The article says: "Sniggering Linux users who believe in open code and open standards can take a hike. The Online Accounts systems in GNOME, Ubuntu Unity, Plas

The article says: "Sniggering Linux users who believe in open code and open standards can take a hike. The Online Accounts systems in GNOME, Ubuntu Unity, Plasma, and MATE do the exact same thing as Window 10. There are underlying CalDAV and CardDAV sync engines (Evolution Data Server, Akonadi) that power them but the user interface only expose two–three providers like Google and Yahoo! with no option to auto-discover or manually configure any other providers." I think this takes a needlessly limited view by casting the limits imposed on users of nonfree software onto free software (which is odd because elsewhere the author says they love free software). Here's the overlooked difference: with a free software program, one can improve the code to add the desired functionality and interoperability. Users can even get together and collectively fund a programmer to help them out. By contrast, Microsoft Windows 10 Email app is nonfree (proprietary, user-subjugating). Even technically capable and willing users are prohibited from reading the relevant source code, modifying it, and distributing it to help others. Even if Microsoft alters their code to add missing functionality, users likely gain no software freedom in the process. Users aren't allowed to inspect and rebuild the software. Software freedom leads to trusting that software and proprietary software is often malware (https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.html https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.html for pointers to how Microsoft's software is often malware). Software freedom is the key to understanding the difference. This limitation has nothing to do with GNU/Linux systems (unfairly referred to as "Linux" in the article; see https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Linux https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Linux for more on this) per se; software can be ported to other OSes and the desired features could be available there too. Standards that allow interoperability are a good unto themselves, just like software freedom, and we should push for both, use both, and improve both to meet our needs, not "take a hike" as the author suggests. With software freedom users don't have to beg a software proprietor (who is also a known NSA collaborator and multinational antitrust violator) to make the software more interoperable. They can help themselves, they can hire someone to help, they can ask the community (perhaps in more kind words than the article) to help. These are potent options that render the software trustworthy (regardless of who wrote it) and with sufficient improvement even cross-platform.