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This just sounds like some weird hipsterism. While Linux has plenty of programming tools, there are plenty of other industries that are underserved by Linux and

This just sounds like some weird hipsterism. While Linux has plenty of programming tools, there are plenty of other industries that are underserved by Linux and I don't see how putting out commercial programs for those people will "kill it for you." Linux more than anything else allows you to just not involve yourself in things you don't want concern yourself with.

windexh8er 5y ago
It's definitely not a "hipsterism". I agree with OP as I've been using Linux as my daily driver on both desktop and all personal laptops since 2003. I've gone through a number of distros over that time and I do pay for a few applications that run natively on Linux. However all mainstream OSes, today, are a garbage experience comparatively. Locked down, too many choices made for you already out of the box, excessive local advertising and that's just getting started. I'm forced to use Windows or OS X at work, I choose the latter, but still do the majority of my productive tasks outside of Apple. I'd pick my aging T470 all day long over my corp issued 16" MBP. I don't want corporations like Apple or Microsoft controlling my hardware. We can see where that's got us and it's a disgusting dead end of the user not truly having control or ownership.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  "I'm not like the normies" definitely is a hipsterism. Linux is the OS for people who like tinkering. Tinkering is the point. It's all about building random crap for the sake of building it and hand-editing config files. On the desktop 90% of the projects are second rate clones of commercial software with a weird GUI, poorer features, and added user hostility. As for corporations - they already control your hardware. There is no such thing as open hardware, and won't be until chip-level designs can be fabbed at home. (And even then, because chip design is far beyond the skills of the average hacker and won't be practical without AI doing the heavy lifting.) But worse - Linux and corporations have both locked down your imagination to the point where you cannot imagine that your experience does not generalise. Access to source doesn't change that, because access to source code and tinkering aren't a substitute for being able to imagine original, beautiful, and useful new things for end users - not just an endless churn of half-finished clone projects and infinite dev tools.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    > Linux is the OS for people who like tinkering. Tinkering is the point. It's all about building random crap for the sake of building it and hand-editing config files. Bollocks. I use linux for my work every day and like my privacy and the confidentiality of my data.
  - usr1106 5y ago
    > Tinkering is the point No. You can do it if you want, but you don't have to. I used to have a huge .emacsrc, .Xresources and what not in the far past. Today I have just a couple of lines that help me avoiding stupid mistakes, but nothing at all to try to tune look and feel. I use Xfce on some machines and i3 on others. Both just work out of the box. The former for an average user, the latter of course needs a certain attitude and some learning initially. I am sure you can also work with Gnome or KDE without starting tinkering. Maybe one exception: hdpi support on Xfce does not seem to be ready, at least not on Xubuntu LTS. So one step of tinkering was needed: Turn off the nonsense. And never look back.
  - wooptoo 5y ago
    > On the desktop 90% of the projects are second rate clones of commercial software with a weird GUI, poorer features, and added user hostility. A lot of free/open-source software is created by a single developer in their spare time, because they want an open & functional version of their favourite commercial app. The weird GUI is what you get when you can't devote unlimited man-hours and millions of $ to the project. A lot of good has come from the Linux and open-source movement, let's not pretend otherwise.
    - vetinari 5y ago
      > The weird GUI is what you get when you can't devote unlimited man-hours and millions of $ to the project. I will take weird or unpolished GUI over polished, dark patterns, thank you very much. Because that's the choice that we really make.
      - cglace 5y ago
jacquesm 5y ago
Yes, those weird hipsters that think Stallman was on to something. Free software is exactly what kept Linux free, the moment it would get locked up it would go the same way that Windows and MacOS have gone: consumer oriented platforms rather than computer operating systems. Ideal for pushing ads and for-pay software down your throat rather than tools for you to use as you see fit.
- tomnipotent 5y ago
  Microsoft putting ads into the OS was a real low blow, and they've made some really bad blunders over the years. But there is nothing more valuable to me than my time. It takes me less time to be productive on Windows and OS X and remove all the junk, than it does to waste countless hours trying to get a Linux DE configured "just right" based on whatever combo I'm using and feature parity I need. I'll chose my time over my money, and I'm OK with that. Turns out paying professionals for quality goods is an alright business model, and I'm not losing any sleep by not having source code access.
  - mrmonkeyman 5y ago
    You'll have a blast paying thousands of dollars for rented, ad-laden, subpar machines with 90s performance that monitor every move you make. I, for one, welcome our various overlords. May we be instruments in their capable hands. May our thoughts be forever monitored and watched for vigilance is of the utmost importance.
  - vladvasiliu 5y ago
    I too value my time. And yes, MacOS or Windows allow you to be productive almost right away compared to say Arch Linux. Compared to something like Ubuntu, I'm not so sure. And things which I use daily don't seem supported on Windows (using the GPG app on my Yubikey for SSH access). But this is just an upfront cost. With Windows, which I've tried to use regularly, there are many annoyances which introduce friction in the day to day. So the "opex" if you will is much higher. Just this morning I started my Windows machine to play a quick game and wanted to check out something on the internet beforehand. It started bugging me about some "recommended browser settings" in some Edge window that showed up half off-screen that I couldn't move. Then there's the Windows Terminal app which sometimes takes forever to start up. And windows that pop up and look active but aren't. Then there's a bunch of other little annoyances which I now forget but over a work day end up aggravating. Of course, YMMV as they say, and I know people who aren't as bothered by those. But in case you are annoyed, the upfront cost of setting up your Linux DE just right may be cheaper in the long run. I've spent a while setting up i3 a few years ago, just out of curiosity. I had been a MacOS user at the time for a very long time. But then something happened, and it grew on me. Now I only use my mac from time to time when idly watching a movie in bed, because I find it slower to use. I hate having to hunt around for windows, move then around, click on some Dock icon which sometimes doesn't show, others shows up while it shouldn't (in the full-screen Mail window usually). I guess the point is that different people have different needs and are willing to pay different prices for those. There's also a case to be made about high upfront cost + low maintenance vs low upfront cost + high maintenance. > Turns out paying professionals for quality goods is an alright business model, and I'm not losing any sleep by not having source code access. Well, of course. Only issue is how you define quality, as related to what you need. For me, the price of the Windows license was lumped in the same bin with the GPU. Have to buy it to be able to play a game I wanted to play. But I'd feel robbed if I had to pay for it and than have to use it for my job. In my case, I haven't looked under the hood of the Linux kernel or the DE or the terminal app or anything, for that matter. It just works better for me. And I'm also OK to invest some time if it means I'll be more confortable down the road.
Aeolun 5y ago
You can theoretically not involve yourself in Facebook either. Once your default distribution starts shipping with built in ads, and every other distribution follows suit because it makes them boatloads of money, your linux desktop will be well and truly dead.
- wrycoder 5y ago
  Then a team forms up to fork and strip the ads, just like Devuan stripped systemd.
- kbenson 5y ago
  > Once your default distribution starts shipping with built in ads, and every other distribution follows suit because it makes them boatloads of money, your linux desktop will be well and truly dead. Is there some idiom or trope to this that I'm missing that makes it obvious sarcasm? Because that's literally not possible without some inconceivable laws being passed, so I'm confused as to what you're trying to communicate.
- scns 5y ago
  Wont happen, Ubuntu tried it by integrating amazon into search and had to backpedal pretty quickly.
  - laurent92 5y ago
    Exactly that’s when I left Ubuntu. They really had a chance, and shot their own foot with dedication. Who would upload every keystroke of a Linux user to Amazon?
    - hammyhavoc 5y ago
      Mozilla makes Google the default search engine in Firefox because they're paid to. What's your point? Without money, the biggest projects would struggle to stay afloat.
  - read_if_gay_ 5y ago
    But Ubuntu is still in a fringe market. The discussion is about what would be if it were in a mainstream market.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
> I don't see how putting out commercial programs for those people will "kill it for you." Look at nvidia. They release proprietary drivers that do things in the opposite way things are supposed to be done. It's supposed to be integrated, they do their own thing. It's supposed to be open, they close it. They only do things if it's on their terms. They don't contribute to Linux as a whole, they merely co-opt it for their own purposes. They don't believe in making Linux a better system for all, they do just enough to satisfy their customers and call it a day. If that's what commercial software means for Linux, the other platforms can keep it.
- shadilay 5y ago
  "Nvidia, fuck you!"
  - stana 5y ago
    *Linus Torvalds quote
- bserge 5y ago
  Uh, what? Wasn't Linux about the user's freedom? If people want Adobe and Solidworks (which will definitely behave like Nvidia), let them have it. It would be a benefit to Linux adoption.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    It's absolutely about user freedom. The problem is companies will sacrifice our freedom as soon as it starts making things inconvenient for them. Our freedom literally gets in the way of their business.
    - hammyhavoc 5y ago
      What do you expect? They're a business.
      - 5y ago
eloisius 5y ago
Sounds more Nietzschean to me. He said something to the effect of universal literacy wouldn’t be without downsides. The quality of written material would drop as previously illiterate people would write and water down literary culture. Not sure I agree with that wrt literature, but tech was certainly more enjoyable to me before everyone had to consider the “average user,” make things user-friendly, and of course not ignore the enormous profitability that mass market software offers.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Elitism is always good for the elite. > tech was certainly more enjoyable to me before everyone had to consider the “average user,” Yeah. To people like us, computing has intrinsic value. We like the system. We want to control it. We want to understand it. We want to make it better. We want to make it ours. Normal people simply don't care about this. Corporations make every effort to hide the computer from them. That's where the money is so we end up getting lumped together with this average person. Why can't we have systems designed for programmers? It doesn't matter if some normal person can't use it.
  - eloisius 5y ago
    My cynical answer is that we often do, but once they are modestly profitable they get gobbled up by The Business and MBA-types find ways to grow their market share by making it palatable to normals.
feanaro 5y ago
You're missing the part that you won't be maintaining your whole system yourself. You'll instead be relying on other people to do in the form of distros and packages. The trouble comes from a slippage in expectations and the increased incentives to do bad things. Once some (e.g.) spyware in some software is expected and acceptable, suddenly more spyware in even more apps could potentially be acceptable. Now it becomes a constant effort to keeping track of a known good application set which expends a lot of energy. And any one of those apps in the good set could spoil at any time. And of course, the increased commercial incentives of a lot of non-technical people using the platform immensely increase the likelihood of this occuring. So it's not hipsterism, it's just something that's been observed to happen many, many times.

windexh8er 5y ago

It's definitely not a "hipsterism". I agree with OP as I've been using Linux as my daily driver on both desktop and all personal laptops since 2003. I've gone through a number of distros over that time and I do pay for a few applications that run natively on Linux. However all mainstream OSes, today, are a garbage experience comparatively. Locked down, too many choices made for you already out of the box, excessive local advertising and that's just getting started. I'm forced to use Windows or OS X at work, I choose the latter, but still do the majority of my productive tasks outside of Apple. I'd pick my aging T470 all day long over my corp issued 16" MBP. I don't want corporations like Apple or Microsoft controlling my hardware. We can see where that's got us and it's a disgusting dead end of the user not truly having control or ownership.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
"I'm not like the normies" definitely is a hipsterism. Linux is the OS for people who like tinkering. Tinkering is the point. It's all about building random crap for the sake of building it and hand-editing config files. On the desktop 90% of the projects are second rate clones of commercial software with a weird GUI, poorer features, and added user hostility. As for corporations - they already control your hardware. There is no such thing as open hardware, and won't be until chip-level designs can be fabbed at home. (And even then, because chip design is far beyond the skills of the average hacker and won't be practical without AI doing the heavy lifting.) But worse - Linux and corporations have both locked down your imagination to the point where you cannot imagine that your experience does not generalise. Access to source doesn't change that, because access to source code and tinkering aren't a substitute for being able to imagine original, beautiful, and useful new things for end users - not just an endless churn of half-finished clone projects and infinite dev tools.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > Linux is the OS for people who like tinkering. Tinkering is the point. It's all about building random crap for the sake of building it and hand-editing config files. Bollocks. I use linux for my work every day and like my privacy and the confidentiality of my data.
- usr1106 5y ago
  > Tinkering is the point No. You can do it if you want, but you don't have to. I used to have a huge .emacsrc, .Xresources and what not in the far past. Today I have just a couple of lines that help me avoiding stupid mistakes, but nothing at all to try to tune look and feel. I use Xfce on some machines and i3 on others. Both just work out of the box. The former for an average user, the latter of course needs a certain attitude and some learning initially. I am sure you can also work with Gnome or KDE without starting tinkering. Maybe one exception: hdpi support on Xfce does not seem to be ready, at least not on Xubuntu LTS. So one step of tinkering was needed: Turn off the nonsense. And never look back.
- wooptoo 5y ago
  > On the desktop 90% of the projects are second rate clones of commercial software with a weird GUI, poorer features, and added user hostility. A lot of free/open-source software is created by a single developer in their spare time, because they want an open & functional version of their favourite commercial app. The weird GUI is what you get when you can't devote unlimited man-hours and millions of $ to the project. A lot of good has come from the Linux and open-source movement, let's not pretend otherwise.
  - vetinari 5y ago
    > The weird GUI is what you get when you can't devote unlimited man-hours and millions of $ to the project. I will take weird or unpolished GUI over polished, dark patterns, thank you very much. Because that's the choice that we really make.
    - cglace 5y ago

jacquesm 5y ago

Yes, those weird hipsters that think Stallman was on to something. Free software is exactly what kept Linux free, the moment it would get locked up it would go the same way that Windows and MacOS have gone: consumer oriented platforms rather than computer operating systems. Ideal for pushing ads and for-pay software down your throat rather than tools for you to use as you see fit.

tomnipotent 5y ago
Microsoft putting ads into the OS was a real low blow, and they've made some really bad blunders over the years. But there is nothing more valuable to me than my time. It takes me less time to be productive on Windows and OS X and remove all the junk, than it does to waste countless hours trying to get a Linux DE configured "just right" based on whatever combo I'm using and feature parity I need. I'll chose my time over my money, and I'm OK with that. Turns out paying professionals for quality goods is an alright business model, and I'm not losing any sleep by not having source code access.
- mrmonkeyman 5y ago
  You'll have a blast paying thousands of dollars for rented, ad-laden, subpar machines with 90s performance that monitor every move you make. I, for one, welcome our various overlords. May we be instruments in their capable hands. May our thoughts be forever monitored and watched for vigilance is of the utmost importance.
- vladvasiliu 5y ago
  I too value my time. And yes, MacOS or Windows allow you to be productive almost right away compared to say Arch Linux. Compared to something like Ubuntu, I'm not so sure. And things which I use daily don't seem supported on Windows (using the GPG app on my Yubikey for SSH access). But this is just an upfront cost. With Windows, which I've tried to use regularly, there are many annoyances which introduce friction in the day to day. So the "opex" if you will is much higher. Just this morning I started my Windows machine to play a quick game and wanted to check out something on the internet beforehand. It started bugging me about some "recommended browser settings" in some Edge window that showed up half off-screen that I couldn't move. Then there's the Windows Terminal app which sometimes takes forever to start up. And windows that pop up and look active but aren't. Then there's a bunch of other little annoyances which I now forget but over a work day end up aggravating. Of course, YMMV as they say, and I know people who aren't as bothered by those. But in case you are annoyed, the upfront cost of setting up your Linux DE just right may be cheaper in the long run. I've spent a while setting up i3 a few years ago, just out of curiosity. I had been a MacOS user at the time for a very long time. But then something happened, and it grew on me. Now I only use my mac from time to time when idly watching a movie in bed, because I find it slower to use. I hate having to hunt around for windows, move then around, click on some Dock icon which sometimes doesn't show, others shows up while it shouldn't (in the full-screen Mail window usually). I guess the point is that different people have different needs and are willing to pay different prices for those. There's also a case to be made about high upfront cost + low maintenance vs low upfront cost + high maintenance. > Turns out paying professionals for quality goods is an alright business model, and I'm not losing any sleep by not having source code access. Well, of course. Only issue is how you define quality, as related to what you need. For me, the price of the Windows license was lumped in the same bin with the GPU. Have to buy it to be able to play a game I wanted to play. But I'd feel robbed if I had to pay for it and than have to use it for my job. In my case, I haven't looked under the hood of the Linux kernel or the DE or the terminal app or anything, for that matter. It just works better for me. And I'm also OK to invest some time if it means I'll be more confortable down the road.

Aeolun 5y ago

You can theoretically not involve yourself in Facebook either. Once your default distribution starts shipping with built in ads, and every other distribution follows suit because it makes them boatloads of money, your linux desktop will be well and truly dead.

wrycoder 5y ago
Then a team forms up to fork and strip the ads, just like Devuan stripped systemd.
kbenson 5y ago
> Once your default distribution starts shipping with built in ads, and every other distribution follows suit because it makes them boatloads of money, your linux desktop will be well and truly dead. Is there some idiom or trope to this that I'm missing that makes it obvious sarcasm? Because that's literally not possible without some inconceivable laws being passed, so I'm confused as to what you're trying to communicate.
scns 5y ago
Wont happen, Ubuntu tried it by integrating amazon into search and had to backpedal pretty quickly.
- laurent92 5y ago
  Exactly that’s when I left Ubuntu. They really had a chance, and shot their own foot with dedication. Who would upload every keystroke of a Linux user to Amazon?
  - hammyhavoc 5y ago
    Mozilla makes Google the default search engine in Firefox because they're paid to. What's your point? Without money, the biggest projects would struggle to stay afloat.
- read_if_gay_ 5y ago
  But Ubuntu is still in a fringe market. The discussion is about what would be if it were in a mainstream market.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> I don't see how putting out commercial programs for those people will "kill it for you." Look at nvidia. They release proprietary drivers that do things in the opposite way things are supposed to be done. It's supposed to be integrated, they do their own thing. It's supposed to be open, they close it. They only do things if it's on their terms. They don't contribute to Linux as a whole, they merely co-opt it for their own purposes. They don't believe in making Linux a better system for all, they do just enough to satisfy their customers and call it a day. If that's what commercial software means for Linux, the other platforms can keep it.

shadilay 5y ago
"Nvidia, fuck you!"
- stana 5y ago
  *Linus Torvalds quote
bserge 5y ago
Uh, what? Wasn't Linux about the user's freedom? If people want Adobe and Solidworks (which will definitely behave like Nvidia), let them have it. It would be a benefit to Linux adoption.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  It's absolutely about user freedom. The problem is companies will sacrifice our freedom as soon as it starts making things inconvenient for them. Our freedom literally gets in the way of their business.
  - hammyhavoc 5y ago
    What do you expect? They're a business.
    - 5y ago

eloisius 5y ago

Sounds more Nietzschean to me. He said something to the effect of universal literacy wouldn’t be without downsides. The quality of written material would drop as previously illiterate people would write and water down literary culture. Not sure I agree with that wrt literature, but tech was certainly more enjoyable to me before everyone had to consider the “average user,” make things user-friendly, and of course not ignore the enormous profitability that mass market software offers.

matheusmoreira 5y ago
Elitism is always good for the elite. > tech was certainly more enjoyable to me before everyone had to consider the “average user,” Yeah. To people like us, computing has intrinsic value. We like the system. We want to control it. We want to understand it. We want to make it better. We want to make it ours. Normal people simply don't care about this. Corporations make every effort to hide the computer from them. That's where the money is so we end up getting lumped together with this average person. Why can't we have systems designed for programmers? It doesn't matter if some normal person can't use it.
- eloisius 5y ago
  My cynical answer is that we often do, but once they are modestly profitable they get gobbled up by The Business and MBA-types find ways to grow their market share by making it palatable to normals.

feanaro 5y ago

You're missing the part that you won't be maintaining your whole system yourself. You'll instead be relying on other people to do in the form of distros and packages. The trouble comes from a slippage in expectations and the increased incentives to do bad things. Once some (e.g.) spyware in some software is expected and acceptable, suddenly more spyware in even more apps could potentially be acceptable. Now it becomes a constant effort to keeping track of a known good application set which expends a lot of energy. And any one of those apps in the good set could spoil at any time. And of course, the increased commercial incentives of a lot of non-technical people using the platform immensely increase the likelihood of this occuring. So it's not hipsterism, it's just something that's been observed to happen many, many times.