So yeah, I am going to start this off saying I use Linux. I love Linux, but the community and others will not let it improve. It’s time to change.
Here’s all the reasons I think Linux will never take off, don’t forget that you can also add input and that I am a human being, so please don’t be angry if you can help it. Just tell me your perspective. I know I will get lots of flack for this, but here we go:
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Idealism, if Linux was going to take over innately it already would have
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History (let’s be honest it’s like a discord server if it doesn’t take off all at once it never will)
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It’s inaccessible (terminals cannot replace everything. I’m talking to you if you say “bloat”)
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There’s only corporate funding, so they will appropriate it
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We tolerate people who don’t tolerate others (including the less tech-savvy)
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Microsoft has way too much power (money)
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Few people remember RMS started copyleft as a political goal (too many people are uncomfortable challenging their beliefs, so they want Linux to be “apolitical”)
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No one is doing the political organizing
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Copyleft is flawed and needs to be improved (here’s a template example https://thufie.lain.haus/NPL.html) [also mind you that there’s a need to prevent corporate appropriation]
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People worship RMS instead of realizing he alienates women, people with down syndrome, etc.
To be honest, most people don’t give a thought to the OS they use. They haven’t considered the ethics/politics. They’ve probably never even seen a Linux GUI. They bought a device with an OS preinstalled and, so long as it has the apps they want to use : that’s fine. Heck! many of them are still on Vista.
The inertia to change (anything) in enormous : fundamentally, we’re conservative, and lazy, (and frightened) as a species, and if something works… don’t mess with it.
I am cautiously optimistic for Linux though, because I can see a couple of catalysts for a sea-change.
Firstly Windows11 - which increasingly relies on an internet connection, and a log in. I think this will bar Micro$oft from poorer communities. And I think it might make governments and businesses wonder what information they’re mining.
Secondly the tech trade war - China is one of the biggest producers, if not the biggest producer of electronics, and they constitute 20% of the market too… And they’re moving away from US proprietary systems : The electronics which are going to be coming out of China is going to have an Open Source OS.