Joking aside, I often hear people say "they should" when talking about GNU/Linux (for example: "they should just standardize on one audio stack"), as if there were a central authority making those decisions. What many don't realize is that with FOSS comes freedom of choice... and inevitably, an abundance of choice. That diversity isn't a flaw, it's a consequence of how the ecosystem works.
There's free choice for those OSes to use different kernels, but they don't, they all use the same Linux (rather than say BSD). There's a lot of advantage in getting aligned on things, even though anyone can choose not to.
For distro-packaged FOSS, binary compatibility isn't really a problem. Distributions like Debian already resolve dependencies by building from source and keeping a coherent set of libraries. Security fixes and updates propagate naturally.
Binary compatibility solutions mostly target cases where rebuilding isn't possible, typically closed source software.
Freezing and bundling software dependencies ultimately creates dependency hell rather than avoiding it.
It however shifts a lot of the complexity of building the application to the distro maintainer, or a software maintainer has to prioritize for which distribution they choose to build and maintain a package, because supporting them all is a nightmare and an ever shifting moving target. And it's not just a distribution problem, it's even a distribution version/release problem.
Look at the hoops you sometimes have to jump through or hacks you have to apply to make something work on Nix, just because there is no standardization or build processes assume library locations etc. And if you then raise an issue with the software maintainer - the response is often "but we don't support Nix". And if they're not Nix/Nixos users, can you blame them?
If you've ever had to compile a modern/recent software package for an old distro (I've had to do this for old RH distro's on servers which due to regulations could not be upgraded) - you're in a world of pain. And both distro and software maintainers will say "not my problem, we don't support this" - and I fully understand their stance on that, because it is far from straight forward, and only serves a limited audience.
That is very true. But because it is open source, one can request for packaging, contribute a package, use a third-party repository, or build it from source when needed.
Paying makes sense when you actually need/use those services. Paying "because you can" feels wrong to me. If the goal is to support FOSS, there are many more ways to contribute than subscribing to a service you don't use.
Without commenting on Ubuntu Pro specifically, the whole point of a Linux distribution is that users don't need to know or care what specific services they use. I'd happily pay $50/year to use "Debian" and trust that the Debian Foundation figures out how to feed that money back to the appropriate upstream projects.
Please don't try and make me give $0.05/week to dbus maintainers or whoever.
It's a different social contract. It's not just the waitress, it's service in general. One trying to judge the other is never quite going to work because it rubs us wrong in some weird internal way.
Eg go into a big store brand in most of the US and the cashier will be all flashy smile asking how is your day, and you ignore it and ask your request, and that's the game. A french person would mostly hate that, feel the question as annoying.
You go to a similar french store and the cashier and yourself will say the bonjour / merci / ... yada yada game and if someone doesn't do his part he's considered rude; I found a lot of foreigner surprised by that, the fact that you're not answering "merci" or asking "s'il vous plait" because it's nice, but because not doing it puts you in unpleasant person territory.
Ok business meeting, even in tech. American are always super optimist and happy, and seeing a solution and the end goal, French are over realist bordering on pessimist.
It's not that black and white of course there is a lot of inter mingling and differences, but overall which one you feel "better" is very personnal and based around what you're used to.
I've gotten into the habit of replacing the accented "é" in my first name with a plain ASCII "e" in forms to avoid troubles. The worse part is that the form is usually accepted, then later on you encounter random issues (cannot log back in, ...).
No I am not. Your response proves my point in regards to getting bogged down in semantics. In a nutshell, my point is that if we do not care or do nothing when it comes to malicious use of FOSS, you very well may lose FOSS or at least the ability to develop in a FOSS environment. It is the paradox of intolerance of a different flavor.
For a lot of people, FOSS is also very much the why. It’s not just a practical tool—it represents core principles like freedom, transparency, and collaboration. Those values are the reason many contribute in the first place.
Emphasis on the freedom, especially the freedom to use by anyone for any purpose.
If it took some people in the FOSS space this long that it also includes people, companies or purposes they disagree with, then I don't know what to tell them.
You are correct but in the context of free software, the FSF has been explicit about this ("The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose"). Publishing software under a FOSS license imply that you agree with this definition of freedom.
Have you actually read one a Free/Open-Source license? Like for example the MIT[1] license:
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software [...] to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software [...]
Or the FSF's definition[2] of Free Software
The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
Or the OSI's definition[3] of open source.
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
It's almost as if this concept is at the very core of FOSS.
Yes. Much as there's "MIT free", there's also "AGPL free", and many "MIT free" people consider the AGPL "non-" or less free due to restrictions, while "AGPL free" people consider it more free by demanding its derivatives also be free.
While "use for any purpose" has been included, I think considering purpose is a natural extension of this concept. Suppose there were some software project that aimed to practically eliminate the ability for users to share and use free or open software as it is today. Is it more free to allow such a project to be unrestricted from using other software, even if that project would lead to the destruction of free software otherwise?
That's like saying "I have the freedom to kill you".
Saying that you can create something, then you reserve the 'freedom' to limit what everyone else does for it really doesn't fall under the word freedom at all.
The interpretation is simple and the complete opposite of "I have the freedom to kill you".
The software creator (human or AI) must give the user of its software the same freedoms it has received.
If it has received the freedom to view the original, readable, source code, then users should have the freedom to view the original, readable, source code.
If it has received the freedom to modify the source code, then users should have the freedom to modify the source code.
Etc.
It's not hard to follow for people who want to do the moral thing.
It's VERY hard to follow for people who want to make money (and ideally lots of it, very quickly).
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