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   Emmanuele Bassi (ebassi@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Jan-2024 00:21:06 JST Emmanuele Bassi

   Controversial opinion time: free (as in gratis) long term support Linux distributions have damaged the whole ecosystem, and done a disservice to both users and upstream projects, all to placate the fetishes of of sysadmins and packagers, or the aspirations of people funding them as a product. We'd all be much better off if LTS distributions had only ever been gated behind a paid support scheme.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Jan-2024 00:21:05 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @ebassi Gated LTS with any copyleft software in it is infringing. Yes I'm aware Redhat and others do it and claim it's not infringing because they don't write down the requirement that you can't exercise your rights under the GPL; they just leave it as a thinly veiled threat that they'll retaliate against you if you do. That's still infringing.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Emmanuele Bassi (ebassi@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Jan-2024 00:22:08 JST Emmanuele Bassi

     in reply to

     You think you want an LTS experience without a support contract, but what you really want is the ability to upgrade your OS and your applications without breaking your system; for that, you need an atomic OS and containerised applications. The idea of running an enterprise distro without an enterprise IT department is deranged; why do you think support contracts and IT support personnel exist?

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Jan-2024 00:22:08 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @ebassi Containerized applications as they exist now do not solve this problem, because they *bypass* the distribution, i.e. bypass the intermediate party you can trust to ensure they're not acting against your interests. We (as ordinary ppl, not even getting into businesses) do not want flatpaks full of phone-home spyware, sketchy cloud functionality partners, etc. We want vetted software without conflicts of interest.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Jan-2024 00:23:03 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @ebassi It is my opinion, but one that many others share. And it's based on a long observation of what differentiates the experience of a good Linux distro from stuff like Android.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Emmanuele Bassi (ebassi@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 17-Jan-2024 00:23:04 JST Emmanuele Bassi

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker

     @dalias that's, like, you're opinion. It's also fundamentally wrong on various levels, starting from "we as ordinary people" and ending with "vetted software without conflicts of interests".