It saddens me to see the discussion of Linux vs. MacOS X on the desktop put so much of a focus on aesthetics and convenience while they almost seem to disregard ideals and values of freedom as something obsolete.
This is not about mjg's post in any particular way. I have those same discussions among friends and colleagues, many of whom switch from Linux on the desktop/notebook to MacOSX and are full of praise for their new tool.
Don't get me wrong - I am annoyed by the regressions of the Linux desktops (be it GNOME or KDE) and the amount of work one needs to put into a setup in order to get it to work properly. Only to find that stuff breaks and further regresses after the next apt-get dist-upgrade.
This is highly frustrating, no doubt.
But really -- are we ready to put aside the fundamental questions of freedom, self-determination, access to source code, a community of peers, values which are still highly regarded in e.g. the Linux kernel, OpenStack and other more plumbing or server-side oriented projects, on the desktop, "just" for convenience?
What is it about our current time that makes aesthetics and convenience so much more important in driving our decisions than other values, compared to 10 years ago? Maybe everyone is just growing old of the inconveniences after putting up with them for so long?
I have no idea, but I feel that something important is getting lost with hardly any awareness of that loss.
Power management, mobile and firmware developer on Linux. Security developer at Aurora. Ex-biologist. mjg59 on Twitter. Content here should not be interpreted as the opinion of my employer. Also on Mastodon.
Ideals no more
Date: 2014-05-21 10:25 am (UTC)This is not about mjg's post in any particular way. I have those same discussions among friends and colleagues, many of whom switch from Linux on the desktop/notebook to MacOSX and are full of praise for their new tool.
Don't get me wrong - I am annoyed by the regressions of the Linux desktops (be it GNOME or KDE) and the amount of work one needs to put into a setup in order to get it to work properly. Only to find that stuff breaks and further regresses after the next apt-get dist-upgrade.
This is highly frustrating, no doubt.
But really -- are we ready to put aside the fundamental questions of freedom, self-determination, access to source code, a community of peers, values which are still highly regarded in e.g. the Linux kernel, OpenStack and other more plumbing or server-side oriented projects, on the desktop, "just" for convenience?
What is it about our current time that makes aesthetics and convenience so much more important in driving our decisions than other values, compared to 10 years ago? Maybe everyone is just growing old of the inconveniences after putting up with them for so long?
I have no idea, but I feel that something important is getting lost with hardly any awareness of that loss.