mrgarborg

I've done lots of embedded development on Linux, and it's mostly been a painless experience. Segger has a Linux library which works great, as well as Embedded Studio which runs on Linux. GCC-arm and several other compilers are avaible. I've been working a lot with Nordic Semiconductor's ARM-based SoCs, and I'd say Linux is a fully viable environment for the applications I've worked on.

IRC? If that were the case, and open source servers like UnrealIRCd were somehow backdoored in a way the community couldn't detect, you're still free to implement your own backdoor-free server and client if you want. The spec is freely and openly available as RFC1459.

How is it not up to society to make sure that the people in it who are working to the best of their ability are getting a share of total economic output that makes it possible and bearable for them to live in said society?

If you are already living in a cheap area, in a studio apartment or with roommates, if you are not splurging on luxury items, you are working 40-70 hour weeks, and what is left over after you've paid rent, utilities and insurance is < $100/month, it is not an issue about financial responsibility anymore. It is an issue of those workers not getting a fair stake in society's economic output.

Education in and of itself is not the answer, when reality is that there are going to be people at the bottom rungs as long as there are fewer decent-paying jobs than there are people who need them. At the local level it's a zero-sum game: If I outcompete someone and get a job, someone else will not. The problem is not solved, the burden has just been put on someone else's shoulders.