4 ms·

Imagine writing words into a computer that depends on the state of affairs at Apple/Microsoft.

• factorialboy 4y ago
  Which OS do you use?
• smt88 4y ago
  There was never such a period. For the last few decades, it has been relatively easy (definitely a hassle that most people wouldn't want to do, but not especially complicated) to build a PC and run Linux on it. I did it as a child just following instructions online without understanding what I was doing.
  • com2kid 4y ago
    And that PC's functionality is dependent upon code contributed by dozens of large technology companies. Even GCC and Clang work well because Intel and AMD contribute to them. Heck, Firefox exists because Google keeps funding them. It isn't 2002 anymore where Linux was some radical open source project with basement hackers making it all work.
    • yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
      > And that PC's functionality is dependent upon code contributed by dozens of large technology companies. Even GCC and Clang work well because Intel and AMD contribute to them. That really doesn't seem like the same problem; there's a world of difference between being wholly at the mercy of one company (Facebook, Microsoft, Apple) vs "dozens of large technology companies". If tomorrow Microsoft disappeared or turned more evil, Windows users would have a problem. If tomorrow Redhat disappeared or turned more evil, Linux users at large would be totally fine, and even folks in the RH ecosystem would recover quickly enough (probably by rebasing Rocky directly from Fedora).
• azangru 4y ago
  You've just expressed the sentiment of the open source (or free software) community :-)