> "They will reject" seems an awful like "won't run on my distribution", and not because it's not compatible because of runtime or kernel differences, but because of its 'being nonfree'.

It doesn't sound like "won't run on my distribution" to me. It seems that you intentionally took this line out of context just for the argument (or to defend MS).

The full paragraph:

> These distros are ready-to-use full systems whose developers have made a commitment to follow the Free System Distribution Guidelines. This means they will include, and propose, exclusively free software. They will reject nonfree applications, nonfree programming platforms, nonfree drivers, nonfree firmware “blobs,” nonfree games, and any other nonfree software, as well as nonfree manuals or documentation.

Next paragraph:

> If one of these distros ever does include or propose anything nonfree, that must have happened by mistake...

"This means they will include...". Not "This means they will run...".

"include or propose...". Not "execute or install...".

It clearly means that they don't include nonfree stuff with their systems. Not they don't allow nonfree stuff to run.

> "Jails are systems that impose censorship on application programs." Not sure if I'm interpreting this next quote from the GNU.org site (https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html) correctly, but it seems like this is exactly their definition of a "Free GNU/Linux distribution" is meant to do: "They will reject nonfree applications, nonfree programming platforms, nonfree drivers, nonfree firmware "blobs," nonfree games, and any other nonfree software, as well as nonfree manuals or documentation."

It's not; first (as referred in article) is preventing user from using the machine as they see fit.

Second one is not accepting software into distribution that tries to take user's freedom to modify it; they don't stop you installing non-free software in free distribution, they are just not shipping the non-free software. It's a stance on not promoting (by including and making installing trivial) the non-free software but you are still free to install on your own.

Going by tired

> "They will reject" seems an awful like "won't run on my distribution", and not because it's not compatible because of runtime or kernel differences, but because of its 'being nonfree'.

Nope, it explicitly means "will not distribute, with their distribution, for free". Software actively stopping you from running other software would actually be nonfree, as the whole deal with OSS is "do with sofware what you want" and GNU deal being "and pass same priviledge forward"

I thought bigotry was scapegoating a minority group because of the actions of a few members.

Do you value the time and quality of life of the billions who can't drive a Chevy, nor will ever have a device that can run an Electron app or $10/month for Spotify?

It's not all free as in beer you know, free software is meant to serve a free society by allowing everyone to participate in the social construction of technology, not provide consumer luxuries. I think the term you're looking for is "open source"

> I thought bigotry was scapegoating a minority group because of the actions of a few members.

That's certainly one common recent use of that term. Although more often than not it's just "I don't like them but don't really have argument that passes first smelling therefore they are bigots"

The OED 2nd Edition defines bigotry as "obstinate and unenlightened attachment to a particular creed, opinion, system, or party."

Like tech bros who colonised the terra nullus of the work previously done by hidden figures then?

> proportion of women represented in the computer science field peaked around the mid-1980s and has declined ever since

> women represented in the computer science field peaked around the mid-1980s and has declined ever since

I thought ‘surely not’. I was wrong.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/there-are-too-few...

I've been in IT since the 1970s. The decrease in women in the field is striking. The article you cite is correct to make the connection to CS degree representation. Prior to the 1980s, CS degree programs were nascent if they existed at all. Not requiring this qualifitcation allowed an amazing diversity of people to enter the field.

Steve Jobs was in a way quite typical of the sort of people who showed up in the IT field. He would have a tough time getting hired today.

but open ideals are enlightened ones, so it cannot be bigotry per your definition.

I suggest staring deeply into why culture and natural language work like they do (or used to do, seems only stubborn 'artistic' types are working with culture like that nowadays)

Well, you have to pay for new android phone every couple of years, otherwise your out of date android firmware will be hacked by hundreds of RCE. You being tracked and targeted without possibility of refusal. Tour phone is not yours. This has happened because Torvalds let hardware manufacturers to tivoize kernel. This has happened “beCaUSE it wASN't FreEEE as freedom rights but as a cheese in mouse trap"

Arguably Linux would not have grown as ubiquitous if it's license didn't have the plugin loophole. Perhaps a BSD, Minix, or another would have arisen instead.

Or it would just be a Windows monopoly ecosystem. Without that loophole perhaps no open source unix-alike product would have been able to out compete Microsoft in the server space which is what lead to it's viability as core of a phone OS.

This is why I much prefer the MIT license though still respect GPL. Copy left is cool and all but it suffers from similar problems as paid software - you have restrictions on what you can do with it. The MIT license captures the spirit of “do whatever the fuck you want”

I think the main problem with MIT is that if you offer the largest industry players the opportunity to “do whatever the fuck [they] want” then they will. Historically, this has not been great for users.

As an obvious example, I honestly can't imagine the Linux kernel having had the impact that it has had if all of the myriad corporations building on it weren't forced to contribute their work back to it under the same conditions.

On the other hand, plenty of software nowadays is permissively licensed (in fact, the overwhelming majority outside of Linux and the GNU project) and everyone from individuals to huge companies contributes to it for a variety of reasons.

It's basically the same as with the paradox of tolerance:

> The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant.

>"They will reject" seems an awful like "won't run on my distribution",

No it doesn't. You are free to install whatever software you want. None of these systems will prevent a user from using non-free software. They just won't encourage it.

I find GNU's position too dogmatic, but it's not as bad as you pretend.

You're right too. Microsoft tools have enabled me to make a lot of money over the course of my career, but they're seriously neglecting quality of life features, and they're buggering Windows for developers.

On the side, I've even learned to like kale on pizza. The Kale-Zer Soze at Central Pizza in Seattle is outstanding.

someone always brings up the religious stuff

They reject all those things so you can have the choice to run your proprietary code on them.

blah blah, if microsoft was any good people would use their crap by choice not because they have to

Also true. There are some things MS Windows has better support for, especially in business and gaming.

i saw a stackoverflow survey that said something like 75% of developers use windows as their main dev environment

I imagine it was this one [0]. I was confused by it at first because it amounts to more than 100%, then I understood it's a multiple choice question, so the correct affirmation would be around 50% of spftware developers use Windows in a professional capacity, but that doesn't exclude them also using Linux, macOS or BSD.

[0]: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#section-most-popular-t...

any developer developing for windows is on windows

most game developers are on windows

whole tech sectors have been captured successful by Microsoft in the past and most developers there have to use Windows weather they like it or not, some of them are _really_ big (but also not super vocal or visible on GitHub as they tend to be quite proprietary in all of their actions).

etc. etc.

Idk. how realistic 75% is (e.g. what it counts as developer who/how people where asked etc.) but it's probably a high rate anyway.

EDIT: Also also probably using one doesn't exclude the other and doesn't necessary exclude them running it in a VM ;=)

As a personal aside, I vastly prefer deving on Windows to macOS. Linux I can take or leave, but I just dont see the point really.

I choose to use Windows unless of course you consider laziness as a form of having to do something.

MS software I use by choice and prefer to all alternatives I've tried:

* Word

* Excel

* Honestly, Teams

* Exchange / Outlook, for group scheduling

MS software I use because I have the most experience with it, and am thus more productive than I'd be with something else:

* SQL Server

> Honestly, Teams > Exchange / Outlook, for group scheduling

Are you sure?

We are a ~15 person company and there isn't a (work) day where someone doesn't have problems with teams. I can't say for sure because I hadn't used it a lot but jitsi seemed way better and google while having far worse UX was more reliable. Like screen sharing stopping working (without any error or anything just stand bild) during a meeting is pretty common, or abstruse things like one time the chat was just missing until I restarted it or another time there was a partition of rooms until everyone left the meeting and then reentered it again.

Similar problems with outlook are also not that uncommon (but more rare), like e.g. calendars not syncing, the only things really speaking for it (compared to some other good team calendar applications) IMHO is it's integration with teams... which is worth something, I mean it's pretty convenient.

We're about the same size, and don't have issues with it really at all, but we use it only for:

* Calling each other;

* Ad-hoc meetings internally, because our normal meeting platform has become cumbersome (GoTo);

* IMs

I see it'll do other stuff, but we're not really using those aspects. And I should also be super clear that I'm not saying Teams is actually GOOD. I have just found it to be better than any of the alternatives I've seen or used.

That's also very much how I feel about Outlook/Exchange. I mean, look, I'm a Mac guy. I use the Mac mail client almost but not quite exclusively; I also have an RD session up to a Windows VM all day every day for other reasons, and run Outlook there. The gap that drives me to Outlook/Exchange is scheduling. It just works, and works in a way that nothing else I've seen approaches -- even when messaging people outside our org.

I wish Apple calendaring was this good. I really do. But it's not.

When you say ‘Word’, do you mean the app, the online one, or the Teams thing? They all behave differently and aren’t fully compatible. It’s very frustrating how formatting changes between the Words. I’m bound by a regulator to format a certain way and it’s brutal when using a full MS stack.

I really do hate is MSFT's naming conventions AND their propensity for calling two different products by the same name for marketing reasons.

I mean Microsoft Word, the word processing tool that runs as a native app on one's computer. The degree to which the online or Teams versions do not play nice with the "real" one is a HUGE own-goal by MSFT and reason enough to avoid them if you can. If you're going to have an online tool called Word, it damn well needs to work EXACTLY LIKE THE REAL VERSION.

You might be (not) pleased to know that Windows 10 and Windows 11 both identify internally as NT 10.0.

I'm definitely not surprised.

I've used both extensively and interchangeably. The fact that Microsoft got "Word" running in the web, and embedded inside another application, and made it all work mostly seamlessly is downright amazing. I've yet to encounter any issues with formatting between the three, and am constantly surprised at their ability to be consistent.

Now where it all goes pear-shaped, is not the technical side of it all, it's the UX and marketing teams that got involved. One big example is the "save" dialog that's been butchered beyond describing (even in the standalone desktop version of Word) in order to promote OneDrive and other microsoft offerings.

My issues: Pictures, headers and footers, the amount one can fit in a page (varies between versions). What will happen to the Teams version if I download it, edit in the native app and save?

Downloading a lot of files off Teams usually fails and gives a load of html files.

The ‘integration’ nag for one drive which can’t be dismissed or enabled but seems to work.

It’s an absolute mess and I’m very surprised to encounter someone who finds it works well.

I've always used Windows by choice, got a problem?

I run Windows 11 on my personal laptop. Best part is it's a Framework Laptop, it's 100% compatible with Linux and has official support for Ubuntu and Fedora, and yet I choose to run Windows 11 on it. I prefer the Windows UI to the abomination that is GNOME and I'm also able to do basic things like sleep and hibernate my machine without it freaking out.

Mate is pretty good.

Cinnamon DE is great.

i3wm or ratpoison tho frfr

plasma DE is really nice though; and I use that on my artix install. Love it. It's like windows but it doesn't suck

I actually like Plasma a lot as well out of the Linux desktop environments, it feels like the only one that actually cares about design and UX. It's a shame that GNOME is the 'default' Linux DE and often the only one with real support from distros.

That's one of the things that I really can't understand. Gnome is awful and the people who work on it are so out of touch with what users actually want.

Plasma understands that; as well as PLENTY OF OTHER DEs but your casual linux observer just thinks "wow gnome looks ugly" and it does, it always has, i still have absolutely no idea why anyone would roll a distro out with that... mess.

I prefer the gnome ui to the abomination that is windows :) I'm also able to do basic things like sleep and hibernate my Ubuntu machine without it freaking out.