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Firstly, Linux isn't made for free by hobbyists. The biggest contributors are profitable, largely American tech companies. Intel, AMD, even Microsoft is now a c

Firstly, Linux isn't made for free by hobbyists. The biggest contributors are profitable, largely American tech companies. Intel, AMD, even Microsoft is now a contributor. Secondly, the idea that you can just replace the entire software industry with Linux is... Are there even words to describe this? Linux is just an operating system. You can't replace a whole industry with "a couple of cheap packages."

herbst 2y ago
You can easily replace simple apps like Facebook, WhatsApp or Snapchat with a couple of cheap packages. Somebody remember elgg? Or buddypress? None of these mega cooperations have software that can't easily be copied.
impossiblefork 2y ago
I'm not saying that you can replace the entire software industry by Linux, but you can replace Windows with Linux, you can build simple locally run software to replace many of the well-known services, you can put some efforts into creating local clones with greater adaptability to match the biggest SaaS services, etc. Basically, to go after the easy 90%. Then we go from a world with data in the cloud, massive advertisement statistics gathering etc., to a world where people mostly use computers to solve concrete physical problems in their environment and where networks are distributed, e-mail like or like a facebook where every participant stores a substantial amount of information locally in plaintext and has it interpreted by a desktop app, where he has no feed with the content decided by others, but chooses what he has the computer show him, etc. Just look at telecom. How much complexity in the protocols isn't there just because people have to have their resource usage monitored so they can be billed for it, and for this to be settled between telecom companies? The software to kill SaaS and Facebook might be so simple that a couple of people could write it by themselves. It's like that local government 'if you have regional govt they decide it all in Nottingham probably in a couple of meetings. Complete amateurs.' That's where I think we could go, but with software instead of the UK civil service. It also fits really with with the coming of LLMs etc. You can just store of a lot stuff in plain text and have this super-fast reader process it all. Instead of lots of software, just huge amounts of plaintext that the machine can understand.
- pjc50 2y ago
  > The software to kill SaaS and Facebook might be so simple that a couple of people could write it by themselves Today's version of the HN classic "no wireless, less space than a Nomad, lame" (on the launch of the original iPod)
  - fsflover 2y ago
    Except Mastodon already exists.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      So did the Nomad. Look, we know that the software to kill Facebook is indeed so simple that a couple of people could write it by themselves… because Facebook itself was written by Zuckerberg and four friends while at university. The "software" part of this is not hard. It's everything else that is hard.
      - jononor 2y ago
        Facebook in 2025 is not at all the same software as in 2005. Nor FB the business. The market is also forever changed. Not that this detracts from your main point. The tricky part is not the software.
citadel_melon 2y ago
The US forcing all government agencies to use open source software would save taxpayers money. Additionally — in tandem with other countries following suit — the policy would create the incentive for governments to contribute to OS development, and thus, the OS community would not need to rely so heavily on industry for Linux development, dismantling your implication that OS software is contingent on big-tech’s existence. Switzerland already has a policy that all government agencies need to use open source software so the policy I mention isn’t a pie-in-the-sky theoretical.

herbst 2y ago

You can easily replace simple apps like Facebook, WhatsApp or Snapchat with a couple of cheap packages. Somebody remember elgg? Or buddypress? None of these mega cooperations have software that can't easily be copied.

impossiblefork 2y ago

I'm not saying that you can replace the entire software industry by Linux, but you can replace Windows with Linux, you can build simple locally run software to replace many of the well-known services, you can put some efforts into creating local clones with greater adaptability to match the biggest SaaS services, etc. Basically, to go after the easy 90%. Then we go from a world with data in the cloud, massive advertisement statistics gathering etc., to a world where people mostly use computers to solve concrete physical problems in their environment and where networks are distributed, e-mail like or like a facebook where every participant stores a substantial amount of information locally in plaintext and has it interpreted by a desktop app, where he has no feed with the content decided by others, but chooses what he has the computer show him, etc. Just look at telecom. How much complexity in the protocols isn't there just because people have to have their resource usage monitored so they can be billed for it, and for this to be settled between telecom companies? The software to kill SaaS and Facebook might be so simple that a couple of people could write it by themselves. It's like that local government 'if you have regional govt they decide it all in Nottingham probably in a couple of meetings. Complete amateurs.' That's where I think we could go, but with software instead of the UK civil service. It also fits really with with the coming of LLMs etc. You can just store of a lot stuff in plain text and have this super-fast reader process it all. Instead of lots of software, just huge amounts of plaintext that the machine can understand.

pjc50 2y ago
> The software to kill SaaS and Facebook might be so simple that a couple of people could write it by themselves Today's version of the HN classic "no wireless, less space than a Nomad, lame" (on the launch of the original iPod)
- fsflover 2y ago
  Except Mastodon already exists.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    So did the Nomad. Look, we know that the software to kill Facebook is indeed so simple that a couple of people could write it by themselves… because Facebook itself was written by Zuckerberg and four friends while at university. The "software" part of this is not hard. It's everything else that is hard.
    - jononor 2y ago
      Facebook in 2025 is not at all the same software as in 2005. Nor FB the business. The market is also forever changed. Not that this detracts from your main point. The tricky part is not the software.

citadel_melon 2y ago

The US forcing all government agencies to use open source software would save taxpayers money. Additionally — in tandem with other countries following suit — the policy would create the incentive for governments to contribute to OS development, and thus, the OS community would not need to rely so heavily on industry for Linux development, dismantling your implication that OS software is contingent on big-tech’s existence. Switzerland already has a policy that all government agencies need to use open source software so the policy I mention isn’t a pie-in-the-sky theoretical.