TrivialBetaState

u/TrivialBetaState@sopuli.xyz
12 posts · 112 comments

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I disagree. While I totally understand that it is an optional feature that can enabled and enforced only by others, I am not happy that the developers of systemd rushed to include it into the JSON file with the user info. I would expect the developers to be a bit more resistant to requests by two US states and Brazil. Why are they making it so easy? I guess we will see a resurgence of systemd-free dirstros.

No. They are not ready. If all your computers and phones "phone home" with "home" being your adversary's country (that's how USA deals with Europe in the last year), then you cannot call yourself a world power. Most PCs in Europe use Windows and MacOS. Almost all phones are either Android or iOS. And even if they managed to replace all the software with locally developed Linux, all recent (last 20 years) x86 PCs have either Intel Management Engine or AMD Security Technology. If they chose to make intensive efforts to replace their systems, computers and phones, it would take at least a decade to achieve this. And even then, the US would likely be able to penetrate their systems. It's so much easier to yield to the Emperor of the Western World for the perennially submissive European serfs.

A lot of things can go wrong. A company can take the free code, change it slightly to work only with a proprietary file type and then use their resources to promote their version and make their proprietary filetype and proprietary program the industry standard. Unfortunately this sounds too familiar. There are even cases that the filetype is an open standard but obfuscated to make it impossible for anyone (including the original FOSS) to open/save it.

When most of your computers have either Windows or MacOS and almost all your phones are either Android or iOS, you cannot have any kind of independence. And even if you ever managed to fix that (unlikely in the foreseeable future), there is Intel Management Engine and AMD Security Tech to ensure that you won't make a step without Uncle Sam knowing about it.

GPL enforces that all derivatives are FOSS and GPL as well. With permissive licenses, like MIT and Apache, a company is free to take the code, change/develop it further (or leave it as is) and make it closed-sourced without sharing anything with anyone. Regarding Rust, I am with you. Hence my question.

Can someone explain to me why Rust has been so controversial for the GNU/Linux kernel? One thing that I personally don't like is that the equivalent Rust-made (equivalent) GNU tools are licensed under MIT (or Apache? - something permissive like that) instead of GPL. If they were under GPL, I'd be more than happy. But since the kernel is under GPL regardless of C or Rust, what is the reason for the backlash? Sounds like a very promising language indeed.

Everything that you describe is provided by Synthstrom Deluge. As a bonus, the software of the device is FOSS and there is a community that provides firmware updates with additional features. Have a look at it, if it is not too expensive for your budget. The only device that has similar features (but a more DAW-live experience) is the Akai MPC and Force line of products.

There was a time that Ubuntu was more polished than other distros but these times are gone. Canonical tried to capitalize their success by making their users "the product" at first and now have attempted to release a closed ecosystem of snaps based on proprietary backend software. They have signed their own death sentence more than once. Their way to redemption is to release the source code of the snap store under GPL and stop trying to replace GPLed tools with MIT or Apache licenses. Either you are committed to free software or not.

This! If it is Free Software, it respects everyone's freedom. If I don't like the developer, I will not buy them a coffee. If I don't like the software practices of the developer, a fork is in order (e.g. Oracle with OpenOffice --> LibreOffice)

One thing that I love about Cosmic is that it is made in Rust and is licensed under GPL. This is contrast to the replacement of the coreutils with new, Rust made, which are unfortunately licensed under MIT. Ubuntu rushed to adopt them. One more case of foul play by them after making the server side of snap proprietary.

I am with you 100% on the reddit aspect but have to acknowledge that any person can make their own choices. Eventually, a platform with much longer history will continue being successful, if only due to inertia alone. However, one more big mistake from reddit may be enough for the FOSS subs to migrate to this platform. As for the Linux kernel, are you sure it is hosted on github? Or is it only a backup?

While all areas could benefit in terms of stability and ease of development from standadization, the whole system and each area would suffer in terms of creativity. There needs to be a balance. However, if I had to choose one thing, I'd say the package management. At the moment we have deb, rpm, pacman, flatpak, snap (the latter probably should not be considered as the server side is proprietary) and more from some niche distros. This makes is very difficult for small developers to offer their work to all/most users. Otherwise, I think it is a blessing having so many DEs, APIs, etc.