Ask HN: Will you ditch your Mac for a PC running Windows 10 because of WSL?

Have you read anything else about Windows 10? Like the closed-source, pissing off users intentionally (eg start menu), and all the built-in surveillance features? It's actually making Mac OS the more sensible option these days.

Ubuntu on Linux gives you a decent commandline, not a whole lot more. Still some questions on upgrades etc ("apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" typically fails badly). What about Linux software with GUIs, or ports of such? Homebrew so far beats the stuff for Windows by a far margin. You get timely upgrades, and it can be used to install, run and upgrade most of the ported Linux GUI apps as well. Having said that, Ubuntu on Windows looks like a great start! With some decent package management it could be very cool.

Except that you blather about about "closed-source" and "built-in surveillance features" in your original comment which are as much a part of MacOS as they are Windows. These are not Linux concerns because Linux is open source.

The question started with Mac OS X is best as status quo. Then asked about a switch to Windows 10. So, my comparison was initially Win10 vs Mac points.

"These are not Linux concerns because Linux is open source."

A myth repeatedly debunked about Linux and OSS in general. It's the quality of contributions and review that matter. Not whether source is widely available. It's why so many FOSS software has horrible quality or security. Gotta judge case by case basis.

My point is whether open or closed has nothing to do with security in practice. What does it is (a) effort put in, (b) by who, and (c) how long. There's also a tangent here where it's Cathedral model, which is like closed one, vs the Bazaar model of groups contributing to stuff like typical FOSS. I claim only Cathedral leads to strong security with open or closed mostly irrelevant. Let's test it.

So far, the strongest security ever achieved was by small groups with closed developmemt that were proprietary or later open-sourced (but not developee in FOSS style). Compare assurance of VAX A1-class VMM to any open one, KeyKOS's security + automatic availability vs any BSD or Linux, NonStop's availability vs any OSS cluster scheme, AAMP7G vs any open-developed CPU, defect rate of paid SSL to OpenSSL, djbdns (focused individual) or Secure64 (closed) vs BIND, OpenVMS CVE's & reliability vs other OS's, Google's F0 RDBMS vs any non-cathedral one, AllegroCache vs open ORM & RDBMS, Opa vs common Web stuff, SPARK Ada vs C subsets/tooling, VLISP Scheme vs your favorite LISP, MULTOS cards vs open smartcards, guarantees of Hamilton's 001 toolkit vs UML + C and Java.

There's almost no comparison when you focus on security or quality oriented projects. Open barely has anything in that area, Bazaar has nothing off top of head, and Cathedral has all with highest assurance having more closed products in past & maybe present.

Field evidence shows clearly open model can't or hasn't gotten it done. It's always Cathedral. From there, closed producers both invented high-security & correctness plus demonstrated it more often in defense (eg Rockwell-Collins AAMP7G), private high-security (eg Praxis Correct-by-Construction), private high-safety (eg DO-178B stuff like Esterel SCADE), govt high-safety (eg NASA's guidance/tooling), and academia (eg CheriBSD, Softbound+CETS, GenodeOS, or NaCl). The best stuff with highest assurance or immunity to key issues stays in those with OSS steadily producing nothing or staying close to it. OpenBSD is a semi-exception as it's openly developed with Cathedral model but some outside contributions in TCB. And recently Rust.

So you're wrong. Most trustworthy stuff is usually closed or has central, controlled developmemt. Almost nothing FOSS. They usually fo have shitloads of easily-avoided errors in theirs. Like they barely care. First step toward improving that baseline is recognizing it exists instead of pretending OSS model got anywhere by itself. Nope. Takes specialized talent, applying proven principles, and work. Lots of it.