brent
jrsilvey jrsilvey When I need a cold cup of coffee I read Stallman----his single-mindedness is not stubborn to me at all, it's refreshing. Thanks for sharing it.
You're welcome. I apologize if Stallman is boring to you but his writing is incredibly important to the entire open-source movement.
However it seems you completely missed the entire point of my comment so I would like to add that context back into the conversation.
When someone asks people like you and I, @SOLUSfiddler, why we run Linux the answer MIGHT BE 'to get away from Microsoft, and Google, and Big Tech, and Government Surveillance.'
But Linux is not an OS platform, it is a community of people.
Why do they run Linux?
Because they can.
Linux users run Linux for whatever reason they want to.
If I wanted to be invisible on the internet I could be. The thing is that I don't feel like going to all of the work to do that all of the time. I am not trying to go 'off-grid' or hide or any of that. Also notice that I changed the IS to MIGHT BE in the quote above since the semantics of all of this seems to be important to you.
I personally am using Linux to regain control over my computing experience. When the Solus 4 ISO came out in March of 2019 my life changed. For the first time I was living a life without any devices running Windows and suddenly I could breathe. There were no more monthly/weekly/daily zero-day vulnerabilities, no forced updates that took up hours of my time, no more telemetry I couldn't shut off, no more loss of control.
Do I still have an Outlook account that I access through Webmail? Sure, even though I don't use it much anymore.
Do I have Edge installed on my computer bringing telemetry or data collection or whatever else it might come with? Nope.
brent I'm cynical enough to balk some here.
Let me stop you there. You are cynical. Like, extremely cynical. But it is something that has become quite common among much of modern society. There is a concept known as "The Politics of Cynicism" and it has been used increasingly around the globe to influence populations over the last few decades.
It doesn't much matter to me what specifically has made you feel this way but the sharing of information can lead to paradigm shifts in understanding. That article I shared with you above, in my opinion, is a good one on this topic.
Google and amazon are baked into nearly every web page even if you don't use their services. Linux and browser-hardening might barely keep #1 #2 & #3 at arm's length but I'm not putting any money on it---at least not in internet land.
I have a degree in computer science but I don't code or work directly in tech. I am working to create change in the tech industry as an activist and political organizer. Prior to 2021 much of my efforts were focused on Congressional investigations (I lobbied for and was directly responsible for that Congressional hearing happening) into the private equity firms that own and operate our very, very hackable voting machine infrastructure. That link leads to HBO's documentary KillChain and includes a great deal of screen time devoted to Harri Hursti who is a well known computer programmer who has developed traffic analysis tools for F-secure and has received an EFF Pioneer Award.
This year much of my focus as an activist and political organizer has shifted towards pushing for large antitrust reforms among Big Tech and lobbying members of Congress to try to pass legislation that would expand the use of Linux-based software and operating systems in elementary & high schools and institutions of higher education through tax incentives to run open-source software.
Running Linux won't make Facebook or Microsoft or Apple any less intrusive. I get that.
But having quarterly conference calls with Representative Ro Khanna, whose constituency includes Silicon Valley, might make a difference. So I do that instead of worrying about whether or not using an Outlook webmail account makes me a bad person or if not using it is just a waste of time.
Linux to me is 1) I don't feel like my OS is undermining me and sabotaging me. I felt like that for decades...and 2) it's a healthier community despite its splinters and 3) overall not as vulnerable as the win/mac duopoly.
It's amazing how many points of view there are about a batch of ones and zeros---that Matrix child was absolutely on the on the money when explaining to Neo about the spoon..
It looks like we agree here. Solus just works. I'm grateful for a distro this clean and stable and powerful. It has made a huge difference in my life. I hope Linux and Solus do the same for you, @brent
