Fedora's Lead Speaks on the Popularity of Linux and the Importance of Open Source (techrepublic.com) 68
Fedora project leader Matthew Miller spoke to TechRepublic's Jack Wallen this week, sharing some thoughts on the future of Linux — and on open source in general:
Matthew Miller: I think it's a lost cause to try to "sell" our quirky technology interest to people who don't see it already. We need to take a different approach.... I think our message, at its root, has to be around open source.... [W]ith Linux, when you install an open-source distro, you're not just part of a fan community. You're part of a colossal, global effort that makes software more available to everyone, makes that software better and better, and makes the whole world better through sharing... Just by using it you're sharing in this amazing undertaking, part of a move away from scarcity to an economy based on abundance....
Jack Wallen: What's the biggest difference in Linux today vs. Linux of 10 years ago?
Matthew Miller: I think first we have to start with just the amazing ubiquity of it. Ten years ago, it was cute to find a TV that ran Linux. Now, not only is it definitely powering your TV, you've probably got Linux running on your lightbulbs! It's everywhere. And while Linux had pushed proprietary Unix from the server room, ten years ago Windows-based servers were pushing back. The cloud changed that — now, the cloud is Linux, almost completely. (Anything that isn't is a legacy app that it was too much trouble to port!) From tiny devices to the most powerful mainframes and supercomputers: Linux, Linux, Linux....
Jack Wallen: If Linux has an Achilles' heel, what is it?
Matthew Miller: Linux and the whole free and open-source software movement grew up with the rise of the internet as an open communication platform. We absolutely need that to continue in order to realize our vision, and I don't think we can take it for granted.
That's more general than an Achilles' heel, though, so right now let me highlight one thing that I think is troubling: Chrome becoming the dominant browser to the point where it's often the only way to make sites work. Chromium (the associated upstream project) is open source, but isn't really run as a community project, and, pointedly, very very few people run Chromium itself. I'd love to see that change, but I'd also like to see Firefox regain a meaningful presence.
Miller also said Fedora's next release is focused on simplicity. ("When the OS gets in the way, it drops from the conversation I want to have about big ideas to ... well, the boring technical details that people never want to deal with")
And he also shared his thoughts on what Linux needs most. "What I'd really like to see more of are more non-technical contributors. I mean, yes, we can always benefit from more packagers and coders and engineers, but I think what we really need desperately are writers, designers, artists, videographers, communicators, organizers and planners. I don't think big companies are likely to provide those things, at least, not for the parts of the Linux world which aren't their products."
"We need people who think the whole grand project I've been talking about is important, and who have the skills and interests to help make it real."
Jack Wallen: What's the biggest difference in Linux today vs. Linux of 10 years ago?
Matthew Miller: I think first we have to start with just the amazing ubiquity of it. Ten years ago, it was cute to find a TV that ran Linux. Now, not only is it definitely powering your TV, you've probably got Linux running on your lightbulbs! It's everywhere. And while Linux had pushed proprietary Unix from the server room, ten years ago Windows-based servers were pushing back. The cloud changed that — now, the cloud is Linux, almost completely. (Anything that isn't is a legacy app that it was too much trouble to port!) From tiny devices to the most powerful mainframes and supercomputers: Linux, Linux, Linux....
Jack Wallen: If Linux has an Achilles' heel, what is it?
Matthew Miller: Linux and the whole free and open-source software movement grew up with the rise of the internet as an open communication platform. We absolutely need that to continue in order to realize our vision, and I don't think we can take it for granted.
That's more general than an Achilles' heel, though, so right now let me highlight one thing that I think is troubling: Chrome becoming the dominant browser to the point where it's often the only way to make sites work. Chromium (the associated upstream project) is open source, but isn't really run as a community project, and, pointedly, very very few people run Chromium itself. I'd love to see that change, but I'd also like to see Firefox regain a meaningful presence.
Miller also said Fedora's next release is focused on simplicity. ("When the OS gets in the way, it drops from the conversation I want to have about big ideas to ... well, the boring technical details that people never want to deal with")
And he also shared his thoughts on what Linux needs most. "What I'd really like to see more of are more non-technical contributors. I mean, yes, we can always benefit from more packagers and coders and engineers, but I think what we really need desperately are writers, designers, artists, videographers, communicators, organizers and planners. I don't think big companies are likely to provide those things, at least, not for the parts of the Linux world which aren't their products."
"We need people who think the whole grand project I've been talking about is important, and who have the skills and interests to help make it real."
Year of the Linux desktop (Score:1, Insightful)
When people are more willing to go through the straight abuse of the major players (and pay for the privilege!) rather than open source, you have a problem.
While it's cool and all that Linux can run on a lightbulb, there is still (20 years on) a large usability gap with Linux (although it has improved tremendously). Expecting people to jump through hoops or read through tedious guides just to find out there isn't a gui available for some program- isn't happening.
Good on open source for keeping the ball movi
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...is too many incompatible distros.
The vast majority of Linux users neither know nor care what a "distro" is, and most don't even know they are using Linux. They just bought the phone that met their needs at a price they could afford, their school gave them a Chromebook, or they bought a nice TV at Walmart.
Linux has been successful where it has solved problems for people.
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Can we please agree to stop pretending that "Linux" means "Android phones".
It is the most disgraceful roll-over I've ever seen in Open source. Instead of "year of Linux desktop" and "fight to prevent MS taking over the server space" we are suddenly content with "look ma, my phone!"?
When did such a weak point of view deserve to be modded up?
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Because if Windows phone had won over Android, the world would be a far, far worse place.
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Very true. On the other hand, if a true Linux phone had won out such as what Nokia was developing before Microsoft interfered would be a far better place than the Google spyware world we have now.
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Can we please agree to stop pretending that "Linux" means "Android phones".
For most people, their phone is their computer, and Android is their OS.
Android is Linux, whether you like it or not.
You will never convince the vast mass of humanity that they would be happier with a Bash prompt.
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How does one go about making an app for an Android tablet with keyboard on an Android tablet with keyboard? Is something like AIDE (Android IDE) still viable?
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For most people, their phone is their computer
Irrelevant when we're talking about OSes for desktop computers.
Android is Linux, whether you like it or not.
No. Android is a mobile OS used for completely different things than an actual computer. It's a completely boneheaded comparison.
Re: Linux biggest weakness... Well, uh... (Score:1)
Re: Linux’s greatest weakness (Score:1, Insightful)
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? .jpgs in a folder? Displaying a clock? Opening a program?
For which "simple functions" do the major desktop environments "revert to the console"? File copying? Creation? Counting
I'd like an example, please.
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KDE on Debian used to give me hell with second-monitor detection. That was in 2001. It's been fine since 2003, on SUSE, and all the Debian variants I've tried. Enlightenment has been fine since E17. Cinnamon on Mint works fine for that. So does LMDE. Perhaps not for /all/ monitors, but for all the ones I've tried. Windows still doesn't deal with certain things correctly, like offsets on differing resolutions.
Many, /many/ of the issues I've had to fix on Windows /still/ require registry edits, or using the e
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I've never seen an "issue" in Windows requiring a registry edit to fix. I've seen plenty of "desires" of people who want to work around a design choice in windows that result in a trip to regedit, but that's hardly what we're talking about here.
Of course windows has problems, but beyond the old school way of identifying network issues a user is practically never directed towards console, much less a Powershell command. And even the former issue of networks can often be fixed without a trip to the console, b
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When I bought the second one I plugged it in and Fedora detected it and it worked. It has continued working for the past year without a hitch.
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Congrats you I guess.
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Wait I missed a personal example from just last week. I dug a printer out of the cupboard.
Windows: Go to Brother's website, download driver, double click, mash the next / ok button. Done.
Linux: Go to Brother's website, select rpm or deb (well you've just lost 99% of the world's PC users right there). Okay let's skip that. Oh look they provide a "driver installation tool" just like they do on Windows, let's do that. Click download. And you get given the following instructions right on the download page. I'm
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Where did you find a printer obscure enough that the driver isn't already built into CUPS?
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There's a generic one available in CUPS which doesn't support features in the printer. But why suddenly focus on the "dug up" point? I thought the most awesome part about Linux was its backwards compatibility? The printer is only 10 years old and works fine.
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There's a generic one available in CUPS which doesn't support features in the printer. But why suddenly focus on the "dug up" point? I thought the most awesome part about Linux was its backwards compatibility? The printer is only 10 years old and works fine.
Only 10 years old? Wow, that's like using Windows 7 today.
The backward compatibility appears to work as intended. It's supposed to keep a device working at the level during which the opensource developer lost interest in the project. So if the driver was stuck at basic features level, say, eight years ago, that would still be the feature set you'll be getting.
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Where did you find a printer obscure enough that the driver isn't already built into CUPS?
Oh I could use an alternative driver in CUPS and simply not have the resolution available or the options to use the manual paper feed tray. The world has a lot of printers. CUPS doesn't have nearly all of them.
But to answer your question, ... ready for it? ... Slashdot recommendation. You know the same Slashdot that constantly recommends Brother printers for their otherwise excellent linux support.
And it is excellent, and with just a quick trip to the console it works perfectly. Console none the less.
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Re: Linux’s greatest weakness (Score:2)
I am sorry, you seem to be under the impression that it is necessary to install a third party driver in Linux in order to do such a basic thing as print a document.
For me, the Linux experience is simply:
1. Open dash
2. Search for printer settings
3. In printer settings, add a new printer
4. Add the automagically detected printer from the list
5. Wait for config to complete
6. Print the page
No third party drivers required.
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Indeed that's a great way of getting my printer working without the ability to print at 1200dpi and without being able to use the manual feed tray.
Anyway you completely missed the point I made. The point was if you go to a manufacturer the manufacturer of very linux friendly printers will direct users to double click a file in Windows, or go through a rigmarole in console for Linux.
Whether *you* have an alternative is completely irrelevant unless *you* either work for Brother's support team directing Linux
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Serious answer: inux's Achilles heal is swapping (Score:3, Insightful)
Even current distros completely lock up whenever swap begins. Sure, add more memory, or don;t overload the system in the first place. But, Unix/Linux has had 50 years to get swap right.
Re:Serious answer: inux's Achilles heal is swappin (Score:4, Informative)
You are obviously missing something.
Swap is working fine on more than 100+ server instances I manage. I give servers 5 times the RAM they have as swap. This often prevents OOM killer to run which is much worse when an application goes bad.
Manage your swap correctly with different priorities, zram swap, HD swap etc.
Linux knows best on how to use your RAM thus it swaps when it finds out your RAM could be used more efficiently by swapping and having more RAM available to optimize the workload.
Keep in mind that with rare specific workloads, there are many parameters you can fine tune to configure Linux swapping behavior although I never encountered once such a workload. I use the same swapping strategy/configuration everywhere so far although I tested fiddling with it.
I have always found that the swapping strategy on Linux was brilliant and that people complaining about it were obviously missing something.
Re: Serious answer: inux's Achilles heal is swappi (Score:2)
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Swap hasn't been relevant in decades. It's stupid that installers even create swap by default.
Anything more than a couple gigs of swap is too slow to be usable and it's too small to matter for the average system. Swap is dumb.
womp womp (Score:2)
"now, the cloud is Linux, almost completely. (Anything that isn't is a legacy app that it was too much trouble to port!)"
I guess things like the BSDs and Illumos (SmartOS) don't exist. Someone better tell Netflix that their largest CDN in the world is a legacy app that's too much trouble to port.
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Good timing (Score:1, Interesting)
I was just mulling over the difficulties of Linux. I have been using Linux and X as my primary desktop since 1993 or so and that hasn't changed.
However, I constantly find myself in a difficult position.
First we had boot/root. Cool but you couldn't really do anything other than write code and compile stuff. What do you do? Suffer (OK, this wasn't so bad, it was new and cool).
Then finally Slackware comes along. Finally apps all packaged up. Then you realize the packaging sucks, breaks, and is difficult to man
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You pretty much nailed it there. :)
I keep finding myself in this position, and frankly, I usually end up installing Debian... and suffer.
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I don't understand what's there to suffer for. Run Debian and use any of the thousands of packages out there. If there's something that REALLY requires Windows, see if it runs under Wine, and if not, install a Windows 7 VM under VirtualBox with natted network and you're done. What's the suffering? And of course there's no suffering when it comes to servers anyway.
Now if you're heavily into gaming, then your priorities are completely different and, even though you can do some games under Linux, you just
Re: Good timing (Score:2)
The suffering comes from Debian's packages already being at least a year behind trunk when it reaches stable.
And it stays that way for the indeterminate life of the particular release. You can enable backports but then it's not a stable Debian install and it's likely to shit the bed at the first opportunity.
Case in point: I cannot run Debian 11 on my G14 laptop in any usable way without doing a whole lot of finagling, including replacing the kernel and several core packages. Once I've done that I'm off in
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I am quite happy with Debian on the desktop but there are still issues with laptops. A decade ago there was some effort for Ubuntu to really polish the Linux desktop but somehow they changed course and rewrote everything loosing all the polish and generally making things worse. Since then things basically stagnated, but it is OK.
Still, I think it is more and more realistic for average people to drop Windows and I expect at some point somebody will seize the opportunity with preconfigured notebooks, selected
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Pretty good run down, I would also complain about:
(1) the "let's pretend everyone is on a phone" re-design that a lot of stuff (gnome?) went to and never recovered from.
(2) redhat using it's muscle to put over systemd (note: this complaint is orthogonal to whether you think systemd is an improvement), which (combined with ubuntu's spyware) made me wonder if commercial distros weren't as harmful as proprietary development.
(3) the complete inability of Mozilla to understand that their selling point w
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lightbulbs? (Score:3)
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lightbulbs? Nah. There are some OpenSource projects such as FreeRTOS and others suited for this application. But there are currently no light bulbs for sale running Linux.
Prove it.
Even if you're right, which I doubt, it's only one short step away. Linux is already running on many of the IoT hubs. But the approach favored by most IoT vendors is not to have a hub at all. And if you want to take that approach and still have the full functionality of a hub system, you need a smarter light bulb. Old versions of Linux used to run on literally much less powerful systems than many modern embedded chips. RAM capacity aside, an ESP8266 (not an ESP32!) beats the living snot out of many
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https://hackaday.com/2021/07/2... [hackaday.com]
There you go. Linux runs in RISC-V VM that run on the ESP32. Some hair-raising hack, that.
ESP does not have an MMU which make Linux as such somewhat problematic. It is at least not secure, but for an embedded system I suppose inter-process memory is irrelevant. It is not worse than FreeRTOS at least.
Re: lightbulbs? (Score:1)
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Indeed, most lightbulbs use either ESP32 with FreeRTOS, or something similar with or without an RTOS. Maybe the base station runs Linux, if the bulbs aren't directly connecting to WiFi.
As for TVs, they may have a Linux kernel but the OS is usually Android.
No (Score:1)
While many TVs run the Linux kernel, they have near zero other Linux/GNU software components. This "example" of Linux popularity is crap or otherwise 2 billion Android phones also count in and which case it all becomes idiocy.
Amazing at dodging the question altogether. Here, take this [altervista.org] instead.
People need something stable which doesn't
Has anyone else (Score:1)
Glum future for Fedora (Score:3)
IBM jumped the shark with CentOS stream.
If my company is a typical shop that's been running their entire infrastructure on CentOS for decades (and I have no reason to believe they're not), CentOS is losing mindshare, as everyone's migrating to Ubuntu LTS.
Yes, we know about Rocky, and it may very well turn out to be a success. But it's not just the RHEL core, but whether the "aftermarket" software, i.e. VMWare, and the rest, will officially support Rocky like they support CentOS.
But the company is not going to take this for granted, and is migrating to Ubuntu LTS.
What IBM failed to recognize is that CentOS attracted mind-share. It did not translate into tangible revenue. But it was tangible mind-share, and attracted a pool of RHEL knowledge in the developer and sysadmin communities. And Fedora fed into it.
RHEL will be slowing bleeding mindshare, as a good chunk of the CentOS user base disappears. And, indirectly, this also impacts Fedora. I know: this is making me invest my own time into acquiring Ubuntu-centric skills and domain knowledge. Fedora's future looks glum.
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"writers, designers, artists, and communicators" (Score:3, Funny)
Nobody has addressed " What I'd really like to see more of are more non-technical contributors. I mean, yes, we can always benefit from more packagers and coders and engineers, but I think what we really need desperately are writers, designers, artists, videographers, communicators, organizers and planners. ".
Linux has a HUGE communication problem.
Linux not only has a huge communication problem, it steadfastly refuses to even entertain the possibility that communication is even something that requires any kind of serious and polished attention in the first place.
And it fails horribly, with the general populace, right there.
Linux fails to accept that there are "iron laws" of communication, and in so doing, breaks all of them, and in so doing, loses the general populace, who will never in their lives sit still for being talked to, will never sit still for being communicated with, be it linguistically, be it visually, or be it any other way, in the manner in which Linux everlastingly insists in attempting to communicate with them, and then goes off scratching its head, wondering why people "don't get it."
The problem is Linux, not the people.
And by "Linux" I mean the entire community of people who design, build, and implement it.
A minority of which, being so vanishingly small as to not even show up when you're actually looking for them, who actually can communicate, but who exist in numbers so small, and constitute a fraction of the total body of people who design, build, and implement, which is so small that it disappears altogether from sensible view.
An example of one of the “iron laws” of communication, for all the hard-heads out there who double down on their refusal to accept or accede to such things.
If they’re not laughing, then it’s not funny.
Period.
It does not matter if you think it’s funny. Keep it to yourself, if you think it’s funny. Fine and dandy. No worries, mate. But the instant you open your mouth and communicate it to someone else, it had better damn well cause them to laugh or it’s not funny.
Period.
And right here is where Linux fails so horribly as to cause people, normal people, members of the general populace, to cringe deeply, and recoil from Linux as if it was something with a disease that they fear catching if they stay too close to it for too long.
And don’t forget, hard-heads, that I’m not just talking about humor. I’m only using my example of The Iron Law of Humor in an effort to simplify things to the point where even hard-heads can figure it out.
The failures of Linux to communicate, the failures of Linux to engage successfully with the general populace, the failures of Linux to abide by The Iron Laws of Communication, are so vast in scope as to defy enumerating them all.
All the little in-groups in Linux have all their little in-group ways, and inside the group, it’s all so very wonderful, and everything is seen through rose-colored glasses.
But nobody ever seems to want to step outside and find out what the general populace might be thinking about it.
Which is unfortunate to an extreme, because the general populace is having none of it.
The general populace despises all the “cutsey” crap that Linux insists in wrapping itself up in, all of which is clearly (as seen by the general populace) the creation of lamers, social misfits, and tone-deaf idiots, from one end to the other, without exception.
Another example.
“GNU's Not Unix.”
GNU’s not funny, either.
And recursive acronyms constitute felony assault
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Hie thee hence and look not again upon our town.
Spoken like a true small-town farmer that just doesn't "get" that mainstream culture enjoyed by city folk. I'll try to distill it down for you.
The problem is that Linux is a workstation OS, built upon technology originally designed for mainframes. It's developed and maintained by people who work in the enterprise industry, and they only look at things from an enterprise point of view. They may want to open up to the mass market, but they have no clue what is necessary to make that happen, because they re
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So what exactly are you trying to communicate here?
Where are the Chrome-only websites? (Score:2)
I keep hearing about this but never observing it, and the people who talk about it always stop short of giving URLs. Does anyone know of a specific site they use, which only works using Chrome? It's plausible and not at all hard to imagine, but I'm starting to wonder if the issue only comes up in extremely niche situations that most people are never going t
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Currently I use meetup to announce on-line gatherings, and every step of the process works on Firefox, except for the final step to publicize the meeting, that now just spins and does nothing, without giving you a clue to debug the problem. Eventually I remember to try the chromium browser, and that just works.
This is pretty common in my experience: the web "designers" do everything (and I mean *everything* no matter how simple and stupid) with insanely complex js libraries shipped by the google or face
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I keep hearing about this but never observing it, and the people who talk about it always stop short of giving URLs.
"Progress Delayed Is Progress Denied" by Alex Russell [infrequently.org] explains how Apple WebKit, the engine of GNOME Web (codenamed Epiphany) and Safari, is horribly behind on supporting web platform features that work in both Firefox and Chromium. For example, any website using Push API to deliver notifications will not deliver notifications to users of Epiphany, Safari, and other browsers based on Apple WebKit.
Does anyone know of a specific site they use, which only works using Chrome?
For years, Skype for Web blocked Firefox users, directing them to Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome. This appears
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I keep hearing about this but never observing it, and the people who talk about it always stop short of giving URLs. Does anyone know of a specific site they use, which only works using Chrome? It's plausible and not at all hard to imagine, but I'm starting to wonder if the issue only comes up in extremely niche situations that most people are never going to run into.
Usually it's just quirks, or the IE6-flashback message "This site only tested in Chrome" or "This site works best in Chrome". But ... some are a bigger deal.
I recognize the irony, but here's one that doesn't work on Firefox: https://teams.microsoft.com/ [microsoft.com]. (It won't do sound or video!)
Free Software without saying Free Software (Score:4, Insightful)
I love seeing how Miller then proceeds to engage in all kinds of semantic acrobatics to talk about software freedom while trying to avoid the term "free software". People think RMS/FSF may be fanatics but here we have another case, someone who fanatically avoids using the best phrase/term for what he's trying to convey. I get it, you try to disassociate with FSF guys, but let's be honest. The benefit Miller talks about does not come from having some "source code available" but from from the four basic freedoms of free software.
(and again, how do we avoid the "glazed looks" when you try to explain the concept of "source (and object) code" to the average person? Just use the free software phrase, no one is going to sue you for that!)
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It's not acrobatics. I simply don't think "free software" conveys anything useful to the general public — even the general tech public. Following it with "I mean free as in speech" every time doesn't help much either -- especially these days that needs its own extra explanation. Read this on Elon Musk and Twitter [msnbc.com], for example. You might or might not agree with the thesis of that article -- but that's exactly the point. If you're lucky, maybe ten minutes later you're back to what you're trying to talk
Free Software For Everyone? (Score:1)
Stallman and FSF's original target was AT&T commercial licences, first by creating versions of Unix utilities. They needed a kernel but 385BSD became factionalised and got caught up in patent trolling lawsuits. So they set about creating HURD, a Mach based micro kernel. Apple was able to cobble together Mach with bits of BSD and Nextstep and make a popular OS, but the FSF never did. Instead Linus created Linux and the FSF now claim it as GNU's kernel. While Linux used to claim GNU utilities as their