is actually the case.
"Market share matters more for computers than for other things. If you have more market share, more people write software for your OS, which increases demand for your computers."
This is only relevant to a certain categories of software that rely on large numbers of sales for profits. Most commercial software (by numbers of different programs rather than numbers of items sold) is however written by fairly small companies who serve a specialist niche market, and they target what's popular in their niche, which isn't necessarily what's popular elsewhere. Note also that it's pretty common for companies who make hardware that serves particular niches to also write software for those niches and sell third party software so customers can obtain a complete, custom-configured turnkey solution from the same company that makes the computer.
"Also, it is possible to target lower price points by reducing features rather than quality"
Agreed, but the fact that virtually nobody seems to be taking this route to cheapness raises the question of whether there's enough of a market for a quality machine which lacks capabilities others at the same price have to make it a viable proposition.
"Don't forget they have actually had a number of terror related incidents... more than one the US has had. "
They've obviously only had one, because the Ku Klux Klan bombing churches with people in them during the 1960s, the first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center, the Oaklahoma City bombing, the Unabomber, people sending anthrax through the post, and various other incidents that most people would say were acts of terrorism were really just a few good ol' boys letting off some steam.
Those nefarious foreigners won't stop at sheep. Before you know it, they'll be demanding the tagging of cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and other _British_ farm animals, who already suffer enough humiliation at the hands of foreigners by being cooked in garlicky sauce and having their fleeces made into berets.
First they tagged the sheep, but I said nothing for I was not a sheep. Then they tagged the cows, but I said nothing, for I was not a cow. I did not protest when they tagged the pigs and chickens, because I was not a pig or chicken. And when they came to tag my budgie and hamster, there were no farm animals left untagged to speak on their behalf.
"If it comes down to it, the police state WILL be enforced if deemed necessary"
Those at the top of the political heap always deem police states to be necessary because they wouldn't stay at the top of said heap unless they had an innate desire for controlling everyone else. The problem they have in democracies is convincing the public to let them have the powers they've always wanted.
"It really is time to get up and do something if you live in the UK"
They won't though, because Britain is now largely occupied by spiteful, ignorant people who are so driven by their resentment of anyone who does something they don't like or approve of that the vast majority of them would welcome a system where denouncing annoying people would immediately result in them being forcibly hauled off to a place where they can't annoy decent citizens for the rest of their lives.
""Race to the bottom" pricing leads to shoddy PC products. The HP laptop I'm using right now has had two hardware failures in the last year; this kind of experience isn't uncommon these days."
That's why HP offer a range of business-oriented computers that don't use the crappy components they put in their built-down-to-a price home range. The drawback is of course that their business laptops are in the same sort of cost bracket as equivalent MacBook Pros...
"Saying high end implies that they're actually fast, good, or comparable to machines running other OSes"
Not to the sort of people who write (and read) retail sales analysis reports and subscribe to Fortune magazine (which were both responsible for the information we're debating). Their definition of "high end" for any product is purely based on cost, i.e. the high end of the market, and they neither claim nor imply that what those high-end products are any better in a technical sense than the ones that aren't high-end.
"I really think Apple would increase their market share of all systems if they lowered their prices or at least had models that started at lower prices."
Companies aim to maximise profits, not market share. More sales doesn't necessarily mean more profits if those sales are achieved by lowering margins to a point where they need to sell 20 items to make the same as they currently do from one (meaning they _have_ to sell 20x as many, and also cope with 20x the support calls, carry 20x the inventory, etc.) or in the case of a company with a reputation for quality, by cutting corners in ways that result in an inferior product.
The fact that Apple are making lots and lots of money while others with significantly larger market shares are struggling means that the company obviously isn't being run by idiots who aren't capable of working out the price point for each product that allows them to maximise their profits while maintaining their very high customer satisfaction ratings.
"No, you don't. You just have to shop at a different store for a PC without a bundled OS."
This is an option in some countries, but not all of them.
"No one's forcing you to that specific product from that specific store."
They are in many parts of the world, because nobody apart from Apple (and Macs aren't always easy to find) sells computers without Windows on them in stores where customers can try before buying.
"Except for the times when they're bundled with the product for a cheaper price, which is generally considered a positive selling point, and is fairly common here (except for the licence of course)."
The cases where they're bundled with (for example) insurance offer the option of not having it for those who prefer to make their own arrangements.
"There's also no way to "unregister" your vehicle should you choose not to want to use it on public roads."
Most countries allow you to unregister by stating that the vehicle will no longer be driven or parked on public highways, and insurance companies refund the unused portion of a premium (at least where I live) if you change companies or otherwise tell them that you don't want their cover anymore.
"I'm also wondering how you plan to get the car home without a licence, insurance, registration"
The same way people have always transported vehicles that aren't licensed for (or are profoundly unsuitable for) public roads, i.e. by towing them on a wheeled platform.
"and even if you do, why you would be buying a car in the first place. Expensive paperweight? "
For teaching advanced driving on skid pans and simulated streets on private land; or racing on specialist circuits; or in the case of cars with an off-road capability, driving around what may be extensive areas of non-road or roads that don't count as public highways (depending of course on where one lives). That's three uses off the top of my head, but there are plenty of others.
"And, part of your tax goes to road maintenance. You don't get that back either even if you don't own a car."
There's nothing to get back if the vehicle doesn't use public roads, because that particular tax wasn't paid in the first place. Note also that one can legally use subsidised agricultural and heating fuels in countries where such subsidies exist, thus avoiding the need to pay yet another tax.
The point I was really trying to make is that downloads of free (as in beer) software are neither a better or worse guide to its usage figures than sales (especially OEM ones) are to the usage figures for commercial software.
As an example, we know that both Windows and OS X are frequently pirated, so each copy of an OS they sell could potentially be installed on dozens of machines. However, Vista in particular has highlighted the fact that selling a copy of an OS (or for that matter selling anything) doesn't mean that the customer is satisfied enough with what they paid for to keep using it (or in the case of consumables, buy that product again).
It's pretty obvious that people are even more likely to chop and change (or outright reject) something that's free than an item they've paid for, and the fact that there are often significant differences between Linux distros means that even those who are committed to it have probably either downloaded an entirely new version of their favourite distro on a regular basis, or experimented with several different ones before settling on one they like.
So while it is indeed possible for one copy of a single Linux distro to end up on several machines, it's also not only possible, but actually fairly common for a single user to download several distros and only end up using one of them, or download different versions of the same distro several times. The only thing that we can therefore say for certain is:
1 software copy != 1 user, irrespective of whether it's sold commercially or obtained for free (legally or otherwise).
"I don't think the USA is in any position to call Google evil for this"
People who live in the USA (or anywhere else) do however have a right to call Google or anyone else evil if they personally believe that it's behaved in an evil way.
"Get your own house in order first."
I'm not from the US (and have never been there), but this doesn't stop me from being aware of the fact that a significant proportion of the people living in the country object very strongly to what Bush and his pals have been up to, hence the fact that he's one of the least popular presidents they've ever had.
NB: it isn't just what people in the US term "the left" (i.e. only a little to the right of Attilla The Hun) who've had enough of Bush's administration. Conservatives favour small, efficient governments that keep their noses out of other peoples' business, so they're pretty pissed off with not only the Bush administration's runaway spending and proliferation of both government departments and intrusive laws, but pretty much the whole Republican party for their runaway "pork barrel politics".
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the link. It provided a real chuckle for someone who owns a couple of Apple products (plus lots of non-Apple ones), but has yet to experience any profound, life-changing epiphanies, and hasn't suddenly become cool, gay, or both through using them.
"Hasn't this Digital Home idea been in the making since the early 90's?"
They've certainly been trying to push the concept since then. It's become a meme like the Paperless Office was in the 1970s and 1980s.
"Hasn't this Digital Home idea been in the making since the early 90's?"
It failed because there's no evidence whatsoever to show that people want the sort of "digital home" that's being offered (which isn't a digital home at all, but a centralised digital entertainment system that belongs to the commercial media industry even though you have to buy it).
"I can probably see Sony coming out with a solution for this since they do have many products and the expertise."
But they're also a media company, so their products are frequently hobbled by draconian DRM systems. It goes without saying that the market doesn't react kindly to being expected to pay more for integrated systems that prevent them from doing things they're accustomed to doing with cheaper, non-integrated products.
"Plus do we really want everything to be controlled by software"
An incredible variety of everyday devices are already controlled by software. The fact that it's not obvious and can't communicate with the software in other devices doesn't mean it isn't there.
"The quote "If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization" comes to mind."
The problem with this quote is that it completely ignores the vast numbers of badly designed and shoddily constructed buildings that have been thrown up (and subsequently collapsed) since we stopped using caves as our primary indoor living spaces. It also ignores the fact that physical architecture is based on principles that were discovered by trial and error over tens of thousands of years, while programming has gone from teepees to skyscrapers in half a century.
"Smart-mouthing, a police officer, or other person, is not a crime."
I neither said nor implied that it was, so this is a completely redundant statement. Note also that a video of him talking to a policewoman didn't indicate that he was behaving unreasonably (although it doesn't show any subsequent interactions, so it's impossible to know what happened afterwards).
"Whether it looks like belligerance to them is irrelevant."
You are very naive indeed if you think that (a) behaviour does not affect the way others will react, or (b) that the police cannot cite a person for not cooperating with them (being belligerent is one way of not cooperating).
"You're holding a sign up which you have a right to hold up"
You're holding up a sign which you _think_ you have the right to hold up _in that particular place. Thinking you have a right is not the same as having a right.
"You don't have a specific judgement already in your hands detailing your right to hold the sign up (because this is a common law jurisdiction)"
Being in a common law jurisdiction doesn't mean you have the right to do things you don't know are prohibited, it gives you the right to do things that aren't prohibited. One is not the same as the other.
"A police officer tells you that you may be in breach of the Public Order Act and advises you to take the sign down"
Because the police at that time don't think you have a right to display it in that particular place. It's therefore up to the CPS, and if necessary, the courts, to decide whether you actually have that right, not you or the police.
"You take the sign down.
Congratulations, your right to hold that sign up means nothing, because the sign is now down"
Or perhaps it's because they managed to make a convincing argument about the illegality of the sign.
"and because the police officer was never actually forced to put their money where their mouth was with their advice, they won't be held responsible"
They won't be held responsible one way or the other unless they used unreasonable force or can be shown to not have had a good faith belief at the time that the sign _may have been_ unlawful.
"even though the sign you wanted to hold up is no longer up as a direct result of their threat."
He did not claim that the police threatened him. They politely asked him to take the sign down twice, had told him why they thought he should take it down, and when he refused, they cited him and took it away.
"And if a court decides that it wasn't?"
You get your property back.
"You seem to be proposing giving police summary power to take people's property with no oversight."
This is a complete straw man, because I proposed nothing, and neither suggested nor implied that there is no oversight, or should be no oversight. If you can't answer my points without using obvious lies, then there's no point in continuing this debate.
"Well, it seems you'd rather make up points to nitpick, than actually follow an analogy the way it's intended. "
This is true, if by "nitpicking", you mean "not letting you get away with moving goal posts around in a vain attempt to pretend that just about every point you've been making was factually incorrect".
"Hey, that's cool, I can totally dig the whole strawman thing."
I know, because you've built several in your attempts to steer things away from having to admit that you were utterly wrong about French vehicle laws.
"Here's a bunch of other analogies that you may want to nitpick at and ignore the forrest for the trees with:"
Or, to put it another way, another bunch of straw men intended to steer things away from the fact that you were profoundly wrong about nearly everything you said:
""Want a Big Mac with extra pickles? That'll be 50c extra. Want a Big Mac without any pickles? Sorry, no refund".
Pickles are (a) part of a Big Mac's basic hardware, and (b) don't have a EULA that must be agreed to before eating them. They are therefore equivalent to buying a computer that comes with more RAM than you need, and the dealer refusing to buy the excess RAM off you.
"sk to buy a new car. Say that you have your own, perfectly good tyres at home, and demand a refund on the new car's tyres. Do it without getting laughed out of the store."
Another rubbish analogy, because you can legally sell the excess set of tyres, but you're not allowed to sell or otherwise transfer ownership of an _OEM copy_ of Windows that's excess to requirements.
"Try buying an NVIDIA graphics card without the firmware. Let alone getting a refund on the cost of the firmware."
More tripe, because (1) firmware is the equivalent of a PC's BIOS, not Windows; (2) it's written by the hardware manufacturer, again unlike Windows; (3) you're allowed to sell it along with the card it's on (can't legally do that with OEM versions of Windows); and (4) it's not sold separately in addition to being shipped with nVidia cards (Windows is).
"Do the above for routers/switches, sound cards, network cards, portable media players, mobile phones, gaming console, microwave/washing machine/dryer, TV/STB/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-Ray/Stereo, digital camera/camcorder..."
See above.
"Ever hear the conundrum about hot dogs coming in packs of 10, but buns in packs of 8? Clearly, you should be able to take those 2 extra dogs back to the supermarket for a refund."
That's a US problem, and we already know that people in the US bend over and take it from their corporate overlords. in Europe, those countries that sell hot dog sausages have them in a variety of sizes and packs, and the same goes for bread rolls.
"Want a DVD/CD/Game/ANY DAMN CONSUMER PRODUCT without the packaging? Good luck getting this unbundled."
Only those who are addled would attempt to claim that there's any parallel between a physical item that protects its contents (or in the case of liquids, powders, and gases, contains them) and something that's non-physical, has a separate EULA, and instead of protecting or containing an item, makes it more vulnerable and fragile than the alternatives.
"I like Adobe Photoshop. But I really only use it for drawing basic shapes. I should get a refund because I don't want to use the other functionality, yes?"
Are you forced to buy Photoshop with virtually every name-brand PC? No. Do the French give people refunds for only using some of the functionality in Windows or Office? No. And that's why this is not only a straw man, but a pathetically obvious one.
"My light bulbs are rated at 40W. But in my house they're attached to dimmers, and I keep them running at half strength. How/where do I apply for my 50% discount?"
You've already had your discount in the form of 50% less electricity being used to drive said bulbs. Of course, I don't expect things like this to be apparent to someone who isn't capable of knowing the difference between an analogy and
"He stood up for himself in a rational, eloquent and non-violent way. I always remember being told that assertiveness was a good thing."
What you define as defending himself may well be seen by the police as smart-mouthing them. Similarly, what you term "assertiveness" might look like belligerence by them. Neither of us was there, and we haven't heard any testimony from neutral witnesses, so it's impossible for us to know which side was acting the arsehole (if indeed either of them were).
"There's no point in the powers of the police being limited if a person would have no recourse when they fold, having been incorrectly advised by the police that the extend of the police' powers is greater than it really is."
Citing somebody for what they think is a breech of one or more laws is well within police powers, as is the confiscation of property that they deem to be a contributing factor.
"It's crappy, but now that he's been adversely affected by this, (rather than voluntarily removing the sign), he can hopefully sue them into oblivion."
He can't (successfully) sue them for anything, because (1) they were responding to a complaint, and (2) there's no way to prove that they had any way of knowing whether "cult" was an appropriate description of Scientology, or as the complaining Scientologists said, an insult. The police aren't expected to be infallible interpreters of the law or experts on everything it covers, so unless there's a way of demonstrating that they weren't acting in good faith at the time, there's no case for them to answer.
"You have no rights if you stop what you're doing whenever an officer gives you an 'opportunity' to stop, without exposing themselves to any risk by doing so."
You also have no right not to be cited by the police when they have a good faith reason to _suspect_ you of having broken one or more laws. The DPP are the ones who get to say whether any laws were actually broken, and the courts decide whether you were culpable of the breach, and if so, what punishment to mete out.
"But when did they separate?"
.. on who should be pope."
The Catholic Church separated from the Orthodox Church in 1054 following a series of increasing irreconcilable schisms.
"A difference of opinions? YES!
They have a large number of theological, doctrinal, linguistic, and political differences that were far more profound than concerns about popes (which the Orthodox Christianity doesn't have anyway -- they consider Jesus Christ to be the head of their church).
"I'd say that one group protested against the other's interpretation of some weird part of the religion. "
It's irrelevant what you say, because you obviously have no idea of their history. What historians call either the East-West Schism or the Great Schism was a two-sided dispute the culminated in each simultaneously excommunicating certain members of the other church.
"And that makes them protestant, in the true sense of the word"
The Orthodox Church was the original Christian Church, and it was Rome that split away from them rather than the other way around, so to fit your definition, you'd have to claim that the Catholic Church was Protestant.
"The Romans had an active policy of finding parallels between local gods and their own gods."
Because that was a good way of convincing conquered people to follow the Roman state religion. They did the same thing when they became a Christian empire for precisely the same reasons.
"They were actually very tolerant of other religion"
As long as the followers of other religions also followed the Roman state religion, and the other religion wasn't one that venerated Dionysisus or one of various other gods they didn't approve of (the usual penalty for worshipping a prohibited god or being a member of a prohibited cult was death, specially if one happened to be a woman).
"It's hard not to think that this would have been different if they were monotheists, resulting in much more oppression and bloodshed."
It's likely that Romans would have been exactly the same irrespective of what religion they had, because their religions were products of Rome rather than Rome being a product of its religions (even the ones they borrowed from others ended up being Romanised, including Christianity).
Would the Carthaginians, whose religion involved throwing living babies and small children into burning pits, have been better or worse if they'd been monotheists? The answer is that they'd be the same irrespective of whether they were sacrificing those children to a member of a pantheon of gods or a single all powerful one, i.e. a civilisation that, like the Romans and so many who came before and after them, had the ability to combine the finest aspects of the human spirit with horrific acts of depravity and cruelty.
We tend to rather conveniently forget that the works of Aristotle, Pythagoras, and Plato were written by people whose luxurious and contemplative lives were made possible by thousands of slaves who led short, brutal, and miserable ones, just as we forget that the brave Spartans who stood against the might of Persia at Thermopile had enslaved an entire Greek people who were worked under extremely brutal conditions and were used as living combat practice dummies by their warrior overlords.
"Christiandom is separated into 2 branches - catholic (who believe that the line of authority given by jesus was never broken, and they have the mandate of heaven to have a church..."
Fine so far.
"And Protestant, who protest the catholic church and believe that the authority to govern a church was lost"
But you went off the rails here, because there are some very notable Christian movements that aren't Catholic, but significantly predate the Protestant movement, e.g. the Eastern Orthodox Church, whose roots are of similar antiquity to Catholicism.
"Even worse than that, their libel laws are ridiculous: "Rich people and bad laws mean tough times for free speech""
That's a bunch of Americans moaning about the fact that unlike in America, British law doesn't let them get away with publishing lies about people. Those who make accusations without being able to back them up with some evidence can be successfully sued, but the article severely misrepresents the ability of British civil law to affect those who are outside its jurisdiction, and completely fails to mention the fact that there have been a number of high profile cases where the plaintiff lost after whoever was accused of libel produced evidence to support what they'd written.
"They are generally arrested for disobeying a lawful order from an officer. That's not exactly the same thing, is it?"
It's precisely the same thing. If you actually read the article in the link, the events were as follows:
1) The protesters show up in front of the Scientology HQ in London.
2) Scientologists complain to the police about the protesters' use of certain terms including, but not restricted to "cult", which they claim are threatening and insulting.
3) The police ask protesters who have placards with the terms they've received complaints about to remove them.
4) When this doesn't happen, the officers on the scene check with more senior police before reading parts of the public order act to this teenager, and strongly advising him to remove the sign.
5) He refuses, and then plays smart-arse with the police.
6) They confiscate the placard and hand him a summons.
It's perfectly clear that he wouldn't have gotten in trouble if he'd been carrying the same placard elsewhere, and that the police gave him two distinct opportunities to remove it before citing him. Furthermore, and in contrast with such cases in the US, he was not arrested, imprisoned, or in any way removed, but was left to continue demonstrating without the placard.
"If Britain was really such a great place that protected individual freedoms then Canada, the US, Australia, and India would be united as part of a British common wealth"
All three are members of The Commonwealth of Nations, which is headed by Queen Elizabeth II.
The British Monarchy are heads of state in both Australia and Canada, and the Queen has a defined constitutional role which is usually carried out in practice by an appointed Governor-General (who also performs many of their ceremonial duties when none of the Royal Family are present).
"The customer in the story bought a desktop, not a laptop."
I fail to see that this makes any objective difference. Why should people be forced to accept something from a small, possibly fly-by-night outfit or have to build their own machines? What the hell happened to the old retail adage about the customer always being right?
"So you have to go to another store. Or, god forbid, you should turn to an online store and save time and money in the process."
French law doesn't agree, and as is the case with the traffic laws you continuously misquote, they decide what laws apply in their country, not you or Microsoft.
"Has somebody told the UN about these poor oppressed French?"
The French seem to be managing to protect their consumers from the depradations of monopolists without any help from the UN. The same cannot however be said for the US.
"Great, so now not only are you discriminated against for not wanting to personally drive the vehicle, but now you're discriminated against for living in a different suburb."
If this is the best answer you can come up with, then I fail to see why you bother to keep on with this increasingly sad attempt to justify condemning France for not worshipping at the altar of the holy corporate overlord.
"you need licence and registration if a) You are a driving instructor of any kind"
The registration is for the instructor, not the vehicle or its owner (who does not need to be the same person who drives that vehicle).
"You are a sporting driver of any kind"
See above.
"You intend to drive on ANY public carriage way (not just "public highways" - believe it or not, France != USA)"
That's why I referred to public roads rather than highways in my posts -- carriageways are deemed to be public roads in France.
NB: I am not in the US, am not an American, and have never lived in or visited the US.
"You're perhaps talking about Vignette, which is commonly referred to as "road tax". For 50 years it required ALL car owners (not just drivers) to pay. Now it just applies to businesses."
It also applies to some campers, and any vehicle over 3.5 metric tons. Unless of course you don't drive them on public roads.
"Otherwise there is no such "road tax", only personal income tax (IRPP) which is used, among other things, for road maintenance. As are the council rates, taxe fonciere."
None of which are levied on vehicles, and none of which can be remotely described as a road tax. The fact that you even bother to raise them is therefore an indication of your increasingly desperate attempts to pretend that there is any parallel whatsoever between cars in France and the French being forced to pay Microsoft when buying a computer Microsoft didn't make, and which is capable of being used without requiring anything from Microsoft.
"So you're telling me, there are no computer stores in France that sell PCs or PC components that don't come bundled with Windows?"
I will go further, and tell you that it's impossible to buy a laptop with the features that an arbitrary customer may want _anywhere_ that doesn't come with Windows unless they're a corporate volume buyer (NB: not being made by Apple could well be a feature that's important to some customers).
"Which is kind of like how they have the option not to buy a Windows-bundled PC?"
It's absolutely nothing like it, because you can buy the car _from that dealer_ with or without the bundled insurance if you wish. So it's actually like going to a store that sells computers, and being able to buy (for example) a Sony Viaio with or without Windows.
"And this is possible in France?"
Private vehicles under 3.5 tons don't pay road tax in France anymore, so there's nothing to refund:
http://www.justlanded.com/english/France/Tools/Articles/Travel-Leisure/Information-and-useful-tips
"Which requires some form of payment unless you own the tow truck (which needs to be registered) and fuel is free. And you're back to square one."
Most sellers of small vehicles such as cars and motorcycles will deliver them without charging anything if the buyer's within a reasonable distance of the seller, so you're not back to square 1 at all.
"All of which require registration in France."
Vehicles that don't go on public roads do not require any form of registration in France (i.e. no number plate is needed); vehicles that don't go on public roads can be driven without a license in France; it's not illegal to drive vehicles that aren't on public roads while drunk in France; and the mandatory French periodic road worthiness inspections aren't required for vehicles that don't use public roads.
"Uhh, what? If you pay taxes, you pay for road maintenance, end of story."
Balderdash. If you actually knew anything about French law instead of blathering, you would also know that (a) there's no road tax at all for the majority of domestic vehicles; and (b) vehicles that don't use roads are not required to pay for maintaining them. Owners of such vehicles have never been required to pay any road taxes on them, either when were bought, or subsequently.
"Irrespective of what refunds you may or may not get from using alternative fuels, which has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand."
I didn't say they got refunds from using alternative fuels, but that they don't have to pay the taxes that are levied on fuels for vehicles that use public roads, which cannot legally run on anything that hasn't had those taxes paid on it. And it has everything to do with the topic at hand, i.e. vehicle taxes in France (of which the fuel tax is one), and your utter misunderstanding of what they are and how they're applied.
"we are talking about Apple which we know would love to increase market share"
But Apple, like all sensible companies, have not displayed any desire whatsoever to achieve extra market share by reducing their profit margins or changing the Apple policy of making highly integrated and extremely tightly controlled devices that offer few or no options for end-user customisation, and use software and DRM systems they don't license to anyone else.
"They aren't like a Porche or some other high end maker that is only targeting the elite."
They're not much like Porsche, but have many parallels with Bang and Olufsen and similar purveyors of pricey electronic equipment which puts more emphasis on design and integration than specifications, and does not therefore appeal to hi-fi nerds or people with limited budgets.
Apple target five markets, all of which are niches in terms of global computer sales:
1) Home users who aren't gamers and don't want to get at a computer's innards.
2) Media professionals.
3) Education.
4) Small businesses.
5) Software developers serving (1) to (4) above.
"Apple wants their product in every house, every college campus, and every workplace."
I agree with the point about campuses. However, Apple are deliberately excluding a lot of homes with their pricing, integration, and control policies, and have not made any serious attempts to enter the corporate sector beyond shipping BootCamp with OS X 10.5 (selling to corporates was however a side effect of this rather than the reason for providing the capability to dual-boot Windows on Intel Macs).
"Removing context is just arguing for the sake of trying to sound smart."
Arguing that Apple are more concerned with profits than achieving raw market share is not removing context, because everything they've done since Jobs returned has indicated that they do put profits before raw market share.
"I would use "as unsuitable a guide as.""
This is better way of describing it.
"Since we really cannot tell how both indicators relate to the reality, we cannot even say that they are equally valid."
They're both equally invalid unless what's being measured is a new piece of commercial software that's never been offered in any prior form or version, the manufacturer offers a no questions money back guarantee even if the packet's been opened, and doesn't count items that are returned under that guarantee as being sales:
- If there have been prior versions, then sales of a new one have no relationship whatsoever with actual usage. A prime example of this is MS Office, where the major competitor for every new version is the very large number of those who are perfectly happy with an older one, and do not therefore see any reason to spend money upgrading it.
- Sales of software that doesn't offer quibble-free money back guarantees after the customer has had an opportunity to try it out for themselves on their own machine(s) also bear no relationship whatsoever to usage, because it counts those who decided they didn't like it enough to continue using it. There have been more than a few occasions where buggy and / or badly designed software has resulted in actual users being only a small minority of the people who bought it.
- Companies who don't subtract returns from their sales figures are deliberately trying to pretend that they have far more users than is actually the case.
"Market share matters more for computers than for other things. If you have more market share, more people write software for your OS, which increases demand for your computers."
This is only relevant to a certain categories of software that rely on large numbers of sales for profits. Most commercial software (by numbers of different programs rather than numbers of items sold) is however written by fairly small companies who serve a specialist niche market, and they target what's popular in their niche, which isn't necessarily what's popular elsewhere. Note also that it's pretty common for companies who make hardware that serves particular niches to also write software for those niches and sell third party software so customers can obtain a complete, custom-configured turnkey solution from the same company that makes the computer.
"Also, it is possible to target lower price points by reducing features rather than quality"
Agreed, but the fact that virtually nobody seems to be taking this route to cheapness raises the question of whether there's enough of a market for a quality machine which lacks capabilities others at the same price have to make it a viable proposition.
"Don't forget they have actually had a number of terror related incidents... more than one the US has had. "
They've obviously only had one, because the Ku Klux Klan bombing churches with people in them during the 1960s, the first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center, the Oaklahoma City bombing, the Unabomber, people sending anthrax through the post, and various other incidents that most people would say were acts of terrorism were really just a few good ol' boys letting off some steam.
Those nefarious foreigners won't stop at sheep. Before you know it, they'll be demanding the tagging of cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and other _British_ farm animals, who already suffer enough humiliation at the hands of foreigners by being cooked in garlicky sauce and having their fleeces made into berets.
First they tagged the sheep, but I said nothing for I was not a sheep. Then they tagged the cows, but I said nothing, for I was not a cow. I did not protest when they tagged the pigs and chickens, because I was not a pig or chicken. And when they came to tag my budgie and hamster, there were no farm animals left untagged to speak on their behalf.
"If it comes down to it, the police state WILL be enforced if deemed necessary"
Those at the top of the political heap always deem police states to be necessary because they wouldn't stay at the top of said heap unless they had an innate desire for controlling everyone else. The problem they have in democracies is convincing the public to let them have the powers they've always wanted.
"It really is time to get up and do something if you live in the UK"
They won't though, because Britain is now largely occupied by spiteful, ignorant people who are so driven by their resentment of anyone who does something they don't like or approve of that the vast majority of them would welcome a system where denouncing annoying people would immediately result in them being forcibly hauled off to a place where they can't annoy decent citizens for the rest of their lives.
""Race to the bottom" pricing leads to shoddy PC products. The HP laptop I'm using right now has had two hardware failures in the last year; this kind of experience isn't uncommon these days."
That's why HP offer a range of business-oriented computers that don't use the crappy components they put in their built-down-to-a price home range. The drawback is of course that their business laptops are in the same sort of cost bracket as equivalent MacBook Pros...
"Saying high end implies that they're actually fast, good, or comparable to machines running other OSes"
Not to the sort of people who write (and read) retail sales analysis reports and subscribe to Fortune magazine (which were both responsible for the information we're debating). Their definition of "high end" for any product is purely based on cost, i.e. the high end of the market, and they neither claim nor imply that what those high-end products are any better in a technical sense than the ones that aren't high-end.
"I really think Apple would increase their market share of all systems if they lowered their prices or at least had models that started at lower prices."
Companies aim to maximise profits, not market share. More sales doesn't necessarily mean more profits if those sales are achieved by lowering margins to a point where they need to sell 20 items to make the same as they currently do from one (meaning they _have_ to sell 20x as many, and also cope with 20x the support calls, carry 20x the inventory, etc.) or in the case of a company with a reputation for quality, by cutting corners in ways that result in an inferior product.
The fact that Apple are making lots and lots of money while others with significantly larger market shares are struggling means that the company obviously isn't being run by idiots who aren't capable of working out the price point for each product that allows them to maximise their profits while maintaining their very high customer satisfaction ratings.
"No, you don't. You just have to shop at a different store for a PC without a bundled OS."
This is an option in some countries, but not all of them.
"No one's forcing you to that specific product from that specific store."
They are in many parts of the world, because nobody apart from Apple (and Macs aren't always easy to find) sells computers without Windows on them in stores where customers can try before buying.
"Except for the times when they're bundled with the product for a cheaper price, which is generally considered a positive selling point, and is fairly common here (except for the licence of course)."
The cases where they're bundled with (for example) insurance offer the option of not having it for those who prefer to make their own arrangements.
"There's also no way to "unregister" your vehicle should you choose not to want to use it on public roads."
Most countries allow you to unregister by stating that the vehicle will no longer be driven or parked on public highways, and insurance companies refund the unused portion of a premium (at least where I live) if you change companies or otherwise tell them that you don't want their cover anymore.
"I'm also wondering how you plan to get the car home without a licence, insurance, registration"
The same way people have always transported vehicles that aren't licensed for (or are profoundly unsuitable for) public roads, i.e. by towing them on a wheeled platform.
"and even if you do, why you would be buying a car in the first place. Expensive paperweight? "
For teaching advanced driving on skid pans and simulated streets on private land; or racing on specialist circuits; or in the case of cars with an off-road capability, driving around what may be extensive areas of non-road or roads that don't count as public highways (depending of course on where one lives). That's three uses off the top of my head, but there are plenty of others.
"And, part of your tax goes to road maintenance. You don't get that back either even if you don't own a car."
There's nothing to get back if the vehicle doesn't use public roads, because that particular tax wasn't paid in the first place. Note also that one can legally use subsidised agricultural and heating fuels in countries where such subsidies exist, thus avoiding the need to pay yet another tax.
The point I was really trying to make is that downloads of free (as in beer) software are neither a better or worse guide to its usage figures than sales (especially OEM ones) are to the usage figures for commercial software.
As an example, we know that both Windows and OS X are frequently pirated, so each copy of an OS they sell could potentially be installed on dozens of machines. However, Vista in particular has highlighted the fact that selling a copy of an OS (or for that matter selling anything) doesn't mean that the customer is satisfied enough with what they paid for to keep using it (or in the case of consumables, buy that product again).
It's pretty obvious that people are even more likely to chop and change (or outright reject) something that's free than an item they've paid for, and the fact that there are often significant differences between Linux distros means that even those who are committed to it have probably either downloaded an entirely new version of their favourite distro on a regular basis, or experimented with several different ones before settling on one they like.
So while it is indeed possible for one copy of a single Linux distro to end up on several machines, it's also not only possible, but actually fairly common for a single user to download several distros and only end up using one of them, or download different versions of the same distro several times. The only thing that we can therefore say for certain is:
1 software copy != 1 user, irrespective of whether it's sold commercially or obtained for free (legally or otherwise).
"I don't think the USA is in any position to call Google evil for this"
People who live in the USA (or anywhere else) do however have a right to call Google or anyone else evil if they personally believe that it's behaved in an evil way.
"Get your own house in order first."
I'm not from the US (and have never been there), but this doesn't stop me from being aware of the fact that a significant proportion of the people living in the country object very strongly to what Bush and his pals have been up to, hence the fact that he's one of the least popular presidents they've ever had.
NB: it isn't just what people in the US term "the left" (i.e. only a little to the right of Attilla The Hun) who've had enough of Bush's administration. Conservatives favour small, efficient governments that keep their noses out of other peoples' business, so they're pretty pissed off with not only the Bush administration's runaway spending and proliferation of both government departments and intrusive laws, but pretty much the whole Republican party for their runaway "pork barrel politics".