4 ms·

> POSIX is a monolith and really deserves to be improved. I want it to be improved but I fear it is becoming irrelevant. There are very few OSes left to be co

• fouc 6y ago
  It's depressing to think that the Cambrian explosion that lead to a variety of hardware, software, operating systems, and web browsers and great freedom and power for the end user is gradually getting culled and turning into a monoculture of walled gardens and the end users are just getting screwed.
  • 411111111111111 6y ago
    Linux is considered a walled garden? Really? I mean yeah, there were more operating systems before, some of which were open.. but I'm not convinced it's necessarily bad to have one open system win. If it didn't, I'm pretty sure there would be a lot more people using windows servers, which I think would've been far worse for the open community.
    • AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      > Linux is considered a walled garden? Really? Kinda, yeah. At least in the Desktop space it seems like it desperately wants to be and Canonical in particular works to push it in that direction. For instance, it is highly discouraged to install software from outside your distro's repository.
      • _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
        Talking about Canonical (which advocates Snaps as a supplement to the distro's repo) and "it is highly discouraged to install software from outside your distro's repository" in the same breath is rather odd. As is thinking that Linux of all OSes is in any way a walled garden.
        • deleted 6y ago
          [deleted]
        • AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
          Snap is very canonical centric. You cannot set up your own snap store, automatic updates are mandatory, etc. It's is for all intents and purposes a second Ubuntu repo with even stricter control.
          • _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
            Multiple repos using different applications then. And the general proliferation of Appimages, Flatpak, Nix, Guix, Docker containers, and of course local building of software all tell against the "using software from outside the distro's repos is discouraged" representation.
            • AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
              Of those listed, only AppImage is as easy to publish and install as your average Windows software (Flatpak is a not-so-close second with significantly more limitations). And then you get prominent FOSS developers like Drew DeVault saying that those distribution methods are terrible ideas because they are dangerous. The way things work in the Linux Desktop and its community are just not conducive to simply passing around software without middlemen the way it has been in real personal computing systems since the 80s.
              • _emacsomancer_ 6y ago
                You can make assertions like this if you like, but they're simply untrue. Windows is nightmare to install software on, while on Linux one usually has multiple, easy-to-install-and-keep-updated options (Appimage being the worst choice, because it is the most Windows-distribution-like, and requires the application itself to check for updates etc.). You can also distribute binaries on Linux easily enough. There's just no general reason to want to do so.
    • fouc 6y ago
      To be clear I wasn't calling Linux a walled garden. But I was talking about overall trends. For example, there some are efforts to push Linux in this direction, most recently with some centralized app/package store. Also Linux Foundation was setup and is funded by big corporations like Microsoft, Google, etc in order to find ways to exert influence over Linux's growth.