Re: [gentoo-user] from Firefox52: NO pure ALSA?, WAS: Firefox 49.0 & Youtube... Audio: No

[Daniel Campbell]

On 12/17/2016 12:53 AM, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Dec 2016 00:55:21 -0500, Walter Dnes wrote:
>
>>> Well, he is a Red Hat employee.  Nobody really debates that.
>>
>>   Maybe it's not intentional spyware malice, but rather that home users
>> are being jerked around while Redhat re-writes linux as a corporate OS.
>>
>>   Systemd does all sorts of management that isn't really required by the
>> regular home user, but Redhat doesn't give a hoot about their experience
>> being made more difficult.  Redhat only cares about their paying
>> customers.
>
> Any non-trivial, off the shelf software does more than you need it to,
> it's the only way to be sure it does not do less than you need it to. I'd
> rather a program have ten features I don't need than be missing one that
> I do.
>
>>   Similarly, the vast majority of home users have a machine with one
>> ethernet port, and in the past it's always been eth0.  Now the name
>> varies in each machine depending on the motherboard layout; oogabooga11?
>> foobar42?  It may be static, but you don't know what it'll be, without
>> first booting the machine.  In a truly Orwellian twist, this "feature"
>> is referred to as "Predictable" Network Interface Names.  It only makes
>> things easier for corporate machines acting as gateways/routers, with
>> multiple ports.
>
> It wouldn't be so bad if they had provided an easy way to revert to the
> old behaviour like maybe a boot option or touching a file in /etc :(
>
>> Again, the average home user is being jerked around for
>> a corporate agenda.
>
> Yes, it is disgusting that developers add the options desired by those
> that pay their wages while completely ignoring the users that give them
> nothing! It's almost like they are scratching their employer's itch while
> ignoring yours.
>
> Really, no one is forcing you to use anything. If you don't like the way
> particular piece of software is going, you can get a full refund and
> switch to something else.
>
>
That argument doesn't really offer anything of substance in return.
Yeah, "just use something else", until whatever entity has completely
owned the platform. What then? Switch platforms ad nauseum? At some
point, you need to take some sort of action. Talking about it is a good
start. It helps formulate and refine ideas that can turn into real,
tangible action. Usually it just ends in a fork; though there's nothing
wrong with that. It's a feature, not a bug.

I get where you're coming from, but Walter's talking about a real
concern when it comes to libre software and corporate involvement. The
profit motive has the potential to devastate community-oriented
operations, be they libre software, swimming pools, common areas,
municipal Internet, or even housing efforts. That potential for damage
should be baked into any community-based operation's decision-making
process. Sometimes a partnership can be great (like getting hosting from
a reseller for a rebate in return for some consulting or mentoring on
the side), sometimes it's bad (losing license to a given piece of
software because you wanted to improve or correct it (Linus and
BitKeeper, for the uninitiated)))

Just consider the source of all the 'innovations' coming down the pike,
and ask yourself why they wrote that software. I think that's solid
advice no matter what your opinion of corporations is.
-- 
Daniel Campbell - Gentoo Developer
OpenPGP Key: 0x1EA055D6 @ hkp://keys.gnupg.net
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