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.

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 Ultimate Abomination

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.

So yeah, like, it used to be a counterfeit XP Pro tower which I licensed back in late 2006 with the "Windows Genuine Advantage Kit for Windows XP Professional". Microsoft mailed me the the CD and I used i t do a Windows reinstall, and the disc's been sitting in its mailer next to my PC for the past eighteen months. Until the day before yesterday. Malware took out my operating system, sending it into endless reboot. (the OS is ruined but the drive is still readable and I'll be needing to recover iTunes and plenty of documents from it).