A Sombre Goodbye To Linux - Kev Quirk
kevq.uk
I recently wrote about why I think complaints about the stability of Windows are unfounded. Since then, I've actually said goodbye to Linux.

I recently wrote about why I think complaints about the stability of Windows are unfounded. Since then, I’ve actually said goodbye to Linux on all my machines and I now run Windows 10 exclusively. Here’s why…

  • Helix
    4•3 years ago

    if there is a group of users who want to use it in a particular way then they can get together and make a distro that serves their needs.

    Good point! And not even users, you can also be a company which sells custom versions of “your” Linux, like Oracle does with Oracle Linux, Intel with Clear Linux, and some distributions like elementary OS even cater to end users.

    You can’t just get Windows, slap another UI onto it and sell it. You can however customise Linux to the last bit of the Kernel to suit your organisation’s needs. That’s also one of the reasons 499 of the Top 500 supercomputers run some version of heavily customized Linux – it’s just not possible to do efficient supercomputing with Windows, because you can’t modify it.

    What I’ve learned over the years is that no matter how good a commercial product is, sooner or later either the company will go out of business or they will pivot in a direction that no longer fits your needs. This is a direct result of companies needing revenue in order to continue to exist. I see commercial software as a risk and I prefer not to get too heavily invested in it whenever possible.

    You talk about problems I associate with proprietary software rather than commercial software. In fact, if the software in question was commercial AND Open Source (which don’t contradict each other) you probably wouldn’t have issues with the company going out of business or pivoting.

    If some company sells their product but makes it Open Source, that’s totally fine with me. In fact I’d love to pay more for Open Source Software but it’s either free or the business model is so complicated that I’d rather “pirate” it instead of jumping through the hoops. Patreon, Open Collective and similar donation platforms seem to slowly change this kind of economy, though.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆
      3•3 years ago

      Yeah, I completely agree with that. The main issue with software being closed, and funding projects is a really good way to ensure that they stick around. I support both companies working on open source projects and crowd sourced funding models. At the end of the day people have to eat, so they either work on projects off the side of their desks or do it as their primary job. The latter will generally result in more polished results.

      • Helix
        1•3 years ago

        they either work on projects off the side of their desks or do it as their primary job. The latter will generally result in more polished results.

        I wouldn’t generalise that much; many great projects have begun as side projects and slowly evolved into full-time gigs, only to devolve back into side projects. Apart from that you may still be right ;)

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆
          3•3 years ago

          Of course, I mostly meant that people being able to work with funding tends to help polish things that aren’t fun to work on. :) I think the key part is that the project can go through phases of active development and being dormant without going away entirely for a very long time. Sometimes projects even become abandoned, but then new people pick them up at a later time. Meanwhile, proprietary software dies as soon as the company runs out of money or maintaining it stops being sufficiently profitable.

          And another aspect is that the same project can end up moving in different directions via forks as well. GNOME is a good example where a lot of people didn’t like direction and made forks like Cinnamon that are now great projects of their own. Open source is truly a beautiful thing. :)