4 ms·

Y'know, back in the early 2000's and the days of Slashdot, it was quite common to find people who advocated for free software everywhere. Now we find people wh

• yostrovs 10y ago
  Because Linux was supposed to become a great thing, but instead it remained a paradise for geeks to do what they think is best. Software built to make money, on the other hand, was built to improve things like ease of use, aesthetics, and buyer's happiness, because that's what buyers were looking for. The open-source people never really cared about the dumb people and lay folks, the ignoramuses that didn't care to learn how to compose commands and figure out regular expressions. And that Linux was supposed to be the shining example of open-source software, one that so many people installed and tried, only to find out it blows and is effectively unusable for their needs.
  • visarga 10y ago
    I was under the impression that Mac OS, iOS, Android and recently Windows all run "Linux" under the hood nowadays. Not to mention the presence of Linux in the cloud, which is essential for the functioning of most websites, apps and mobile devices. Am I wrong? Basically, it's easier to tell where there is no Linux than the opposite. That surely doesn't sound like such a failure. It's as if all the other OSes and systems are front-ends for Linux subsystems.
    • ashitlerferad 10y ago
      Only Android actually uses Linux. macOS/iOS are proprietary Apple things with bits of mach and FreeBSD. The Windows thing you are probably thinking of is that Microsoft reimplemented various Linux APIs, so software built for Linux can run under Windows without Linux being involved.
    • MichaelBurge 10y ago
      Windows is not Linux "under the hood".
• randyrand 10y ago
  The fear is then others can rip it . It's an interesting proposition.
  • tremon 10y ago
    Rip what? Linux is free software, there's nothing to "rip"...
    • randyrand 10y ago
      iOS is not among many other softwares
• nyan4 10y ago
  > Why did we go from [...] talking about how all software will some day be free to being afraid to seriously consider the proposition? HN is clearly not attracting much of the FLOSS crowd.
• michaelt 10y ago
  What happened to us? My theory is this is HN-specific - and what you saw on slashdot was slashdot-specific. Because HN started as part of YC its culture really likes VC-backed startups. And we think VCs want the kind of huge returns that are seen more often by closed source companies - they want to back the next Microsoft or Apple or Google or Facebook or Paypal or Amazon, not the next Red Hat or Canonical or MySQL. It wouldn't make much sense for people to believe free software is a moral imperative, while aspiring to launch huge closed-source companies.
  • jordigh 10y ago
    I see a similar lack of enthusiasm for free software everywhere, not just in HN (maybe confirmation bias), in Lobsters, Reddit, IRC. I really think that Unix in Apple and Android has given us what Steinbeck calls "a bored and slothful cynicism, in which rebellion against the world as it is, and myself as I am, are submerged in listless self-satisfaction." It's good enough for most people, we have some Unix under the hood if we go looking for it, free software has mostly won. Or something. I really don't know. I miss the rebels of yesteryear.
    • hx87 10y ago
      Maybe it's just that the rebels these days are quieter and more establishmentarian, because they have /become/ the establishment. TBF, I quite like this state of affairs and don't miss the rebellion-for-the-sake-of-rebellion attitudes of yesteryear.
      • jordigh 10y ago
        Yeah. If you don't hurry up to change the world, then the world changes you. http://www.sylvialiuland.com/2012/01/mafalda-classic-cartoon-for-any-age.html http://www.sylvialiuland.com/2012/01/mafalda-classic-cartoon...
        • hx87 10y ago
          Even if you do change the world, the world changes you. It's not a zero sum game.