Microsoft no longer signs Windows drivers for Process Hacker

(Also, isn't this straight up illegal according to their previous settlements?)

I have a feeling MS will continue to dominate due to network effects and vscode/wsl being a nice enough experience. It'll take them resting on their laurels or some great act of user hostility to change this status quo.

If you look at the IT/computing/internet position from a global perspective you'll note that there are many outrageous situations that warrant political action. These issues include copyright overreach, gross privacy breaches by the likes of Google, Facebook, et al, to internet protocols done at the bequest of corporations for their own benefit, to the ever-increasing proprietary nature of both software and hardware including CPUs not to mention hidden proprietary firmware code in vehicles that drivers do not have access to, etc. - much of it done under excuse or the false premise of security.

If one matter stands above all else then it is that there's no cohesive political opposition of any notable size that's capable of disrupting the political system/establishment to the extent where politicians must take notice.

This is a serious problem and it's a fundamental one. For instane, Cory Doctorow noted that the problems with copyright including copyright reform can't be sorted out as the big players have too much money, power and influence and those of us in opposition are just too few in number to make any difference no matter how just and legitiate our cause may be. In essence, in the grand schema of social and political life, copyright essentially amounts to nought - so it's little wonder copyright reform is left to wither and languish (note, this is my interpretation/summary of what he's been saying on various occasions).

Even organizations such as the EFF and influential people such as Tim Berners-Lee and Bruce Schneier have very little influence on their own in the face of huge corporate opposition, MS, Google, Facebook, etc not to mention governments, the NSA, GCHQ, etc.

In essence, it's all a lost cause unless we can all coalesce together to form one overarching body of international standing that's politically able to fight the forces of darkness. Unfortunately, I'm pessimistic that this will ever come to pass simply because pretty much all of those involved have demonstrated that they're very independent and headstrong and thus they're unlikely to be sufficiently united to be fully effective in a common political cause (one only has to look at the hundreds of disparate Linux distributions to see that). Nevertheless, it'd be wonderful if I were to be proved wrong.

In the same vein, I'd suggest that there's a more fundamental problem at stake here. That's the general apathy and unease about democracy currently held by huge swathes of the citizenry. Modern democracy formed hundreds of years ago when life and times were simpler thus the democratic systems that were set up to deal with them were structured accordingly and there's been precious little change since.

This brings us back to issues such as the copyright one I've mentioned. Modern democracy has no simple way of dealing with the many thousands of genuine legitimate causes that have arisen out of the complexities of modern-day life.

Modern democracies with their mainly (effectively) two-party systems can't effectively accommodate all the nuances of these complexities and like the parable of The Man, the Boy and the Donkey, they try to please all with botched compromises and end up pleasing none (for example, just witness the many political shemozzles over COVID).

In my opinion, the only way to overcome such problems is to review and then agree on new - or even which covenants should bind citizens and The State then take it from there (on some issues where there's no common agreement society may have to divide into groups and individuals be bound by the laws of that group, etc.) Whatever the outcome it's highly unlikely to be resoled in the foreseeable future.

Not all of us. I had just barely started being willing to trust Microsoft again, and they've repeatedly shown themselves to be hostile since the initial "Github is cool! And WSL! And VSCode!", enough is enough.

I've read the Halloween documents, I know where this goes.