> It doesn't matter how open your software sources are if you run it on closed hardware. It matters a great deal. This thread is about the behaviour of Finder,

> It doesn't matter how open your software sources are if you run it on closed hardware. It matters a great deal. This thread is about the behaviour of Finder, a proprietary software application. More broadly, while it's true that most modern hardware prevents the user from having full control, it's also the case that much is won by using only Free and Open Source software. (Last year the FSF got their servers onto fully Free Software BIOS software, but this took considerable effort as well as the use of hardware from 2012. [0]) > So no, the product, the context and biology will not allow you to contain such a system in a single mind. Agreed, but while a total understanding of the system is one way to achieve confidence that it isn't built to work against your interests, it isn't the only way. > If you ask a user which OS is more user-hostile out of a list that contains any Linux-distribution, but also Windows and macOS, it doesn't matter what is technically measures, what matters is that the user will call out that Linux distribution for being user-hostile. Again this is defeatism. Free Software desktop operating systems have some usability issues, but in my experience they're much more approachable than many people seem to think. This is especially true now that a web browser is enough to enable most of what desktop computers are used for. It's not as if the non-Free operating systems are perfect either. FOSS operating systems aren't in such a good place on mobile as they are on desktop and server, unfortunately. > As for telemetry: just because alarmists alarm about it all day long doesn't mean it's universally bad. What is bad is going it for user profiling and not telling about it Yes, I don't think anyone disagrees. HackerNews folks give Firefox a hard time over its telemetry precisely because the user isn't given a choice. They aren't even told it's going to happen, as I recall. It's particularly grating considering Mozilla's self-promotion as being uniquely pro-user. > You get what you pay for In terms of spying on their users, Debian is far better behaved than Microsoft, despite that Debian's offering is available free of charge and Microsoft's is not. [0] https://www.fsf.org/blogs/sysadmin/closing-in-on-fully-free-bioses-with-the-fsf-tech-team https://www.fsf.org/blogs/sysadmin/closing-in-on-fully-free-...