It's getting there. For the desktop I love Windows, and on Servers. But mobile I will take Linux every time. Android is a really good OS. And soon our phones and computers will magically melt into one thing.
But really how many ways can you make a device recognize a url or phone number? Fucking dumb!
There has to be some way we can do something about patents?
Short of fire-bombing all patent offices and violently attacking all individuals that continue to support the whole damned heap of dung.
Like writing up a document explaining and proving how patents are screwing innovators and damaging the economy at exactly the time when governments should be promoting growth, and then send it to all politicians world-wide and get as many people as possible to tell them if they don't ditch the shit they won't get into power next time round.
I dunno if there's enough angry techies that such a move might have any impact at all (or even if someone has already tried it), but I really hate that companies can just continue to go around getting and exploiting patents like this. :(
This stuff won't be sorted out from the top down, it will change when they realise that their laws are being universally ignored. The way to combat it is to pirate what you want to pirate and buy what you want to buy - so that they slowly realise that piracy is not, in any way, analogous to theft and is a valid market expression - when piracy offers the best 'service' then it will be chosen and when it doesn't it won't.
Steam, though you hate it, is a perfect example. There are times when I would usually pirate something (when the original creators no longer have any part of the license and would receive no proportion of my payment, for example) but it's easier to use Steam.
But really I think this whole model of paying per reproduced item has to change now there is virtually no cost associated with that reproduction. But that's a way off yet.
But the big companies must learn that the more they alienate us and treat us with distrust, the less we will care about them and their financial wellbeing.
That's the consumer angle. The creative angle is obviously more difficult and far more important but I think the cultural shift of the former will inevitably lead to a re-evaluation of the latter. But obviously I think supporting companies who do it right - and talking publicly about those choices - will eventually help.
I think the desktop (includes laptops in this sense) is important as it's where the creation of everything else happens. I think the internet is unique in that every person who has the means to be a consumer of media also has the potential means to be a creator of that same media. If we lose that we lose a big part of what's special about the net.
I do in fact have flintlocks and muzzle loaders and rifles and shotguns and pistols. I could supply a few of us with arms. But I know a guy who could arm pretty much my whole town. It's like when we go in to the gun store in LFD2 except X100.