Even if this happened, you cannot count on it. Trump or someone like him will take them back.

If you build and service Gripens in Canada, you can count on those jobs.

I think they mean use solar to keep the price of the electricity consumption down. It is probably a joke since old gear is going to drink a lot of juice cryptomining.

KHtml was massacred

KHTML was forked. And kept open source. And the fork was so successful that even KDE switched to it (voluntarily).

And Apple employed a bunch of the KHTML developers for years. They still do I assume.

Oh, and one of them is now creating what will probably be the most successful independent web browser project ever—Ladybird.

Solid example.

Android and Chromium. Is listing two projects that were created almost entirely by the same company and gifted to the Open Source world the best way to make your point? I mean, they sure are shafting us with Kubernetes too right?

I would say that Google is screwing us with Clang and LLVM except Apple and Microsoft contribute a lot to that too so they deserve some of the blame.

But, I mean clearly GCC is the better project. I mean sure LLVM resulted in Rust (corporate project), Swift (corporate project), and Zig but GCC is where the real innovation is. I mean GCC just added COBOL and Algol 68.

GPL code is code for the community by the community.

Lets list some GPL code developed on servers owned and operated by IBM (because they are the core developers):

• Glibc
• GCC
• binutuls
• GNU CoreUtils
• systemd
• pipewire
• Podman
• Flatpak
• elfutils

Do you use any of those? About half of those projects were started by IBM. It was them that chose the GPL as a license. I wonder who forced them?

Who are the Top Contributors to the Linux kernel?

• Intel
• Google
• Red Hat
• Oracle

Ya, let’s keep those mega corps from using all that GPL code that YOU write.

FreeBSD just released a new version. It is entirely permissively licensed. It is clearly an anomaly that half the new features in this release have the names of companies that contributed them in the release notes. Who are these Netflix people?

I would say “how about gaming” but very little of that code is GPL. Any permissively licensed code used in gaming?

• WINE
• proton
• Xorg
• Wayland
• Mesa
• FEX
• LLVM

To your point, those projects must have been totally stolen by greedy mega corps right? I mean, X has been around for decades so there has been lots of time to push Xorg out of the market.

These Valve guys are big in gaming. Surely they must be stealing all our code and not giving back right? I mean, only the license would stop them (as you say). Obviously they took that MIT WINE thing and made Proton proprietary.

Right?

Turn them into a Kebernetes or a Proxmox cluster.

Most “stable” distros offer kernel version that update more frequently to accommodate new hardware.

Most “rolling” distros offer LTS kernels that remain essentially unchanged for long periods.

The kernel is one of the smallest differences between the two models.

Agreed. That is why I think Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is a better desktop than Debian Stable. The DE and everyday GUI tools stay fresh even if most of the distro is a time capsule.

It is funny. You and I landed in different places but for almost the same reasons.

I use a rolling release because I want my system to work. “Tinkering with my tech stuff” is an activity I want to do when I want and not something I want thrust upon me.

On “stable” distros, I was always working around gaps in the repo or dealing with issues that others had already fixed. And everything I did myself was something I had to maintain and, since I did not really, my systems became less and less stable and more bloated over time.

With a rolling distro, I leave everything to the package manager. When I run my software, most of the issues I read other people complaining about have already been fixed.

And updates on “stable” distros are stressful because they are fragile. On my rolling distro, I can update every day and never have to tinker with anything beyond the update command itself. On the rare occasion that something additional needs to be done, it is localized to a few packages at most and easy to understand.

Anyway, there is no right or wrong as long as it works for you.

Where did the idea come from that rolling releases are about hardware?

Hardware support is almost entirely about the kernel.

Many distros, even non-rolling ones like Mint and Ubuntu, offer alternative kernels with support for newer hardware. These are often updated frequently. Even incredibly “stable” distros like Red Hat Enterprise Linux regularly release kernels with updated hardware support.

And you can compile the kernel yourself to whatever version you want or even use a kernel from a different distro.

Rolling releases are more about the other 80,000 packages that are not the kernel.

I would say

Is this based on experience? Or are you guessing?

I ask because my lived experience is that rolling releases break less in practice

Before I used rolling releases, I spent more time dealing with bugs in old versions than I do fixing breakages in my rolling disto.

And non-rolling “upgrades” were always fraught with peril whereas I update my rolling release without any concern at all.

I use ancient hardware (as old as 2008 iMacs) and I greatly prefer rolling releases.

Open Source software is always improving and I like to have the best available as it makes my life easier.

In my experience, things just work better. I have spent years now reading complaints online about how Wayland does not work, the bugs in certain software, and features that are missing. Almost always I wonder what versions they are running because I have none of those problems. Lots of Wayland complaints from people using systems that freeze software versions for years. They have no idea what they are missing. This is just an example of software that is rapidly evolving. There are many more.

Next is performance. Performance improvements can really be felt on old hardware. Improvements in scheduling, network, and memory handling really stand out. It is surprising how often improvements appear for even very old hardware. Old Intel GPUs get updates for example. Webcams get better support, etc.

Some kinds of software see dramatic improvements. I work with the AV1 video codec. New releases can bring 20% speed improvements that translate to saving many minutes or even hours on certain jobs. I want those on the next job I run.

I work on my computer every day and, on any given day, I may want or enjoy a feature that was just added. This has happened to me many times with software like GIMP where a job is dramatically easier (for example text improvements tag appeared in GIMP 3).

If you do software development, it is common to need or want some recently developed component. It is common for these to require support from fairly recent libraries. Doing dev on distros like Debian or RHEL was always a nightmare of the installed versions being too old.

And that brings me to stability.

On systems that update infrequently, I find myself working against the software repos. I may install third-party repos. I may build things myself. I may use Flatpak or AppImage. And all of that makes my system a house of cards that is LESS stable. Over time, stuff my distro does not maintain gets strewn everywhere. Eventually, it makes sense to just wipe it all and start fresh. From what I see online, a lot of people have this experience.

On of the biggest reasons I prefer rolling releases with large repos is because, in my experience, they result in much more stable systems in practice. And if everything comes from the repo, everything stays much more manageable and sustainable.

I use Debian Stable on servers and in containers all the time. But, to single it out, I find that actually using it as a desktop is a disaster for all of the above reasons but especially that it becomes an unstable mess of software cobbled together from dozens of sources. Rolling releases are easier to manage. This is the opposite of what some others say, I realize.

In fact, if I do have to use a “more stable” distro, I usually install an Arch Linux Distrobox and use that to get access to a larger repo of more frequently updated packages.

Awesome to see APK 3 finally ship. I have been using it on Chimera Linux for a couple years and love it.

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

SCTV was created to compete with SNL. It kept many Canadian comedians in Canada, like John Candy, Eugene Levy, and Catherine O’Hare though some also did SNL—like Marin Short.

I am saying Kkds in the Hall filled the comedy void in Canada left by SCTV. You can disagree about that I guess.

I use EndeavourOS on Mac hardware for very similar years.

Wifi (Broadcom-wl on the older stuff and brcmfmac_wcc on the newest) works well on all of them.

Webcams work well on all of them as well. Most are just USB cams but some use the FaceTimeHD module that builds with DKMS but works very well for me.

I cannot remember if I had to install the FaceTimeHD driver or if it was auto-installed by EOS. Even if not, it is in the repos and one line to install the package.

I highly recommend EndeavourOS for old MacBooks.

I have a 2008 iMac, 2015 iMac, 2012 MacBook Pro, 2016 MacBook Pro, 2013 MacBook Air, 2017 MacBook Air, and 2020 MacBook Air all running EOS (last one uses a special kernel because of the T2 chip).

They all run flawlessly including the Broadcom WiFi. The Arch kernel is the only one I have found where these drivers work well and EOS sets them up automatically during install.

CachyOS is also an option but the video is wonky on my older MacBooks. EOS is flawless.

Cool. Me too. And?

The top community request on GitHub is to disable copilot.

100%.

There is a reason even the purists fall back on “hardware is out of scope”.

But calling firmware software drives worse outcomes. Will they do the same thing with RISC-V?

Is a RISC-V board better than an ARM board even if both have proprietary schematics and/or divers. In my view, clearly yes.

Every step towards open is positive.

The hypocrisy irks me somewhat as well. The FSF rather famously did not start by writing a kernel. It is why we have the GNU/Linux nonsense. The GNU utilities were first written to run on proprietary UNIX. And this made sense pragmatically as you have to start somewhere. But that was actually real “software” and yet RMS was ok with that. And today he tells people they cannot update the microcode in their Intel CPU.

According to his own definitions, the FSF should not have run a line of code on proprietary operating systems until the FSF had written its own kernel and drivers. But they enthusiastically did. Ok, so they did not write a kernel. How about the C library? Surely, they did not link to propriety C libraries. Or how about the compiler? Did they start with that? No, the first thing they wrote was a text editor (Emacs) and it was built with proprietary compilers, using proprietary C libraries, on proprietary operating systems. The C library came years later. Before that, all GNU software was linked with binary blobs (C library).

Fast-forward to today and you are supposed to condemn Debian for allowing binary blobs.

Not only dumb but massive hypocrisy.

“Where they say that?”

You have a hardware device that is fully proprietary and closed. The firmware cannot be programmed or upgraded.

The FSF is fine with this hardware. Stop me if you disagree.

Version two of the hardware above is released. The firmware can now be upgraded. The initial firmware available is closed source. It is actually the exact same firmware used in version one but it now ships as a binary blob. Since the hardware is programable, open source firmware could be written but none yet exists.

The FSF says that this hardware must be avoided. The binary blob cannot be handled or distributed. Version one of the hardware is still fine and is preferred. Again, stop me if I am wrong. Note, the firmware is the exact same.

Ok, now answer “where they say that?” for yourself.

If hardware is out of the scope of the FSF (totally reasonable) then firmware should also be outside of the scope of the FSF.

Because their stance today is that hardware that is more open is worse. Hardware can be as proprietary and closed as you like as long as you do not make it programmable. If you do, the FSF may have a problem. Insanity.

Free software is better than non-free software. The FSF and I agree.

Open firmware is better than closed firmware. This is my view but the FSF only has an opinion when the firmware is upgradable (as you state above). Silly.

Programmable hardware is always better than non-programmable hardware. That is my view, but the FSF disagrees when no open firmware exists. Dumb.