this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I was leftie before I was techie. If you don't know anything around tech and computers you wouldn't know what to do. Even as a fairly tech-adjacent professional it took me quite a while.
Then again, I only became a real leftie again after kicking all the corpos out of my computer.
Tech used to be (and still is) obscured by heavy gatekeeping. We who understand a little more like to joke about those who don't, and I guess we'll have to stop that if we really want to unite the left. Don't ridicule, explain. The person might never have had a chance to learn the concept.
I explained to finance why we had to purchase licenses for for a UI library. To justify the costs, they asked what the alternative was. I told them we don't have the talent or resources to develop our own UI library... But I offered up free open source alternatives.
Unfortunately the FOSS stuff never gets approved by IT due to vulnerability / threats.
But is FOSS actually more vulnerable?
Depends, sometimes not always. Having source available makes it easy for hackers to find exploit but also makes it easier for community to identify and address exploits.
So... For a large active community project, it's likely fairly secure but for smaller projects with 1 or just a few developers it might be vulnerable.
Yeah, if a stereotypical construction union rep feels judged by the FOSS world why would they try.
My local bike coop apparently used to run mint on their computer, but when the person who set it up left town it was too much for the bike nerds who weren’t mad engineers (this person also built an electrolysis tub, that had to be gotten rid of when they left Idk if they were actually an engineer by profession, but my dumb engineer ass keeps hearing they did shit I want to do). They’d go back if it was the same, but windows just works for them and linux needed someone to make it work.
There's definitely a gatekeeping issue, but free software doesn't automatically mean 'force people to use Linux', there's stuff like Firefox, Libreoffice, Nextcloud, etc.
It's things like councils working together on common software platforms instead of going with commercial vendors, supported by local companies instead of shoveling billions to Google and Microsoft that gets sent overseas immediately. It's federal governments hiring developers directly to work on software instead of using commercial vendors.