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Dear Andrew Orlowski,

Spot the difference...

Copyright Infringement: Taking other people's ideas without permission or attribution, then reusing them for your own purposes

Copyright: Taking other people's ideas without permission or attribution, reusing them for your own purposes, then falsely claiming to be the sole creator of the result

First, here’s what he didn’t say:

Linux development is another story altogether. Even though Valve is now actively pursuing the Linux market, id has been there before, and just has not seen positive results. Remember how many past titles from id actually ran on Linux, and for how long these were supported? John says that Linux development simply does not pay the bills. It creates goodwill among the Linux crowd, but that is about it.

I watched Carmack’s keynote ... all three hours and thirty-six minutes of it. Twice. And took notes.

The first thing that needs to be said about the above quote is it’s actually by Josh Walrath, Managing Editor of PC Perspective, not Carmack. The only thing Carmack said about Linux was this:

Not nearly as many people are interested in paying for games on the platform.

That’s it. No mention of "goodwill", a lack of "positive results" or "paying the bills". The only mention of "past titles" was his reference to the fact that Linux "just hasn't carried its weight compared to the mac"... on Quake Live, which was actually an abysmal failure for reasons entirely unrelated to Linux. In other words Linux accounts for comparatively fewer sales of id's games. Fewer, not "none", not a total lack of "positive results", not Linux isn't "paying the bills", and not "we're going bankrupt because of Linux". That's just pure hyperbole. Moreover, at no point did Carmack explicitly state nor even imply that id were abandoning Linux, as many seem to have inferred from that article.

El Reg hack, Andrew Orlowski, recently posed the question "Why DOES Google lobby so much?"

It's a loaded question, of course, and the accompanying article is dripping with the sort of rhetoric one expects from a part-time Screw Googler, and a full-time right-wing extremist, like Orlowski.

I gave my answer in the comments:

"Why does Google lobby so much?"
Submitted on Tuesday 24th July 2012 03:13 GMT
Rejected on Wednesday 25th July 2012 12:11 GMT why?

Probably to balance the vast amount of propaganda peddled by its competitors and opponents.

Obviously.

As for Google's antithetical views on Intellectual Monopoly, they have my full support (in that matter, at least), along with several Nobel Laureates in Economics, so I wouldn't dismiss the "freetard" doctrine (as you put it) so readily, if I were you, especially as most of the Intellectual Monopolists who whine about IP "theft" only acquired said "IP" by "shamelessly stealing" it from others in the first place.

Personally, I'd much rather see Google spread the love, than suffer under the tyrinical regime of hypocritical and fraudulent Intellectual Monopolists.

Just my 2¢ (that's about 1p in English).