In the mid 90s there was a widespread belief among Linux people that GUIs were a bad thing. A better approach to computing was simple window management + graphical apps. The KDE movement and later Gnome changed that attitude.
That attitude was correct. KDE and GNOME have proven it many times over.
Up until about 2000 the majority of Linux users thought that WYSIWYG was a terrible way to handle document authoring and the primary document authoring systems should be WYSIWYM. Again a 180.
And again, the attitude you decry is clearly correct, and your example just shows yet again how the misbegotten attempts to bring linux to the masses have resulted in deterioration, not improvement.
Wow. Thank you for proving my point so well with your vitriolic, hate-spewing post.
Huh? There was no hate, not even vitriol in that post. At most he sounded annoyed. I understand his annoyance.
The stated goal - at least from a large portion of the linux community - is to see as many people using Linux as possible.
Uh, no. A 'stated goal' of a legion of loud-mouthed hangers-on, perhaps. I'd certainly like to see some competition in the commercial OS space to inhibit MS' ability to use dirty tricks, yes, because those affect me. I'm not willing to sacrifice a good free OS to get that affect however. If this is YOUR goal then I would humbly request you disassociate yourself from "linux" and start boosting ReactOS instead - they could use the help, and their project is actually aimed at producing what you want so your efforts would be helpful, not harmful.
I certainly wouldnt nasty-mod you (I do have mod points but not going to use them here and wouldnt do that even if I was) - you're post is clearly sincere and thoughtful. However, I do think you are wrong when you say this:
Now, I recognize that ATi hasn't been as "forthcoming" with driver source / documentation as some other companies. This is where the Linux folks can say it's "not my fault." The reality, though, is that it is a barrier to entry, and therefore it is their problem.
No, it really isnt. The missing postulate in your logic is that we have some sort of obligation to drive adoption - to make the system work for you (and him, and her, etc.) But we dont. You arent paying us, and we dont get royalties. If the system works for me then, until and unless you start paying me, the fact it doesnt work for you is perhaps sad, but ultimately not my concern. If you want the benefits you should be willing to assume the costs (either putting in the time and effort yourself to modify things to suit you, or paying someone else to do so.)
And this is where *I* become critical of "linux" in that insane broad sense in which it's commonly used, not for Linux at all, but rather for all the other stuff that OS providers typically use to build a system on linux. It's most strikingly visible actually in the current crop of X applications and "desktop environments" and most specifically in GNOME but it's at plague level so the damage is not limited. Over and over again good, workable, powerful designs are cast aside in favour of slavishly copying extremely poor designs, in order to push adoption by people that are NOT using the systems. So those of us who have been using this system for decades get to see the system grow less and less suitable for our needs each release, in a vain attempt to achieve popularity with the group that DOESNT use this system, doesnt give anything back to it, and most likely will never adopt it anyway.
I don't think that the issue is with the word regulated
And we're agreed on that.
I think that the issue is with with the fact that the wording basically means, "Because a ready militia is important, citizens may keep weapons." It opens up the reasonable line of argument that restrictions on weapons not used in militia service does not interfere with the reason for the right to bear arms.
Sure, that's a reasonable argument in form, though your paraphrase is significantly and critically off so far as the amendment itself goes. But keep in mind that even if granted it's an implication as to the reasoning and not actually part of the operative section of the Constitution. Courts can and have taken cognizance of it in exactly that sense, in fact - it cannot change the operative clause but it can inform interpretations as long as those interpretations steer clear of actually contradicting the operative clause of the amendment. This was, in fact, precisely the reasoning when the Supreme Court upheld the ban on short-barreled shotguns, holding that they were not suitable for military use and hence their prohibition did not infringe the right to bear arms.
But the consequences of that line of thought is diametrically opposed to the prevailing current of firearm legislation in the US - it means that, for instance, a law banning (or at least heavily "regulate") bolt action hunting rifles might stand a chance of passing constitutional muster but a similar law regarding fully automatic assault rifles is clearly unconstitutional.
It's similar to, "Because people sometimes experience pain, possession of morphine shall be legal." It's not unreasonable to suggest that possession of morphine for purposes other than pain relief may be restricted without interfering with the original objective of the rule.
It is very similar. And what you wrote very narrowly construed is true. This is in fact just what we do with freedom of speech for instance - there are narrowly defined cases where the state can regulate speech without infringing on freedom of speech, but only in very limited ways. The state can prevent you from holding a political rally at a particular time and place, for instance. In and of itself this does not infringe on your freedom of speech, assuming it passes a number of tests with a fairly high bar on them - they cant be acting partially, letting your opponent give his speeches but prohibiting yours, for instance. Show that the effect of their edict is to prevent your speech entirely, rather than simply to insist that you follow reasonable rules in regards to scheduling that everyone else is also held to, and you've made your case that they are infringing on your rights.
So with your morphine example, you might come up with some odd corner cases out of it, but they would also have to pass rather strict tests - you couldnt actually make morphine illegal (that would violate the operative clause full stop) and you couldnt do anything that would reasonably be expected to interfere with the ability of a citizen experiencing pain to get their morphine. And if better pain relievers became available the next day, that wouldnt invalidate the law - it would only give you a good argument in favour of changing it.
The book analogy in your link is hopelessly broken.
An unsupported assertion with zero argument presented for it. The books analogy in the link is *precisely isomorphic* to the second amendment.
A more accurate question would be, although we must allow books because education is necessary, are we allowed to restrict the use of books to educational purposes?
More accurate than what? I think you lost the thread for a moment there. But the question you ask is clearly and unambiguously answered - if that language was in one of our constitutional amendments then the answer would be no,
No, it really doesn't. If you read the words and decide, based on a reasonable interpretation (which the militia clause certainly gives you), that the Constitution explicitly allows the government some regulation over guns, it seems perfectly reasonable to say so, even if you believe that it doesn't explicitly allow regulation of some other things.
First no one said the Constitution prohibits all "regulation" of firearms. That's not true. It simply sets a very high bar for this, just as it sets a very high bar for "regulating" speech. (I keep putting quotes around "regulate" because the word has come to be used today in a way it was certainly not used in the 18th century - the word just meant "to make regular." A common procedure for a gunsmith in those days was to "regulate" a bore that had deteriorated, for instance, which just meant eliminating the irregularities in it. When the federal government was supposed to "regulate" interstate commerce this meant to eliminate irregularities such as one state charging protectionist tarrifs on the produce of another state. It's been twisted and expanded beyond all recognition to where today anytime congress sticks its nose into something it is said to be "regulating" it even when there is no other connection at all with the root meaning of the word, but I digress.)
Now that said, the militia clause absolutely does NOT in ANY way make it "reasonable" to interpret the amendment away. This is one of the most frustrating myths to deal with because it's so easily and thoroughly debunked by a simple grammatical analysis a normal 6th grader should have no trouble with, and keeps getting spread by people who clearly should know better - more evidence of that general hypocrisy I mentioned earlier. It really holds no water at all. A subordinate clause just doesnt function that way in English, and certainly didnt function that way in 18th century English. See here if you really dont understand what I'm talking about.
It has nothing to do with belief, if I managed to practice enough ignorance and double-think to actually *believe* their position it would still be false. And as I mentioned, I know for a fact that many of these guys are very sharp and well read and know how hypocritical the organisational position is.
Liking peanut butter or not isnt even vaguely comparable - you're talking about personal taste on the one hand, and fundamental civil rights on the other, as if they were somehow comparable. They are not. Liking peanut butter is a personal preference, there is no one right answer there.
Whether looked at philosophically or legally and historically the same cannot be true for the second amendment. Philosophically speaking, if you are to have any true rights at all, you MUST have the right to defend yourself from aggressors. Without that, any purported right is, at best, converted into a privilege instead. If you are forcibly prevented from acquiring, possessing, using the tools necessary to defend yourself in a meaningful way from aggressors, your "rights" are nothing more than ink on paper. You have been effectively converted from a citizen to a subject, from a free man in a free society to a subject in a prison camp.
And historically/legally speaking, again, it's clear and irrefutable that the second amendment was intended and understood in just that fashion, and furthermore even without touching on "original intent" the words themselves clearly and plainly say this. The arguments used to try and twist the second amendment into something else are very often the same arguments that ACLU lawyers (rightly) demolish over and over again in the context of the other amendments. So there just is no word that fits this other than hypocrisy. Their mission is to defend the bill of rights and civil liberties, across the board. When they start picking and choosing which of our rights are worthy of defence and which are not, that is simply and plainly hypocritical.
"We aren't having as much success as we'd like attempting to adapt to changing business conditions. Google is doing much better. This is unfair, so how about making them subsidise us?"
Same line of thought that produces the welfare state. If you're making money and I'm not it MUST be because you have an unfair advantage, and it's the governments job to even things up by stealing from you on my behalf. Given that virtually everything the governments does in this day and age are "justified" with that same logic, this isnt really even a controversial position.
No. They're hypocrites because they call themselves the American Civil Liberties Union but then turn around and work AGAINST the foundational civil liberty itself.
Dont get me wrong, for the most part, I like what they do. I've marched with them, helped with fund-raising, signature drives, etc. I had the pleasure of a few long discussions with the state director where I lived before, and he was a really good guy, as well as a really sharp lawyer. That combination is sadly very rare, and I was really glad to have him as an ally in the fight for reproductive freedom at the time. They do a lot of good work.
But they're still absolutely hypocrites because they dont just refuse to help in the very most critical class of civil liberties violation, they *actually* go so far as to take the totally insane position the GP quoted. It's not only a position fundmentally baneful to everything they do try to achieve, it's also one that's legally and historically indefensible (as several ACLU lawyers have admitted to me, in private) and so it really does reflect the essential hypocrisy of the leftist millieu so many ACLU supporters come from, and reflects I think a deeper line of hypocrisy in society in general, because it (hypocrisy in general that is) is certainly NOT limited to left or right but a commmon element across both.
Same here. After I woke up one day to find the game I paid them for taken back without permission, and I would only be allowed to play MY game if I jumped through their hoops and signed up with STEAM, Valve made my blacklist.
I just bought some games last week. There was one game that I would have bought, except I saw the fine-print about it requiring STEAM in time, so it went right back on the shelf.
Indeed, GNUStep is not dead but does appear rather moribund and has for years. And that's a damn shame. GNUStep offers a way to make a system that's usable and friendly to the GUI-oriented, without compromising the fundamental strengths of the underlying system too much. Apple has run with that and "linux developers" in general have... spent way too much time slavishly copying the single WORST system out there, Windows, instead.
There is this tendency among Linux evangelists to try to "fix" a neophyte's problems rather than listening to what he's saying. While Linux has made large inroads in the desktop arena, at its heart it is UNIX, not Windows. One of the larger issues of Linux adoption is that Windows users have a mental model of computers which is Windows-specific:
You're absolutely correct. But your prescription based on this correct analysis is disastrously wrong.
Making Linux conform to windows-specific conceptions means eliminating what makes linux worth using in the first place.
Does that mean a fairly large section of the "market" will not be converting to linux anytime soon? Sure it does. So what?
Better a system that works properly for its users, whatever slice of the "market" that is, than a system that doesnt work for anyone.
It's really almost a trick question, since the filesystem and the OS dont have to be tied.
You can run linux from a FAT partition! FAT partitions will need defragging, and linux doesnt have a defragger!
But yeah, normally you run it from a partition with a different sort of file system. A file system that as part of its design manages fragmentation. Sure, fragmentation still occurs, sure, in theory you could write a defragger. In practice there's just no need though.
You have a point. Clearly MS is within their rights in terms of the contracts.
However a wise businessman in their position would be willing to "work with" their "partners" under such circumstances. Sticking to their rights here will blow up in their face, and cost them in the long run.
Which is really a good thing, anyway, both for Iceland and the world, if it results in increased Free Software awareness, usage, and development.
Umm no. To continue your analogy, Dymocks (Apple) here is not just refusing to carry your book (well within their rights) they are using threats of barratry to prevent you from selling it through your own store as well.
Actually, it is a pc. In a small form factor with mostly crappy peripherals.
But that's really not important. What's important is the distinction between Apple's right to build it as they like, and the rights of third parties to do as they will with their property. You say "It's Apple's telephone" which is true to a point, but once I buy one (hypothetical, haven't and won't) that particular phone is now MINE not theirs, and just as they have the right to "jail" the phone and try to cripple its functionality in ways they imagine will give them some advantage when they build it, I have the right to modify it and enhance its functionality in ways that I consider advantageous, once I've paid for the thing.
So far we're both within our rights - they exercised their rights and I exercised mine.
However when we go that one step further, and they proceed to SUE me for exercising my rights, even to corrupt the law to make my exercise of my rights an offense while their exercise of their rights is not, THAT is when we develop a problem.
This is very much like when (several years back) I was told Linux wasnt ready because there was no antivirus or defrag available.
If all you know is Windows then you imagine these things are critical to the operation of a corporate network. They arent. They're patches plastered all over an inherently poor design to allow it to (sort of) function in that environment.
With a real OS the actual underlying goals these things serve are served without the need for the specific windows-centric functions to patch windows-specific problems.
Removing the core libraries is the ENTIRE POINT. Removing the icon does nothing - MSHTML is still sitting there waiting eagerly for the first chance to execute.
Users should blame you. You shouldnt have relied on MSIE to write your program.
You are misunderstanding the issue. I sincerely hope the relevant EU bodies are not misunderstanding it in this way, because I'm certain MS WILL misunderstand the issue in just the same way and without a lot of work on the enforcement side they'll make it go away by doing that.
The issue is not that you cannot install firefox. The issue is that you CANNOT uninstall IE. It's been deliberately entangled coreward to prevent that from being doable, even with third party tools.
Slashdot Mirror
That attitude was correct. KDE and GNOME have proven it many times over.
And again, the attitude you decry is clearly correct, and your example just shows yet again how the misbegotten attempts to bring linux to the masses have resulted in deterioration, not improvement.
Huh? There was no hate, not even vitriol in that post. At most he sounded annoyed. I understand his annoyance.
Uh, no. A 'stated goal' of a legion of loud-mouthed hangers-on, perhaps. I'd certainly like to see some competition in the commercial OS space to inhibit MS' ability to use dirty tricks, yes, because those affect me. I'm not willing to sacrifice a good free OS to get that affect however. If this is YOUR goal then I would humbly request you disassociate yourself from "linux" and start boosting ReactOS instead - they could use the help, and their project is actually aimed at producing what you want so your efforts would be helpful, not harmful.
I certainly wouldnt nasty-mod you (I do have mod points but not going to use them here and wouldnt do that even if I was) - you're post is clearly sincere and thoughtful. However, I do think you are wrong when you say this:
No, it really isnt. The missing postulate in your logic is that we have some sort of obligation to drive adoption - to make the system work for you (and him, and her, etc.) But we dont. You arent paying us, and we dont get royalties. If the system works for me then, until and unless you start paying me, the fact it doesnt work for you is perhaps sad, but ultimately not my concern. If you want the benefits you should be willing to assume the costs (either putting in the time and effort yourself to modify things to suit you, or paying someone else to do so.)
And this is where *I* become critical of "linux" in that insane broad sense in which it's commonly used, not for Linux at all, but rather for all the other stuff that OS providers typically use to build a system on linux. It's most strikingly visible actually in the current crop of X applications and "desktop environments" and most specifically in GNOME but it's at plague level so the damage is not limited. Over and over again good, workable, powerful designs are cast aside in favour of slavishly copying extremely poor designs, in order to push adoption by people that are NOT using the systems. So those of us who have been using this system for decades get to see the system grow less and less suitable for our needs each release, in a vain attempt to achieve popularity with the group that DOESNT use this system, doesnt give anything back to it, and most likely will never adopt it anyway.
Absolute relativism is not just a contradiction in terms, but also a contagious neuro-semantic disorder.
And we're agreed on that.
Sure, that's a reasonable argument in form, though your paraphrase is significantly and critically off so far as the amendment itself goes. But keep in mind that even if granted it's an implication as to the reasoning and not actually part of the operative section of the Constitution. Courts can and have taken cognizance of it in exactly that sense, in fact - it cannot change the operative clause but it can inform interpretations as long as those interpretations steer clear of actually contradicting the operative clause of the amendment. This was, in fact, precisely the reasoning when the Supreme Court upheld the ban on short-barreled shotguns, holding that they were not suitable for military use and hence their prohibition did not infringe the right to bear arms.
But the consequences of that line of thought is diametrically opposed to the prevailing current of firearm legislation in the US - it means that, for instance, a law banning (or at least heavily "regulate") bolt action hunting rifles might stand a chance of passing constitutional muster but a similar law regarding fully automatic assault rifles is clearly unconstitutional.
It is very similar. And what you wrote very narrowly construed is true. This is in fact just what we do with freedom of speech for instance - there are narrowly defined cases where the state can regulate speech without infringing on freedom of speech, but only in very limited ways. The state can prevent you from holding a political rally at a particular time and place, for instance. In and of itself this does not infringe on your freedom of speech, assuming it passes a number of tests with a fairly high bar on them - they cant be acting partially, letting your opponent give his speeches but prohibiting yours, for instance. Show that the effect of their edict is to prevent your speech entirely, rather than simply to insist that you follow reasonable rules in regards to scheduling that everyone else is also held to, and you've made your case that they are infringing on your rights.
So with your morphine example, you might come up with some odd corner cases out of it, but they would also have to pass rather strict tests - you couldnt actually make morphine illegal (that would violate the operative clause full stop) and you couldnt do anything that would reasonably be expected to interfere with the ability of a citizen experiencing pain to get their morphine. And if better pain relievers became available the next day, that wouldnt invalidate the law - it would only give you a good argument in favour of changing it.
An unsupported assertion with zero argument presented for it. The books analogy in the link is *precisely isomorphic* to the second amendment.
More accurate than what? I think you lost the thread for a moment there. But the question you ask is clearly and unambiguously answered - if that language was in one of our constitutional amendments then the answer would be no,
First no one said the Constitution prohibits all "regulation" of firearms. That's not true. It simply sets a very high bar for this, just as it sets a very high bar for "regulating" speech. (I keep putting quotes around "regulate" because the word has come to be used today in a way it was certainly not used in the 18th century - the word just meant "to make regular." A common procedure for a gunsmith in those days was to "regulate" a bore that had deteriorated, for instance, which just meant eliminating the irregularities in it. When the federal government was supposed to "regulate" interstate commerce this meant to eliminate irregularities such as one state charging protectionist tarrifs on the produce of another state. It's been twisted and expanded beyond all recognition to where today anytime congress sticks its nose into something it is said to be "regulating" it even when there is no other connection at all with the root meaning of the word, but I digress.)
Now that said, the militia clause absolutely does NOT in ANY way make it "reasonable" to interpret the amendment away. This is one of the most frustrating myths to deal with because it's so easily and thoroughly debunked by a simple grammatical analysis a normal 6th grader should have no trouble with, and keeps getting spread by people who clearly should know better - more evidence of that general hypocrisy I mentioned earlier. It really holds no water at all. A subordinate clause just doesnt function that way in English, and certainly didnt function that way in 18th century English. See here if you really dont understand what I'm talking about.
It has nothing to do with belief, if I managed to practice enough ignorance and double-think to actually *believe* their position it would still be false. And as I mentioned, I know for a fact that many of these guys are very sharp and well read and know how hypocritical the organisational position is.
Liking peanut butter or not isnt even vaguely comparable - you're talking about personal taste on the one hand, and fundamental civil rights on the other, as if they were somehow comparable. They are not. Liking peanut butter is a personal preference, there is no one right answer there.
Whether looked at philosophically or legally and historically the same cannot be true for the second amendment. Philosophically speaking, if you are to have any true rights at all, you MUST have the right to defend yourself from aggressors. Without that, any purported right is, at best, converted into a privilege instead. If you are forcibly prevented from acquiring, possessing, using the tools necessary to defend yourself in a meaningful way from aggressors, your "rights" are nothing more than ink on paper. You have been effectively converted from a citizen to a subject, from a free man in a free society to a subject in a prison camp.
And historically/legally speaking, again, it's clear and irrefutable that the second amendment was intended and understood in just that fashion, and furthermore even without touching on "original intent" the words themselves clearly and plainly say this. The arguments used to try and twist the second amendment into something else are very often the same arguments that ACLU lawyers (rightly) demolish over and over again in the context of the other amendments. So there just is no word that fits this other than hypocrisy. Their mission is to defend the bill of rights and civil liberties, across the board. When they start picking and choosing which of our rights are worthy of defence and which are not, that is simply and plainly hypocritical.
I parse it in a similar manner.
"We aren't having as much success as we'd like attempting to adapt to changing business conditions. Google is doing much better. This is unfair, so how about making them subsidise us?"
Same line of thought that produces the welfare state. If you're making money and I'm not it MUST be because you have an unfair advantage, and it's the governments job to even things up by stealing from you on my behalf. Given that virtually everything the governments does in this day and age are "justified" with that same logic, this isnt really even a controversial position.
Although it certainly should be...
No. They're hypocrites because they call themselves the American Civil Liberties Union but then turn around and work AGAINST the foundational civil liberty itself.
Dont get me wrong, for the most part, I like what they do. I've marched with them, helped with fund-raising, signature drives, etc. I had the pleasure of a few long discussions with the state director where I lived before, and he was a really good guy, as well as a really sharp lawyer. That combination is sadly very rare, and I was really glad to have him as an ally in the fight for reproductive freedom at the time. They do a lot of good work.
But they're still absolutely hypocrites because they dont just refuse to help in the very most critical class of civil liberties violation, they *actually* go so far as to take the totally insane position the GP quoted. It's not only a position fundmentally baneful to everything they do try to achieve, it's also one that's legally and historically indefensible (as several ACLU lawyers have admitted to me, in private) and so it really does reflect the essential hypocrisy of the leftist millieu so many ACLU supporters come from, and reflects I think a deeper line of hypocrisy in society in general, because it (hypocrisy in general that is) is certainly NOT limited to left or right but a commmon element across both.
Same here. After I woke up one day to find the game I paid them for taken back without permission, and I would only be allowed to play MY game if I jumped through their hoops and signed up with STEAM, Valve made my blacklist. I just bought some games last week. There was one game that I would have bought, except I saw the fine-print about it requiring STEAM in time, so it went right back on the shelf.
Your link shows increased market share.
I dont give a flying fig about market share. I care about having a powerful sane system to operate my computer.
Indeed, GNUStep is not dead but does appear rather moribund and has for years. And that's a damn shame. GNUStep offers a way to make a system that's usable and friendly to the GUI-oriented, without compromising the fundamental strengths of the underlying system too much. Apple has run with that and "linux developers" in general have... spent way too much time slavishly copying the single WORST system out there, Windows, instead.
You're absolutely correct. But your prescription based on this correct analysis is disastrously wrong.
Making Linux conform to windows-specific conceptions means eliminating what makes linux worth using in the first place.
Does that mean a fairly large section of the "market" will not be converting to linux anytime soon? Sure it does. So what?
Better a system that works properly for its users, whatever slice of the "market" that is, than a system that doesnt work for anyone.
Funny, ls has worked on my DOS/Windows boxes for over 20 years.
Install 4DOS.
==>alias *ls dir
Insightful my arse.
This sort of crap is exactly what's killing linux.
Build a system even a fool can use and only a fool will want to.
It's really almost a trick question, since the filesystem and the OS dont have to be tied.
You can run linux from a FAT partition! FAT partitions will need defragging, and linux doesnt have a defragger!
But yeah, normally you run it from a partition with a different sort of file system. A file system that as part of its design manages fragmentation. Sure, fragmentation still occurs, sure, in theory you could write a defragger. In practice there's just no need though.
You have a point. Clearly MS is within their rights in terms of the contracts.
However a wise businessman in their position would be willing to "work with" their "partners" under such circumstances. Sticking to their rights here will blow up in their face, and cost them in the long run.
Which is really a good thing, anyway, both for Iceland and the world, if it results in increased Free Software awareness, usage, and development.
Umm no. To continue your analogy, Dymocks (Apple) here is not just refusing to carry your book (well within their rights) they are using threats of barratry to prevent you from selling it through your own store as well.
Actually, it is a pc. In a small form factor with mostly crappy peripherals.
But that's really not important. What's important is the distinction between Apple's right to build it as they like, and the rights of third parties to do as they will with their property. You say "It's Apple's telephone" which is true to a point, but once I buy one (hypothetical, haven't and won't) that particular phone is now MINE not theirs, and just as they have the right to "jail" the phone and try to cripple its functionality in ways they imagine will give them some advantage when they build it, I have the right to modify it and enhance its functionality in ways that I consider advantageous, once I've paid for the thing.
So far we're both within our rights - they exercised their rights and I exercised mine.
However when we go that one step further, and they proceed to SUE me for exercising my rights, even to corrupt the law to make my exercise of my rights an offense while their exercise of their rights is not, THAT is when we develop a problem.
This is very much like when (several years back) I was told Linux wasnt ready because there was no antivirus or defrag available.
If all you know is Windows then you imagine these things are critical to the operation of a corporate network. They arent. They're patches plastered all over an inherently poor design to allow it to (sort of) function in that environment.
With a real OS the actual underlying goals these things serve are served without the need for the specific windows-centric functions to patch windows-specific problems.
Q. What's an honest politician?
A. One who stays bought.
Someone who's noticed that most games these days suck perhaps?
Removing the core libraries is the ENTIRE POINT. Removing the icon does nothing - MSHTML is still sitting there waiting eagerly for the first chance to execute.
Users should blame you. You shouldnt have relied on MSIE to write your program.
You are misunderstanding the issue. I sincerely hope the relevant EU bodies are not misunderstanding it in this way, because I'm certain MS WILL misunderstand the issue in just the same way and without a lot of work on the enforcement side they'll make it go away by doing that.
The issue is not that you cannot install firefox. The issue is that you CANNOT uninstall IE. It's been deliberately entangled coreward to prevent that from being doable, even with third party tools.
Just install noscript. Doh.