On a Mac, you can use Cmd-C to copy from vim and paste into Firefox or your shell/terminal. Try doing the same thing in Linux (even with the IBM CUA [1] approved Ctrl-Insert and Shift-Insert)
I just pasted this comment from vim to chromium this way.
* Doesn't cover cut-copy-paste, just copy-paste.
If there was some magical way to get gnome-terminal, vim and firefox/chrome honor a universal cut-copy-paste shortcut... then I'm golden. This is more of a political than a technical problem.
Yes, I know I can remap keys in firefox, in gnome-terminal and browsers. But then they dont work in skype.. or something else. I would pay good money if there was a kickstarter around this.
The "pbcopy" command-line tool on the Mac will also copy things, which is a powerful way to copy almost anything you want.
Soem Mac terminal programs also have options to auto-Copy on select.