and have the multinational population living on the surface of your head come to some agreement about who's going to finance, maintain, and operate the thing...
Oh sure! I can tell you the answer now!
American taxpayers will foot the bill, make it reality, and will maintain the thing, and then the rest of the world (meaning: France and a few other countries) will act surprised when the US actually wants to maintain control of it.
Since Napster(the original) was killed off, I have bought only TWO CDs. Also, I have since been avoiding listening to top 40 stations and stations which play new rock, to avoid exposure and avoid the temptation to download or buy it.
I buy a lot of DVDs, but if the MPAA gets their way and HDCP does become reality, and the content is protected, I'll stop buying; I'll instead turn to unencumbered downloads. Hell, just this week I had to download Terminator 2 because the Extreme DVD I just bought (to replace my original T2 DVD which I gave away) is DRM encumbered AND allows only five days of view time (for the high definition content) and the limitations were not listed on the packaging ANYWHERE. Bastards. Oh well, at least it was only $5.50 and not $20 like the original release.
9) It doesn't hurt anybody -- in fact it's free advertising.
Absolutely true. Proven by every study except the one you RIAA people funded (yes, we all know you're a paid shill. We're not stupid. At least, not all of us are.)
I bought more CDs during the time that Napster was at its peak than I did all during the 13 previous years I owned a CD player. Why? Because Napster gave me a free try-before-you-buy option, and it also allowed me to randomly explore music, download it, listen, and say "hey I actually LIKE this" (e.g., stuff like Herb Alpert, which would never, ever get air time on a progressive rock, classic rock, rock, or classical station).
To be fair, there is other stuff I didn't buy because I could try before buying (e.g,, eminem) because although many hacks have one great track, the rest of the album is worthless. IMHO, that may be exactly why the RIAA is so scared. Thanks to P2P I found right away what a talentless hack eminem is and didn't buy his album based on a single track that got airplay (good ol' payola at work).
Also: Thanks to P2P, the best thing I ever found on P2P networks was Treeful of Secrets - a collection of Pink Floyd outtakes, live tracks, demo tracks, etc. - stuff that isn't quite studio quality but still very listenable.
Actually the GPL is very capitalistic In fact, it's a reaction to monopolistic and anti-competitive tactics. It forces the market to adjust to what the market will bear, and free the market from the lack of competition. People still choose to run Windows even though Linux, BSD, Slowlaris (no flame there, it's just a joke about Solaris of old), and many other fine operating systems are readily available. Likewise, in the Mac world, people still choose to run OS/X despite the availability of various Linux distributions.
Okay, here is the definition Bill Gates will definitely NOT agree with. . .
Piracy: Selling, distributing, or claiming another's software program is yours, particularly in a presentation to IBM. Tell the owner of the code that you would like to buy it for a small project (e.g., LIE). $$$PROFIT$$$
Copyright infringement: taking someone else's software and redistributing COPIES of it without permission.
Which is worse? Which is legal? In which case does a party actually lose out? Which did Bill Gates do?
What about families with young children, who might be renting every disney. dreamworks, and Art Cloaky animation under the sun? It's not unrealistic for young kids to want to play 4-6 DVDs per day
Copyright infringement is not the only explanation for high-volume video rental customers.
(And although that may sounds extreme, TVs and monitors NEVER actually measure their advertised value for that exact reason, often falling up to a full inch smaller).
Actually, that holds true for CRT monitors, but not LCD or plasma. In general, the advertised dimension of an LCD or Plasma screen is the actual visible portion of the screen. At least, it has for the monitors I've sold. As far as televisions are concerned, I don't know whether or not manufacturers include the frame for the LCD or Plasma panel in their dimensions, but I doubt they do. If I owned a thin-panel TV (other than a portable 1.7" LCD TV that is actually 1.7") I'd check, but I don't. Can someone out there with a thin-panel TV verify please? I'm genuinely interested as I'm going to be buying very soon and am going to be ordering from one of my distributors rather than buying from a brick-and-mortar store.:)
I'm a conservative and I disagree with you. If Netflix does not mean unlimited, they should not express or imply an unlimited service.
This also goes for ISPs, car rentals offering "unlimited mileage," and so forth. Unlimited by definition means without limit. By placing ANY limit, be it official, unofficial, real, or artificial, you have made the service unlimited and are fraudulent in your advertising.
being assessed 10 times the value on property: We bought a 50-year-old tower for $30K. Discovered it was assessed at $300K. Appealed and got it lowered to $90K - not worth fighting in court. Next year, they raised it to $500K by counting all the old horn antennas and pretending they're each making tens of thousands of dollars of revenue (they're all dead and have no waveguide to connect anything). Disupted and rejected - told "we need the tax money" - now we're suing them and costing them thousands in legal fees too.
Sue them for:
- conspiracy
- fraud
- abuse of power
- racketeering
And hit them up for HUGE punitive damages to double their budget requirements, which will prompt layoffs and turnover of elected and appointed officials because the rest of the citizens in town won't stand for tax increases and cuts in services over this.
That may be true except when the town officials think that your property that just happens to be next to Wal*Mart is a better use for the town if it could add more parking spaces so that you can have a WallyWorld StinkyCenter in town rather than a regular Wallyworld - then your property value could increase by 2x-3x and you have no way to fight it - and when they take it via eminent domain, they will reassess the value to below actual market value.
Both (informative AND funny) work, because it is obviously in reference to our government, but unfortunately we keep voting the same cretins into state legislatures and into Congress. Our government IS pretty much clueless when it comes to the real world - or they simply just don't give a shit because they're not reliant on social security and have nice fat pensions for life after serving even just ONE term.
Don't assume "troll" when "funny" works.
The sad thing is, many property owners are victim of over-valuation when it comes to property taxes. My business partner's home was just valued at a half million, but there is NO way it would have fetched even $375,000 during the real estate bubble because the lot is undesirable and small. He fought it and won, however so many people over-value their property in their own minds that they don't consider reality and don't catch those errors - and when there is a pattern of reevaluations rising significantly on small lots (even a very nice house on a tiny lot doesn't help resale value all that much) it's obviously intentional and not by accident, because the folks whose paychecks depend on tax revenue keep pushing to increase spending and try to sneak in unnnoticeable tax increases, and rely on people's egos saying "Oh wow, my home is worth a lot. This rocks, this means I have power!" resulting in their not doing a damn thing to hold a crooked system in check.
Pioneer Electronics, who entered the market almost at exactly the time DiscoVision titles were going on sale in 1978, began manufacturing players and printing discs under the name laser videodisc. By 1981, Laserdisc (first with intercaps as LaserDisc, then without) had become the common name for the format, and the Discovision label disappeared, simply becoming MCA or (later) MCA-Universal Laserdisc.
See, consumer media technology has NOT come very far at all over the last 28 years, and I blame it to content producers' constant fear that "OMG the sky is falling!" every time a new consumer-friendly recordable format comes out, when in reality each recordable media introduced to date has prompted phenomenal and unprecedented growth for content producers.
Ah yes, but I've been informed yesterday that one cannot scientifically regard anything as fact. Therefore, the apollo moon landing is simply a theory regarding a historical event which just happens to have very good evidence, and while one can mathematically and visually infer that the Apollo lunar landing missions did indeed take place, to regard it as fact would be an error.;)
I'm sure that a variant of PeerGuard will be developed, and Michael Hampton's PHP Bad Behavior script can be tweaked to incorporate the new Peer Guard and send the gubbament a good ol' 403 Forbidden response header. Heck, if such a beast does come about I'll implement it on every PHP site I work on, just because the government should not be wasting taxpayer money on this bullshit. Eventually the government WILL use the technology to infringe on constitutional rights (look at Bush's bypassing courts for wiretaps even though it is designed to be EASY to get such emergency warrants via secret courts), and to make the technology useless from the get-go is the best way to head that off. I'd love to see big news media sites turn away those spiders and report on the crap, then perhaps government will get their noses out of private lives and practice, you know, actual forensic science and start profiling like they should.
Afterall, viruses are nothing but exploits which take advantage of the windows bugs.
Some viruses take advantage of Windows defects. However more often than not, viruses take advantage of security which while very good in theory and design, is actually quite poor in implementation and deployment because so many applications call Windows components through deprecated API calls, write documents and settings back to the program directory rather than the %userprofile%\My Documents directory, or the recommended shared documents directory, and other programs write preferences and other settings haphazardly all over the registry rather than in HKLU. It is so bad that some applications REQUIRE Administrative rights (notably Intuit programs, especially Quickbooks which still demands Administrative rights and quits, even if you give the user access to every place the stupid program "needs" write access to).
However, even if security is properly implemented in Windows, there is a huge gaping hole which can cause a virus to spread, across an entire network in some cases (especially where Terminal Services is used widely). This hole is the shared documents folder. If a Windows box is properly locked down, viruses are pretty much confined to %userprofile% with the exception of the All Users\* folder, which everyone has (local) access to. All a virus needs to do to propogate is insert itself into that directory, wait for an Administrator/Domain Admin to log in, and then the virus has free reign across the network. Likewise, to spread to other users %userprofile%\* directories and trash documents, the other users only need to log in and execute that virus. It's a nasty hole and I'm surprised no one has mentioned it before, because even properly hardened Windows boxes will exhibit this problem.:(
However this is still not a "windows bug" as it is "working as designed" -- you can't blame Microsoft for scumbags' coding malicious programs, no matter how much you might hate Microsoft and/or Windows. Blame the fucker who codes viruses.
Since there are many compeeting paid and free AV and Spyware programs there is in fact compitition.
This will be interesting to see. I'm not saying they're going to do this but definitely watch for:
* Strategic placement of "buy Microsoft AntiVirus" dialog boxes, balloons, "tips of the day" and of course icons on the desktop
* use of undocumented API calls resulting in lower CPU utilization and/or smaller footprint than competitors' products
* (related to above) bundling of encrypted libraries which preload at runtime whether or not you have the software installed, but which give the appearance of faster boot times when Microsoft AntiVirus is used vs. a competitor's product
* security patches which break compatibility with competitors' offerings (DR DOS/Caldera DOS all over again - remember when Caldera was the good guy?)
If they do any of the above, you can bet that the EU will be all over them for antitrust issues. Dubya's administration? Probably not so much.
If Microsoft does NOT do any of the above and they decide to play fair on all counts, I'll be very impressed. I won't switch back to Windows, but I just might dislike them a very tiny bit less. I won't switch back to Windows until they drop HDMI and they actually bother to implement a DE-activate feature in every one of their products to allow EASY transfer of licenses.
Not to mention the code's being extremely disorganized. I looked into some of the I/O performance issues and the code is so darn convoluted I didn't spend more than a couple of hours investigating. Also it's worth mentioning that the issues I encountered have been reported scores of times, and the developers mark them down with the reason being that "addressing performance issues is not as interesting as adding new features"
Uh, last time I checked, it's easier to extend a clean, well-architected application. What they're doing is like trying to build an oil tanker out of duck tape.
I really like the OOo suite from a user perspective, performance issues aside, however it is not a project I'd want to be associated with.
Uh, the code in Photoshop CS2 isn't there just to take up space, and contrary to what you may think there are no loops like:
while (count 15 seconds) {
waste time crunching randomized numbers here, pinning the CPU and thrashing the hard disk for no good purpose other than to annoy you }
Every bit of code is there to provide features for graphic designers. I gave my art director three options, all licensed and installed on his PC:
- Adobe CS2
- The Gimp
- Paint Shop Pro (since uninstalled and given to my brother for the occasional work he does for us)
He has run The Gimp exactly once just to check it out. He found the GUI counterintuitive (especially when multitasking - when bringing the document forward, the palettes stay below everything else. That pisses ME off every single time I use The Gimp as well). He hates The Gimp. The only reason I use The Gimp instead of Photoshop is that Photoshop for Linux is not (yet) available.
He has used Paint Shop Pro a couple of timezs just for a couple of filters it had that Photoshop didn't, but he has since implemented his own filters.
Sit a professional graphic designer in front of The Gimp and he'll ask if you're joking. I would have to agree, even though graphic design is not my primary focus. Effects which come free in CS2 in the form of layer effects take roughly 30 clicks and 8 to 10 passes of various filters in The Gimp to achieve similar results, and if you're not happy with the results in CS2, it's the tweaking of a setting or two to remove, modify, or reapply an effect, whereas it's having to repeat the same many steps in The Gimp, and you're not likely to ever get the same effect exactly the same multiple times because there are so many steps involved. When I have to design something for a client that isn't just image editing but requires design, I usually go to my designer's workstation and use Adobe CS2. I may be pro-Linux and Pro-OSS, but I definitely see and appreciate the value in commercial products. If Adobe CS2 is ever released for Linux, I'll definitely be one of the first to buy it. Well, I take that back - I'll wait for the first patch to be released.
There is definitely value in Adobe CS2, and the "bloat" as you put it does not go to waste. If you think it's waste, you should be choosing a lighter tool because you obviously don't need the functionality it provides, but I assure you it is not bloat. Photoshop is not and was never intended to be a lightweight tool. If lightweight is what you need, check out Paint Shop Pro, The Gimp, or maybe even Photoshop Elements.
They absolutely CAN sell it; they just have to provide the source with it and leave the licenses and copyrights intact.
There is good reason to choose a commercial (pay/free) StarOffice over a GPL (free/free) OpenOffice.org suite - if you're in a corporate office environment you'll likely want the pretty Impress and other document templates, the clipart galleries, animations, as well as the support your secretary will need. There is every bit as much value "buying" a GPL product as there is buying a vendor-lock mechanism such as Microsoft Office; support and value-added items.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh sure! I can tell you the answer now!
American taxpayers will foot the bill, make it reality, and will maintain the thing, and then the rest of the world (meaning: France and a few other countries) will act surprised when the US actually wants to maintain control of it.
That's not true! All you need is an unbreakable diamond tether!
*cackle* You owe me a monitor for that one! I was drinking water when I came across your post!
:-)
Damn it!
Oops, and I forgot to mention:
Since Napster(the original) was killed off, I have bought only TWO CDs. Also, I have since been avoiding listening to top 40 stations and stations which play new rock, to avoid exposure and avoid the temptation to download or buy it.
I buy a lot of DVDs, but if the MPAA gets their way and HDCP does become reality, and the content is protected, I'll stop buying; I'll instead turn to unencumbered downloads. Hell, just this week I had to download Terminator 2 because the Extreme DVD I just bought (to replace my original T2 DVD which I gave away) is DRM encumbered AND allows only five days of view time (for the high definition content) and the limitations were not listed on the packaging ANYWHERE. Bastards. Oh well, at least it was only $5.50 and not $20 like the original release.
I bought more CDs during the time that Napster was at its peak than I did all during the 13 previous years I owned a CD player. Why? Because Napster gave me a free try-before-you-buy option, and it also allowed me to randomly explore music, download it, listen, and say "hey I actually LIKE this" (e.g., stuff like Herb Alpert, which would never, ever get air time on a progressive rock, classic rock, rock, or classical station).
To be fair, there is other stuff I didn't buy because I could try before buying (e.g,, eminem) because although many hacks have one great track, the rest of the album is worthless. IMHO, that may be exactly why the RIAA is so scared. Thanks to P2P I found right away what a talentless hack eminem is and didn't buy his album based on a single track that got airplay (good ol' payola at work).
Also: Thanks to P2P, the best thing I ever found on P2P networks was Treeful of Secrets - a collection of Pink Floyd outtakes, live tracks, demo tracks, etc. - stuff that isn't quite studio quality but still very listenable.
Actually the GPL is very capitalistic In fact, it's a reaction to monopolistic and anti-competitive tactics. It forces the market to adjust to what the market will bear, and free the market from the lack of competition. People still choose to run Windows even though Linux, BSD, Slowlaris (no flame there, it's just a joke about Solaris of old), and many other fine operating systems are readily available. Likewise, in the Mac world, people still choose to run OS/X despite the availability of various Linux distributions.
Okay, here is the definition Bill Gates will definitely NOT agree with. . .
Piracy: Selling, distributing, or claiming another's software program is yours, particularly in a presentation to IBM. Tell the owner of the code that you would like to buy it for a small project (e.g., LIE). $$$PROFIT$$$
Copyright infringement: taking someone else's software and redistributing COPIES of it without permission.
Which is worse?
Which is legal?
In which case does a party actually lose out?
Which did Bill Gates do?
"too much Futurama" - there is no such thing. Now, stop posting nonsense! :D
What about families with young children, who might be renting every disney. dreamworks, and Art Cloaky animation under the sun? It's not unrealistic for young kids to want to play 4-6 DVDs per day
Copyright infringement is not the only explanation for high-volume video rental customers.
Actually, that holds true for CRT monitors, but not LCD or plasma. In general, the advertised dimension of an LCD or Plasma screen is the actual visible portion of the screen. At least, it has for the monitors I've sold. As far as televisions are concerned, I don't know whether or not manufacturers include the frame for the LCD or Plasma panel in their dimensions, but I doubt they do. If I owned a thin-panel TV (other than a portable 1.7" LCD TV that is actually 1.7") I'd check, but I don't. Can someone out there with a thin-panel TV verify please? I'm genuinely interested as I'm going to be buying very soon and am going to be ordering from one of my distributors rather than buying from a brick-and-mortar store.
I'm a conservative and I disagree with you. If Netflix does not mean unlimited, they should not express or imply an unlimited service.
This also goes for ISPs, car rentals offering "unlimited mileage," and so forth. Unlimited by definition means without limit. By placing ANY limit, be it official, unofficial, real, or artificial, you have made the service unlimited and are fraudulent in your advertising.
No photo of the teddy bear in question though. :( Why do articles like this invariably omit photos?
Sue them for:
- conspiracy
- fraud
- abuse of power
- racketeering
And hit them up for HUGE punitive damages to double their budget requirements, which will prompt layoffs and turnover of elected and appointed officials because the rest of the citizens in town won't stand for tax increases and cuts in services over this.
That may be true except when the town officials think that your property that just happens to be next to Wal*Mart is a better use for the town if it could add more parking spaces so that you can have a WallyWorld StinkyCenter in town rather than a regular Wallyworld - then your property value could increase by 2x-3x and you have no way to fight it - and when they take it via eminent domain, they will reassess the value to below actual market value.
Both (informative AND funny) work, because it is obviously in reference to our government, but unfortunately we keep voting the same cretins into state legislatures and into Congress. Our government IS pretty much clueless when it comes to the real world - or they simply just don't give a shit because they're not reliant on social security and have nice fat pensions for life after serving even just ONE term.
Don't assume "troll" when "funny" works.
The sad thing is, many property owners are victim of over-valuation when it comes to property taxes. My business partner's home was just valued at a half million, but there is NO way it would have fetched even $375,000 during the real estate bubble because the lot is undesirable and small. He fought it and won, however so many people over-value their property in their own minds that they don't consider reality and don't catch those errors - and when there is a pattern of reevaluations rising significantly on small lots (even a very nice house on a tiny lot doesn't help resale value all that much) it's obviously intentional and not by accident, because the folks whose paychecks depend on tax revenue keep pushing to increase spending and try to sneak in unnnoticeable tax increases, and rely on people's egos saying "Oh wow, my home is worth a lot. This rocks, this means I have power!" resulting in their not doing a damn thing to hold a crooked system in check.
HP? Because Itanium was the new trendy buzzword.
DEC? Hmm, because the Alpha never really caught on, but the 32-bit x86 would have been a leap backward for them?
Laserdisc was 1970s technology. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laserdisc
See, consumer media technology has NOT come very far at all over the last 28 years, and I blame it to content producers' constant fear that "OMG the sky is falling!" every time a new consumer-friendly recordable format comes out, when in reality each recordable media introduced to date has prompted phenomenal and unprecedented growth for content producers.
Ah yes, but I've been informed yesterday that one cannot scientifically regard anything as fact. Therefore, the apollo moon landing is simply a theory regarding a historical event which just happens to have very good evidence, and while one can mathematically and visually infer that the Apollo lunar landing missions did indeed take place, to regard it as fact would be an error. ;)
There is valid reason for this: Many viruses (and spy/ad/scumware) which are just a step ahead of Symantec, McAfee, etc. turn off virus detection.
So what?
I'm sure that a variant of PeerGuard will be developed, and Michael Hampton's PHP Bad Behavior script can be tweaked to incorporate the new Peer Guard and send the gubbament a good ol' 403 Forbidden response header. Heck, if such a beast does come about I'll implement it on every PHP site I work on, just because the government should not be wasting taxpayer money on this bullshit. Eventually the government WILL use the technology to infringe on constitutional rights (look at Bush's bypassing courts for wiretaps even though it is designed to be EASY to get such emergency warrants via secret courts), and to make the technology useless from the get-go is the best way to head that off. I'd love to see big news media sites turn away those spiders and report on the crap, then perhaps government will get their noses out of private lives and practice, you know, actual forensic science and start profiling like they should.
Some viruses take advantage of Windows defects. However more often than not, viruses take advantage of security which while very good in theory and design, is actually quite poor in implementation and deployment because so many applications call Windows components through deprecated API calls, write documents and settings back to the program directory rather than the %userprofile%\My Documents directory, or the recommended shared documents directory, and other programs write preferences and other settings haphazardly all over the registry rather than in HKLU. It is so bad that some applications REQUIRE Administrative rights (notably Intuit programs, especially Quickbooks which still demands Administrative rights and quits, even if you give the user access to every place the stupid program "needs" write access to).
However, even if security is properly implemented in Windows, there is a huge gaping hole which can cause a virus to spread, across an entire network in some cases (especially where Terminal Services is used widely). This hole is the shared documents folder. If a Windows box is properly locked down, viruses are pretty much confined to %userprofile% with the exception of the All Users\* folder, which everyone has (local) access to. All a virus needs to do to propogate is insert itself into that directory, wait for an Administrator/Domain Admin to log in, and then the virus has free reign across the network. Likewise, to spread to other users %userprofile%\* directories and trash documents, the other users only need to log in and execute that virus. It's a nasty hole and I'm surprised no one has mentioned it before, because even properly hardened Windows boxes will exhibit this problem.
However this is still not a "windows bug" as it is "working as designed" -- you can't blame Microsoft for scumbags' coding malicious programs, no matter how much you might hate Microsoft and/or Windows. Blame the fucker who codes viruses.
This will be interesting to see. I'm not saying they're going to do this but definitely watch for:
* Strategic placement of "buy Microsoft AntiVirus" dialog boxes, balloons, "tips of the day" and of course icons on the desktop
* use of undocumented API calls resulting in lower CPU utilization and/or smaller footprint than competitors' products
* (related to above) bundling of encrypted libraries which preload at runtime whether or not you have the software installed, but which give the appearance of faster boot times when Microsoft AntiVirus is used vs. a competitor's product
* security patches which break compatibility with competitors' offerings (DR DOS/Caldera DOS all over again - remember when Caldera was the good guy?)
If they do any of the above, you can bet that the EU will be all over them for antitrust issues. Dubya's administration? Probably not so much.
If Microsoft does NOT do any of the above and they decide to play fair on all counts, I'll be very impressed. I won't switch back to Windows, but I just might dislike them a very tiny bit less. I won't switch back to Windows until they drop HDMI and they actually bother to implement a DE-activate feature in every one of their products to allow EASY transfer of licenses.
Not to mention the code's being extremely disorganized. I looked into some of the I/O performance issues and the code is so darn convoluted I didn't spend more than a couple of hours investigating. Also it's worth mentioning that the issues I encountered have been reported scores of times, and the developers mark them down with the reason being that "addressing performance issues is not as interesting as adding new features"
Uh, last time I checked, it's easier to extend a clean, well-architected application. What they're doing is like trying to build an oil tanker out of duck tape.
I really like the OOo suite from a user perspective, performance issues aside, however it is not a project I'd want to be associated with.
Uh, the code in Photoshop CS2 isn't there just to take up space, and contrary to what you may think there are no loops like:
while (count 15 seconds)
{
waste time crunching randomized numbers here, pinning the CPU and thrashing the hard disk for no good purpose other than to annoy you
}
Every bit of code is there to provide features for graphic designers. I gave my art director three options, all licensed and installed on his PC:
- Adobe CS2
- The Gimp
- Paint Shop Pro (since uninstalled and given to my brother for the occasional work he does for us)
He has run The Gimp exactly once just to check it out. He found the GUI counterintuitive (especially when multitasking - when bringing the document forward, the palettes stay below everything else. That pisses ME off every single time I use The Gimp as well). He hates The Gimp. The only reason I use The Gimp instead of Photoshop is that Photoshop for Linux is not (yet) available.
He has used Paint Shop Pro a couple of timezs just for a couple of filters it had that Photoshop didn't, but he has since implemented his own filters.
Sit a professional graphic designer in front of The Gimp and he'll ask if you're joking. I would have to agree, even though graphic design is not my primary focus. Effects which come free in CS2 in the form of layer effects take roughly 30 clicks and 8 to 10 passes of various filters in The Gimp to achieve similar results, and if you're not happy with the results in CS2, it's the tweaking of a setting or two to remove, modify, or reapply an effect, whereas it's having to repeat the same many steps in The Gimp, and you're not likely to ever get the same effect exactly the same multiple times because there are so many steps involved. When I have to design something for a client that isn't just image editing but requires design, I usually go to my designer's workstation and use Adobe CS2. I may be pro-Linux and Pro-OSS, but I definitely see and appreciate the value in commercial products. If Adobe CS2 is ever released for Linux, I'll definitely be one of the first to buy it. Well, I take that back - I'll wait for the first patch to be released.
There is definitely value in Adobe CS2, and the "bloat" as you put it does not go to waste. If you think it's waste, you should be choosing a lighter tool because you obviously don't need the functionality it provides, but I assure you it is not bloat. Photoshop is not and was never intended to be a lightweight tool. If lightweight is what you need, check out Paint Shop Pro, The Gimp, or maybe even Photoshop Elements.
They absolutely CAN sell it; they just have to provide the source with it and leave the licenses and copyrights intact.
There is good reason to choose a commercial (pay/free) StarOffice over a GPL (free/free) OpenOffice.org suite - if you're in a corporate office environment you'll likely want the pretty Impress and other document templates, the clipart galleries, animations, as well as the support your secretary will need. There is every bit as much value "buying" a GPL product as there is buying a vendor-lock mechanism such as Microsoft Office; support and value-added items.