Well it was bound to happen:
Microsoft's Hand in Novell Deal Bodes Ill for Linux
Attachmate may be the primary purchasing party in the Novell acquisition deal announced today, but the involvement of Microsoft means there's a fresh new threat to Linux looming on the horizon.
Having just discovered this "openrespect" thing, I have to say I find the whole idea rather sinister. It seems to me that Jono Bacon is endorsing a sort of moderation, or more bluntly, censorship of criticism, in order to silence those who oppose pragmatic concessions that undermine our ideals.
Here's the problem: he can't magically make me, or anyone, have respect for him or his ideals. In particular, I have no respect for pragmatism, or the "Open Source" ideology, especially as it edges ever-closer to "Open Core", and panders to the principles of proprietary licensing. I have no respect for it, I have no respect for those who support it, and I have no desire to ever change that view.
My Freedom is more important than diplomacy.
"the reason I don't use Linux today is simply because it doesn't serve my needs" ~ Jono Bacon, Ubuntu Community Manager, and Linux Format columnist.
First of all, let me make it clear that this is only meant to be a joke.
No really, it's a joke.
Please, for the love of God, do not pervert GNU/Linux into Windows, by giving it the worst configuration storage system of all time.
Having said that, it does actually work (FSVO: "work").
The following takes the contents of "/etc" and "$HOME/{userid}/{dotfiles}", and creates a Windows-style "Registry" from them, comprising two Sqlite3 databases: SYSTEM.DAT.db and USER.DAT.db respectively.
Turn off (uncheck) "Block reported attack sites" and "Block reported web forgeries" in Firefox/Icecat security preferences. Unless you're an idiot, or running Windows, then you probably don't need this.
Then quit Firefox/Icecat, and:
cd "$HOME"
find . -name urlclassifier3.sqlite -exec rm -f {} ';' -exec touch {} ';'
su -c "find . -name urlclassifier3.sqlite -exec chattr +i {} ';'"
"chattr +i" means "change the file attributes to immutable", meaning "can't change or delete".
This will now ensure urlclassifier3.sqlite remains a zero byte file forever.