josemanuel @josemanuel@qoto.org

@karim@chaos.social @pixel Why don’t you guys mention @nextcloud so that they can take your criticisms into account and improve their product?

@Aldi80s Why so many issues of Muscle & Fitness?

@strypey I didn’t know about Shared Source licenses before you mentioned them, but, to me, they seem like an awfully bad idea that could potentially harm the Free Software movement by muddying the waters.

“No, Shared Source is ethical because I decide that only marginalised/disadvantaged people can access it.” What’s the difference then between that and fully propietary applications? Both are about restricting access.

Free Software is about NOT restricting freedoms. That’s why the GNU licenses force everyone to use and share it in the same terms that it was created. (And, incidentally, that’s why I consider Open Source to be unethical, as it allows itself to be used in proprietary software.)

@alcinnz Please expand on this when you have the time. It’s not my area of expertise, but it sounds cool.

@kingu_platypus_gidora Let’s be positive. Maybe he just wants another hug.

Something inside of me dies when I see a scientist using imperial units.

@londubh So, one of the women mentions an incident that only happened in her head (she could “practically smell the silent impatience from the men nearby”) and in a different field (geology), and that is somehow proof of sexism in astronomy? And the fact that she now leads a NASA mission doesn’t serve as counterexample?

And what about the other women featured, who fail to provide a single concrete fact to back up their claims?

I mean, didn’t the authors know about Jocelyn Bell, who discovered pulsars and was robbed of a Nobel prize by Antony Hewish? Now that’s a blatant case of sexism in science in general and astronomy in particular! But I bet she doesn’t appear in any of the books they’re clearly advertising.

@strypey I’m not fond of that advice. Where is the line between self-compassion and sociopathic tendencies? If you think about the most awful people you know, I’m pretty sure they think of themselves as wonderful and never being in the wrong.

I think people should look at themselves as they are and not lie to themselves. Most of them are good, but some are genuine pieces of shit. Being able to tell the difference is crucial for a well-adjusted human. And that’s impossible without a healthy level of self-criticism.

Now completely contradicting my previous post, I will say this: there should be a meme comparing old and current tech books. They would be like this:

Old tech books: «Since the Z80 uses NMOS technology, one is cautioned to become familiar with the rules for handling such devices before trying to handle the Z80 device. Those rules are actually very simple, so failing to follow them will net you what you deserve—a zapped IC.»

New tech books: «I will teach you this programming language assuming you barely know what a computer is.»

You can tell the first example is real (from Z80 Users Manual, by Joseph J. Carr) because the writing is terrible.

I love old tech books.

From Sony’s A Guide to MSX-BASIC Version 2.0, page 20: «(The blank space is made by hitting the space bar once.)»

Dude, you’ve already told us about PRINT, LET and arithmetic operations. What made you think we didn’t know how to type a space yet? Also, you didn’t say which key was the space bar.

@alcinnz As far as I could see, nobody threatened you in response to your previous post in support of systemd. The discussion was actually a pretty civil one between knowledgeable people.

@fribbledom Yeah, I can see that: “Our prime minister is enjoying her private time however she sees fit, so I came today to inform you that we’re under attack by a foreign nation. At nine o’ clock sharp tomorrow, the prime minister herself will detail the measures this government will be taking regarding this invasion.”

They have a deputy (sometimes more than one) for the reasons you stated, not for the ones I stated.

And I’d like to add that I completely agree with you. It’s nobody else’s business how she spends her free time, but she’s the leader of a nation. She has to be held to a higher standard. I mean, once my workday ends, I’m completely free to do what I want, and so is my boss—in theory. The difference is, he has a mobile phone because he must always be reachable in case of an emergency. Both my boss and Finland’s prime minister are never really off-duty, and they must always keep that in mind. Does that mean they can’t party? No, of course they can. But neither of them should party so hard that they become indisposed, so to speak.

My only criticism of Sanna Marin in this case is just that she doesn’t seem to have learned this lesson and she will probably party even harder next time.

@jonne

@jonne For the sake of discussion, would you say the same thing if she was partying and getting shit-faced while Finland was being invaded, suffering a terrorist attack or under any other circumstance that required a quick response from the prime minister?

@wolf480pl @fribbledom

@fribbledom That’s what Info manuals were created for, and they’re much, much worse. Also, a lot of the features you’re missing are already present in man pages. At the very least, cross references, syntax highlighting and search- & browse-ability. They may not be there in the form you expect, but that’s another issue.

To be honest, I quite like man pages and find them really useful.

@samurro Sorry for only remembering one off the top of my head. Here are even more examples of bad applications:

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Hard_dependencies_on_systemd

Also, GNOME, like KDE, would need systemd if it weren’t for elogind.

@bauripalash

@samurro Just one example I happen to be forced to use at work: https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/sase/globalprotect

Also, the whole of KDE Plasma requires, at the very least, elogind, if I’m not mistaken.

@bauripalash

@bauripalash Main obstacle for Linux distros is not the community, but the big tech companies behind some of those distros. They create walled gardens and force minor players to accept their rules if they want to be able to keep working with modern software. (I.e., some applications no longer work without having systemd installed, and there is an increasing number of them that, while being open source in name, cannot be easily installed by compilling them or whose source code is purposefully hard to find.)

That is the real obstacle. Differences of opinion are not an obstacle. On the contrary, they help us grow.