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The most-used operating system in the world has a Linux kernel. But, it might not be in front of you...except when you're checking email, waiting in line, playi
by aaronbrethorst 9y ago
The most-used operating system in the world has a Linux kernel. But, it might not be in front of you...except when you're checking email, waiting in line, playing Angry Birds, making a photograph, or checking up on Facebook.
- oblio 9y ago> except when you're checking email, waiting in line, playing Angry Birds, making a photograph, or checking up on Facebook. You've just proved his point more than you ever wanted. > checking email On the (probably) proprietary Mail or Gmail app. > waiting in line On the (probably) proprietary app for whichever thing you're staying in line for. > playing Angry Birds ... > making a photograph ... > or checking up on Facebook ...! Who care if the kernel, heavily modified and buried 100 layers deep is Open Source if all the apps users actually use are proprietary?
- aaronbrethorst 9y agoGiven your sense of fatalism about this, I assume you don’t spend your free time building OSS apps for mobile platforms?
- oblio 9y agoI'm not a fatalist, I'm just pointing out a fact. FOSS is far from winning. FOSS has barely "won" the lower levels of the stack and the highly technical niches. But the more you move towards user-facing applications, the more proprietary things become.
- aaronbrethorst 9y agoIf you genuinely care about reversing this, then I recommend spending more of your free time building open source apps meant for end user consumption.
- qplex 9y ago>Who care if the kernel, heavily modified and buried 100 layers deep is Open Source if all the apps users actually use are proprietary? I guess by this definition any open sourced library that an "end user app" uses doesn't count either.