Fair point - bureaucrats aren’t always good at nuance. :/

Although I still hold out hope that with Linux, there’s room for the open/volunteer approach + a for-profit model that results in investments/profits going back into the volunteer community. After all, Linux isn’t controlled by a corporation for proprietary purposes, like Windows is by Microsoft. We’ll see…or we won’t, if Linux never reaches any kind of mainstream status. :)

I agree. It’s not constructive to call non-techies “dumb.” Nor is it helpful to demand they”just” spend 30 min searching for solutions online. If you love tech, this is worthwhile - if you’re, say, a rights activist you’d rather spend that time reading an important report or meeting with people to advance your work; if you’re a retiree with limited means, then it might be overwhelming to “just go online”; and if you’re a musician working on an album, why should you need to spend time on tech when you could be spending that time mixing? I see examples of Linux becoming pretty user friendly compared to days of yore (eg Mint, Ubuntu), but has that improvement somehow compromised the techie side of Linux?

I see - but given that Linux isn’t one thing, couldn’t we instead see regulation of for-profit distros (or distros managed by for-profits), while volunteer-based, open-source remains largely unregulated?

I don’t see them as mutually exclusive - can’t Linux be user friendly for the non-techie while also offering a techie lots of flexibility and command-line joy? 🤷‍♂️

How do you see Linux being regulated if it grows? I imagine that Windows and MacOS are regulated because they’re for profits that e.g. harvest our data, create proprietary limitations on apps, and so on. Genuinely curious how regulating Linux would look similar - or how it might differ.

That’s helpful, thanks. I’m guessing they charge a premium because they provide a service. I’m not afraid to tinker a bit, but my interest in Linux is not tinkering - it’s to switch to a freer, more sustainable OS. So I’m curious about services that offer support.

For that reason I’ve also looked at Tuxedo computers, but I’m worried that I’m locking myself into another company’s OS again (from Microsoft/Apple to Tuxedo) rather than having the freedom to choose my own distro. But I guess with support comes a price: less freedom.

Right now I’m deeply locked into the Apple ecosystem. Apple makes wonderful hardware and apps, but it’s still a straitjacket, even if it’s a designer straitjacket. 😀