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I have been reading this same article for the past thirty years. Yet, I can still install and run whatever operating system and software I want on my laptop _an

by avalys 6y ago

I have been reading this same article for the past thirty years. Yet, I can still install and run whatever operating system and software I want on my laptop _and_ desktop, and I don't see any sign that that freedom will go away anytime soon. It is true that the billion-dollar media companies have decided a subscription model is more lucrative than a one-time-purchase model for the mass-market content they produce (movies, TV shows, music, etc.). But also unlike the author, I don't think my ability to consume mass-market media on my own terms is a moral imperative or has much bearing on my overall freedom. If Warner Brothers doesn't want to sell me a copy of Transformers 43 that I can play with VLC, I don't see that as much of a threat to anything I care about.

smitty1e 6y ago
Another angle is educational. With the kid, I want to get a motherboard, power supply, RAM and disk and build it all up to a prompt. Then do Linux From Scratch on it. Not practical for daily usage, but invaluable for teaching what is at stake with the stack.
atq2119 6y ago
I can still install and run whatever operating system and software I want on my laptop _and_ desktop, and I don't see any sign that that freedom will go away anytime soon. The question is how much of that is thanks to this kind of article appearing for the past thirty years. It's kind of like saying Y2K wasn't a problem: it would have been a problem if we hadn't prepared for it.
- dontbesquare 6y ago
  Exactly. What happens in the future when people quit caring about computing freedom?
jacobsenscott 6y ago
You cannot install whatever operating system you want on your tablet, phone, or, soon, any mac desktop/laptop at all. The enthusiast/gamer market isn't enough to keep the intel/adm desktop market going. Soon the only place you'll be able to run a free operating system is on a rented vm in the cloud.
- lima 6y ago
  Not on Apple devices, but custom operating systems are alive and well on most non-Apple laptops, tablets, phones, servers, or even embedded systems with no signs of it changing. PostmarketOS is a great example.
- derision 6y ago
  Sounds like apple is the problem here
cesarb 6y ago
> Yet, I can still install and run whatever operating system and software I want on my laptop _and_ desktop, and I don't see any sign that that freedom will go away anytime soon. We got awfully close though. Had Linux not been popular enough back when UEFI SecureBoot started being adopted, Microsoft would require x86 UEFI motherboards to not allow the user to install their own keys, like they did with ARM UEFI (https://www.softwarefreedom.org/blog/2012/jan/12/microsoft-confirms-UEFI-fears-locks-down-ARM/ https://www.softwarefreedom.org/blog/2012/jan/12/microsoft-c...).
- p_l 6y ago
  That's still, at best, Kremlinology (Redmondology?). Microsoft has enough clients that require custom keying that for them, locking it down would be a financial downside without Linux being in the scope.
cwhiz 6y ago
You might be able to on your specific laptop and desktop, but that isn’t universally true. It’s not true at all of video game consoles, mobile phones, tablets, smart electronics, and other computing devices. The percentage of “open” devices has been trending downward.

by avalys 6y ago

smitty1e 6y ago

Another angle is educational. With the kid, I want to get a motherboard, power supply, RAM and disk and build it all up to a prompt. Then do Linux From Scratch on it. Not practical for daily usage, but invaluable for teaching what is at stake with the stack.

atq2119 6y ago

I can still install and run whatever operating system and software I want on my laptop _and_ desktop, and I don't see any sign that that freedom will go away anytime soon. The question is how much of that is thanks to this kind of article appearing for the past thirty years. It's kind of like saying Y2K wasn't a problem: it would have been a problem if we hadn't prepared for it.

dontbesquare 6y ago
Exactly. What happens in the future when people quit caring about computing freedom?

jacobsenscott 6y ago

You cannot install whatever operating system you want on your tablet, phone, or, soon, any mac desktop/laptop at all. The enthusiast/gamer market isn't enough to keep the intel/adm desktop market going. Soon the only place you'll be able to run a free operating system is on a rented vm in the cloud.

lima 6y ago
Not on Apple devices, but custom operating systems are alive and well on most non-Apple laptops, tablets, phones, servers, or even embedded systems with no signs of it changing. PostmarketOS is a great example.
derision 6y ago
Sounds like apple is the problem here

cesarb 6y ago

> Yet, I can still install and run whatever operating system and software I want on my laptop _and_ desktop, and I don't see any sign that that freedom will go away anytime soon. We got awfully close though. Had Linux not been popular enough back when UEFI SecureBoot started being adopted, Microsoft would require x86 UEFI motherboards to not allow the user to install their own keys, like they did with ARM UEFI (https://www.softwarefreedom.org/blog/2012/jan/12/microsoft-confirms-UEFI-fears-locks-down-ARM/ https://www.softwarefreedom.org/blog/2012/jan/12/microsoft-c...).

p_l 6y ago
That's still, at best, Kremlinology (Redmondology?). Microsoft has enough clients that require custom keying that for them, locking it down would be a financial downside without Linux being in the scope.

cwhiz 6y ago

You might be able to on your specific laptop and desktop, but that isn’t universally true. It’s not true at all of video game consoles, mobile phones, tablets, smart electronics, and other computing devices. The percentage of “open” devices has been trending downward.