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pseudonourishment · 5 years ago

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#LinuxSucks

Yea. There. I said it. Yes. I did.

I meant it. Why? A few important things have happened in the years since 1991 when Linus Torvalds introduced the world to Linux. Yes, the world has changed and technology has evolved since but that's not what I'm talking about: The community has changed. Not for the better. Yea, we all know about Linus's rants on the mailing list as well as in public. They're no different than Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. Some say thats greatness in action but I doubt that. Others say that its the narcissism being reflected from the leadership. How about its something else?

Let's break this down even further:

First of all, systemd. EVERYTHING about systemd is wrong. Can anyone tell me what about systemd follows the #UnixPhilosophy? Anyone? The #UnixPhilosophy (in its most basic statement) is defined as:

This is the Unix philosophy: Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface.(that last part still holds true, even today)

Systemd, as it stands, goes completely against that philosophy. I blame Linus because he knew systemd was shit but let it into the kernel anyway. As a result most major distros now use systemd. Systemd is still far from being the solid rock that sysinit still is. Sure, I could list other issues I see with Linux, such as audio (which I also blame on the hardware manufacturers but this particular issue lies with the same creator who created systemd) or the politics in Linux Kernel Development.

Addtional problems with the kernel lie with Digital-Rights-Management which I also blame on Linus. DRM is the bane of the FLOSS movement and community. Why even support Open Source if what is driving Open Source is being subverted with DRM? DRM is so embedded in the Linux kernel that removing it at this point would be a complete clusterfuck.

I could go on and on and on about the Linux kernel.

Linus is to blame for a lot of this but I blame the community for most of this. Without any real leadership (except for the big money corporate donors pouring money into the Linux Foundation), the kernel is a reflection of the community: fragmented and discombobulated. FLOSS was supposed to represent both equality and freedom. Free as in free beer, free coffee. Libre as in liberated, liberal. FLOSS was supposed to level the playing field between the haves and the have nots. The movement, the philosophy have not lived up to their promises or expectations. By becoming a corporate whore, the Linux Foundation lost site of its vision a long time ago. These same corporations that donate to the Linux Foundation have abused Open Source developers. They have taken what is known as the Open Source Initiative and turned it into something it was not meant for: free labor, among other things.

Many of the distros and many of the sites that I used to traverse I no longer do because these communties have become infected with far-right conspiracy theorists (a.k.a. Truth-Seekers or QAnon). It doesn't matter where you go on the web, these idiots are there. Again, I blame Linus. Why? He could've shown leadership. He could've said "Hey this does not reflect me, our community, or our values." But he did not. Granted, noobs used to be "challenged" by the community to "search and figure it out" or "RTFM" but those days of being henpecked by those who considered themselves to be "*nix gurus" have long since vanished. These "gurus" have been replaced by those with a covert political agenda. I've seen idiotic, bullshit comments such as "If you didn't vote for Trump you must be a Windows user." or "The government uses Windows to spy on you." Don't get me started on Bill Gates and anti-vaxers.

What about Richard Stallman, though? I'm glad he's gone. He was part of the problem.

#LinuxSucks #UnixPhilosophy

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