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We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

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Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#251

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC »

wrs wrote: post #243
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software freedom is fundamentally valuable only for developers, because only developers can use the freedom it gives. That is akin to saying that democracy is fundamentally valuable only for politicians, because only politicians can use the freedom it gives. That is simply completely wrong. You don't have to be a developer yourself in order to benefit from not being dependent on a monopoly. The fact that you can bu…

I said fundamentally for a reason. All of those things are of course user benefits, but they are indirect side effects. Users get none of those benefits without enlisting a developer to take advantage of them. So the most powerful evolutionary pressure is to make free software that is valuable for developers . The closer it gets to a “pure” user problem, the less incentive there is for developers to work on it, and t…

> All of those things are of course user benefits, but they are indirect side effects. Users get none of those benefits without enlisting a developer to take advantage of them.

That is not really true.

For one, even users of purely proprietary software do benefit from the work that developers of Free Software do, because the market pressure exerted by their presence in the market does affect the pricing and quality of proprietary offerings. While that is an indirect effect, it does not in any way require "enlisting a developer".

Also, in order to have a free market choice in who you hire to do development work for you, you don't need to enlist a developer. That freedom of choice is every user's immediate freedom.

> The closer it gets to a “pure” user problem, the less incentive there is for developers to work on it, and the worse it gets.

But that has nothing to do with whether it's a "user problem", but only with whether it's a problem of people who value their freedom. If a user values freedom and thus invests in it, such as by paying a developer for doing some work for them, then they will get just as much freedom as developers who value their freedom and for their reason invest in it. The problem is not that they are users, the problem is that they are unwilling to invest in their freedom, and instead expect others to invest for them.

The problem is the expectation that developers invest in the freedom of users. Developers will invest in their own freedom first and foremost, obviously. If you expect developers to invest effort into solving problems of non-developers, you should also expect non-developers to invest in developers solving their own problems. Like, you should expect users to pay developers so they can work on stuff that is of no importance to the user.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#252

Post by nevrthepfhor »

ghostly_s wrote: post #250
nevrthepfhor wrote: post #137

People choose proprietary software because proprietary software doesn't make you memorize and type things like "systemctl suspend" for the most basic of tasks such as putting your computer to sleep. They don't want to find, audit, install, and evaluate dozens of obscure third-party extensions to make their OS usable. They want options for setting their background image besides Fit to screen. And they want to be able…

This is just....such a bizarre example. What Linux desktop environment are you using that provides no more user-friendly method to sleep the system than the `systemctl` command? Or are you suggesting command-line-only installs should have a better interface for this? What would the precedent be for that use-case?

Ubuntu is indeed bizarre (tried 18.10 and 19.04). It's either lock, restart, or shut down. Otherwise I get to have fun at the command line.

And multiple monitors hasn't been anything but a pain either.

I was told that Ubuntu is about as friendly as Linux gets. Sure, it's more usable than say Devuan or OpenBSD, but that's nothing to brag about. It's nowhere near ready for primetime.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#253

Post by nevrthepfhor »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #190
nevrthepfhor wrote: post #137

People choose proprietary software because proprietary software doesn't make you memorize and type things like "systemctl suspend" for the most basic of tasks such as putting your computer to sleep. They don't want to find, audit, install, and evaluate dozens of obscure third-party extensions to make their OS usable. They want options for setting their background image besides Fit to screen. And they want to be able…

> People choose proprietary software because proprietary software doesn't make you memorize and type things like "systemctl suspend" for the most basic of tasks such as putting your computer to sleep. Nothing says that all free software will be good or user-friendly (systemd is an excellent case-in-point). But you can choose a better alternative. Proprietary software sometimes has short-term convenience benefits, but…

Yes, Windows Home is awful, but I believe I got a Windows 10 Pro key for ten dollars. I think I used the same key on two different computers. No Candy Crush, slightly better control over the system.

It would be nice to have an OS that's actually fun and intuitive for normal people (nevermind me), not stripped down and sanitized, and also doesn't have corporate bloat and massive data collection by default.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#254

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

nevrthepfhor wrote: post #253
_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People choose proprietary software because proprietary software doesn't make you memorize and type things like "systemctl suspend" for the most basic of tasks such as putting your computer to sleep. Nothing says that all free software will be good or user-friendly (systemd is an excellent case-in-point). But you can choose a better alternative. Proprietary software sometimes has short-term convenience benefits, but…

Yes, Windows Home is awful, but I believe I got a Windows 10 Pro key for ten dollars. I think I used the same key on two different computers. No Candy Crush, slightly better control over the system. It would be nice to have an OS that's actually fun and intuitive for normal people (nevermind me), not stripped down and sanitized, and also doesn't have corporate bloat and massive data collection by default.

> an OS that's actually fun and intuitive for normal people (nevermind me)

That's no version of Windows, in my experience. I suffered through Windows 3.1x to XP to Vista to Window 7 (and tried out Windows 10), and none of these were fun or intuitive, certainly not compared to what I used immediately before (Atari ST) or immediately after (Ubuntu Feisty Fawn).

In 2019, Ubuntu is far more intuitive and manageable for an ordinary person. No going to the internet to download dubious software (or getting malware through the Windows Store, as per my Windows 10 experience), no weird Candy Crush and 'telemetry' (data siphoning) or any of that Microsoft sort of goodness.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#255

Post by ghostly_s »

nevrthepfhor wrote: post #252
ghostly_s wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just....such a bizarre example. What Linux desktop environment are you using that provides no more user-friendly method to sleep the system than the `systemctl` command? Or are you suggesting command-line-only installs should have a better interface for this? What would the precedent be for that use-case?

Ubuntu is indeed bizarre (tried 18.10 and 19.04). It's either lock, restart, or shut down. Otherwise I get to have fun at the command line. And multiple monitors hasn't been anything but a pain either. I was told that Ubuntu is about as friendly as Linux gets. Sure, it's more usable than say Devuan or OpenBSD, but that's nothing to brag about. It's nowhere near ready for primetime.

Well, I don't use Ubuntu, but it seems like they have hidden the suspend button behind a modifier key[1]. How inane. FWIW, personally I don't think Ubuntu is as friendly as Linux gets. You might want to check out something like Elementary OS. Though pretty much any other desktop environment won't have weird unintuitive stuff like this going on.

1. https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/shell-exit.html.e...

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#256

Post by kazinator »

detaro wrote: post #217
arctantwo wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it matter? If VSCode gets canned, or WordPress gets ruined, why should I, the user using the software to make a blog, give a damn? If VSCode goes there's another one I can switch to. If WordPress goes there's five million other blogging platforms I can switch to. The format that the content (i.e., the configuration, settings, presentation, etc) may all be proprietary, but so what? I have absolutely no allegiance…

> If WordPress goes there's five million other blogging platforms I can switch to. Have you done a full migration of a grown Wordpress blog to another system, without breaking stuff? It's not something you do on a weekend or two. Changing away from a tool that holds lots of data and configuration is expensive.

Or, regarding his other remark, a migration of hundreds of thousands of lines of code from gcc to something else.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#257

Post by kazinator »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #237
scarface74 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those products that you mentioned that are free are backed and for all intents and purposes controlled by commercial backers? Would the community maintain any of them to a re al degree if the backing company abandoned then?

What if you're using a product and its community abandons it? This isn't a unique issue to products with commercial backers.

Free software without a community is a thing; it's perfectly fine, and in fact better off without all the flies buzzing around it.

Proprietary software that is years past its support date, from a company that has not existed in years, yet still in use, is also a thing.

The one kind of entity that dies instantly when its backing goes away is a proprietary website.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#258

Post by kazinator »

price wrote: post #244
kccqzy wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also the difference between "the code is inelegant and sucks and I'll remove it, damn the users" and "the code may be ugly but the feature users want is ugly so let's do it". Case in point, I recently upgraded the computer of a non-technical person from Ubuntu 18.10 to 19.04. And now desktop icons are completely broken. It's been reimplemented in JS, with horrible performance, and doesn't even support features li…

Stuff gets removed from proprietary software all the damn time. To pick a notorious example: have you tried to use Google Reader lately? :-P Others I've personally noticed in the last couple of years include features of Dropbox; of Gmail; of Facebook; of Google Search; and various startups acquired and shut down -- including a mobile app with no backend of its own. When stuff gets removed or shut down, the basic reas…

On the other hand, there is proprietary software still running whose company has been gone for decades.

Stuff does not get removed from proprietary software installations spontaneously, unless there are automatic updates (which can be turned off).

Stuff spontaneously disappears from a proprietary website, and the users can't do anything about it.

Proprietary websites are a whole new form of social harm that makes plain old proprietary software look virtuous in comparison.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#259

Post by nevrthepfhor »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #254
nevrthepfhor wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Windows Home is awful, but I believe I got a Windows 10 Pro key for ten dollars. I think I used the same key on two different computers. No Candy Crush, slightly better control over the system. It would be nice to have an OS that's actually fun and intuitive for normal people (nevermind me), not stripped down and sanitized, and also doesn't have corporate bloat and massive data collection by default.

> an OS that's actually fun and intuitive for normal people (nevermind me) That's no version of Windows, in my experience. I suffered through Windows 3.1x to XP to Vista to Window 7 (and tried out Windows 10), and none of these were fun or intuitive, certainly not compared to what I used immediately before (Atari ST) or immediately after (Ubuntu Feisty Fawn). In 2019, Ubuntu is far more intuitive and manageable for a…

Driver issues alone disqualify Ubuntu versus Windows (where are all the three-monitor setups and touchscreen laptops?). So does the complete lack of desktop background options. And having to hold down `Alt` to make the Suspend button appear (which doesn't say Suspend on it by the way). Even the word suspend is so serious like you're punishing your computer, not putting it to bed.

Ubuntu is all business all the time. A five year old would get bored of it within five minutes. iPads are probably crack cocaine in comparison.

Settings doesn't even have an appearance and personalization section. Ubuntu is more stripped down than a Holocaust victim. And there's nothing fun about the Holocaust.

Re: We Need to Save What Made Linux and FOSS Possible

#260

Post by fuzzfactor »

throw2016 wrote: post #110

What made Linux and FOSS possible is a specific time and context and that is not happening again. There is no job security, everything is about building a resume, getting a job and hanging on or a startup, everything is related to money or status. There is also an ahistorical perspective of tech, as if things just are or happen with no deliberate effort and its an open question whether there is any real commitment or…

from the article's comments:

Dave Taht • 44 minutes ago We really, really, really need a return to our core values I remember how fired up I was in 1999, when I wrote this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxLbNCB-YKI and how fired up I am now to try and get our internet back. Still it is hard to be a revolutionary with two kids and a mortgage, and we've lost most of the next generation of coders to javascript and student debt.

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