I wish there were more articles about tech not tech biz

GBU_28@lemm.ee to Technology@lemmy.world – 1139 points –

Just seems like everything is "this company did this to their employees" and less about "this novel messaging protocol offers these measured pros and cons." Or similar

And yes, I could post things, but I'm referring to what hits the top, 12h.

Can anyone rec communities with less of a biz and politics and wfh vs in-office vibe?

153

You are viewing a single comment

I wouldn’t disagree, and I’m not saying FOSS is inferior, I’m just whinging about the Linux evangelising.

There is no perfect OS that can have universal approval. However if I’d I said “Windows is a data-harvesting nightmare” or “Being locked in to Apple ecosystems is constricting and expensive” then I’m sure I’d see the upvote button hammered on Lemmy. But to seemingly question the validity of Linux as a silver bullet for the vast majority of desktop users is borderline heresy.

I won't dispute that fanboyism is thing, but also I don't think many evangelists as it were view Linux as a "silver bullet", just as the most ethical option given the alternatives. And they feel very strong feelings about this, that come across as Weird and Scary to people not used to seeing software treated with the same enthusiasm as politics.

Also, I should add that many view open source software as having the potential to one day be the "silver bullet" in a way commercial software can never be due to it's structure.

I’ve been reading about its potential for a long time. Maybe next year will be the year of Linux ;)

If your barometer for "potential" relies on market share, then you don't really understand what motivates a person to contribute effort to a FOSS project in the first place.

What’s your barometer, bearing in mind you said it had the potential to be a silver bullet? Silver bullet for what?

I don’t want to sound defensive, but please don’t assume I’m not invested in FOSS. I’m on Lemmy, Mastodon, Pixelfed and am the developer of half a dozen small FOSS projects on GitHub.

Silver bullet for what?

At achieving the task it was designed for. I do not think it's correct to say that Linux can have "market share" in the market of commercial operating systems because it isn't commercial software. By not using proprietary software we are exiting the market.

Linux absolutely does not exist “outside the market”, that’s absurd. Red Hat, Canonical, SUSE etc aren’t charitable organisations. These major contributors to the Linux kernel aren’t doing so out of love for their fellow man.

For you, yes, Linux is “free” if your measurement of cost is purely financial outlay.

There’s a great back and forth here, and the original thread on Mastodon, which nicely covers both the evangelism (my original issue) and the “cost” of Linux. There’s plenty of reactions in there from people talking about the same things, from both sides of the coin.

FOSS