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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • Fundamentally it should be an attribution and reward system, whereas currently it’s a false scarcity system.

    Everyone should be able to use everything, but you should be required to attribute your source material. If you do, the song / work etc should get an extra licensing fee per play. That way you’re always encouraged to provide attribution since you don’t lose money from it, and wholly original works will be cheaper and thus more desirable.

    Not dissimilar to how song sampling works today but without all the manual negotiation for every license.

    And if you fail to provide attribution you get hit with appropriate penalties.




  • This is frustrating because what i did in the example with my roms and a python script is essentially the same as what a windows user would do the main difference being that a windows user probably wouldnt have to go to github because a fancy gui alternative software exists.

    Agreed.

    The user still has to worry about viruses all the same, just because the exe has a website and a download page doesnt make it safer than a terminal based alternative.

    Agreed.

    I just think if you subtract peoples preconcieved notions about the terminal the actual usual experience and results are the same.

    Disagree.

    When I run a GUI program and it just has a single button that says “do x”, I trust that this software will do x when I run it and nothing else. Why? Because the developer has designed an interface for me, where there is only a single thing, so if I trust the developer, I can assume it will do that thing.

    When I download a bash script, I’m downloading a series of commands that I do not understand, and I hope that when I hit run it will do what I want. Maybe the developer has made a CLI interface that gives me some trust, most likely not.

    The reality is that a polished GUi isn’t just shiny graphics, it’s an inherent signal of intent, attention to detail, and minimizes cognitive overload. When I’m presented with just a button all I can evaluate is whether I trust the developer, and whether or noti trust this one button. When I download a list machine instructions I can now evaluate the safety of every single one of them. Thats empowering for coders who can read code, it’s overwhelming and leads to decision paralysis for everyone else.

    Even from a legality standpoint, if a company publishes a button that says “click me and I will do x”, they are opening themselves up to legal liability if that button does anything other than x. If a company publishes a list of instructions I don’t understand, they’re only liable if those instructions do something other than they say, and I cant evaluate that.



  • they mention genz specifically but boomers and millenials are falling down the same path expecting software to just download and work, Because of the google/apple/microsoft/sony/nintendo ecosystems we are so used to.

    They expect it to just work because literally every other product they buy just works and well made software should too.

    Like, I’m the kind of person who will take apart a broken power tool or appliance, order replacement parts, and figure out whatever I have to to fix it… and that’s precisely why I try to pay for stuff that’s high enough quality that I don’t have to do that.

    I value being able to repair things when they break, I don’t value things that are shipped with the expectation that I’m going to have to repair them, or learn a bunch of arcane stuff just to use them.

    You definitely are a minority though, most people dont care for this stuff at all. Most will simply give up instead of doing more research and trying different tactics to repair software and hardware.

    Most people have a millions different things they are trying to do with their lives, and there are a million and one different complicated systems in our world to spend your time obsessing over. Not everyone can or will understand how software is compiled.

    The fact of the matter is that Microsoft’s approach to Windows created an enormous amount of stability and backwards compatibility that let an absolutely massive chunk of the population progress to being overall computer power users, without a computer science background or any knowledge of coding.

    Linux has not done the same. It has many strengths, but it’s inability to maintain backwards (and cross distro) binary compatibility has hamstrung it as a consumer desktop tool.


  • That’s my point though, Linux is fine for power users and novices, its the middle ground of people who don’t code, aren’t going to learn how to code just to use an OS, but still understand computers enough to try and push them to do more.

    There’s a huge amount of people smart enough to know that a piece of software or a few pieces of software can automate something, and can accurately evaluate whether or not to trust the source of an exe file, but who don’t understand what compiling from source is or how they should do that for their distro.