The integration is a problem, though. Cortana has absolutely nothing to do with updates, and the fact that you cannot remove it without breaking shit is a sign of some pretty terrible design mentality at Microsoft.
Come on, we don't need to turn every article into a systemd bashfest, do we? Give it time, it'll blow over. People will either fix its problems or replace it, nobody wants unstable systems. This is what happens to software projects that aren't stagnant. They change over time, usually for the better, but sometimes for the worse. The latter changes will be ironed out in time by the former, they always are. systemd is problematic, but it's not the end of Linux.
Firefox: the extension thing is a problem, but most people really don't use a massive pile of extensions. As for the UI - UI design changes and evolves too, get used to it. I liked the old UI better too, but it wasn't objectively better.
Or even better, write an extension to "fix" the UI. Part of the reason that Firefox does have some extension-related stability issues is the extreme flexibility of the extension interface. It's a blessing and a curse. Make use of it, write an extension to rearrange the UI back the way you like it. I'm sure plenty of people, myself included, would love to have such a thing.
GNOME 3: branch out a bit! Step out of your comfort zone. There are other desktop environments out there, some of which are just as old-school as you wish G3 still were.
(And yeah, for the record, I agree that GNOME 3 is a terrible, smelly ball of terribleness. Doesn't mean it's the end of Linux, it just means that GNOME's fifteen minutes are up and it's time for us to move on. Let it die, and don't worry, it's not taking anything important with it.)
I never advocated exchanging liberty for - not even safety, just convenience. I just pointed out that a large number of people either do not agree with Franklin, or do not see it that way.
Benjamin Franklin was a very intelligent man, but that doesn't make everything he said immediate, objective truth. Simply quoting him doesn't really add all that much to the discussion.
Haha, this is the biggest "Linux!!!!" flamebait article... Anyway, yeah, it seems fairly obvious. The trend for years has been a move back to server-side processing and services that are very heavy on collected user data.
The thing is, it's not just Evul Micro$oft spying on you with a telescope - the spying comes wrapped in services that people actually want. For many people it's a tradeoff - they know they're giving their data away, but they're willing to give up a bit of privacy for the convenience that comes with the service. I find that the average person doesn't usually have the same reverence for privacy as the average Slashdotter.
It's already been said, and it'll be said a hundred more times before we let this article go, but yes, Linux and FOSS in general are the answer. We've been going back and forth about the Year of the Linux Desktop, but really, this is where FOSS shines: as a relatively minority choice for enthusiasts. Let people make their privacy tradeoff choice in peace, it's a perfectly valid choice to make if one most of us (myself included) find highly distasteful, and the rest of us can work on and use FOSS to our heart's content.
Coming from the hardware side too, as more of an EE guy than a programmer: OSHW is getting more and more possible. Powerful hardware that is amenable to use in open designs is becoming more available every year. I can jump over to DigiKey and buy an ARM chip that is capable of running Linux and has more computing power than some of my first desktop computers for $20. The chip designs themselves tend not to be open, but they do tend to be quite well documented - the high end is almost always closed and subject to NDA, but there is little pressure to move that line backwards, and as the high end moves forward, the devices available to the OSHW developer get better and better.
I don't think this is the end of computing privacy, I think this is just the logical conclusion of computers (read: the computers in your pocket!) becoming popular, and starting to work the way Average Joe expects them to. Enthusiasts will always be here, and I think this is the start of a new era for them.
Slashdot Mirror
The integration is a problem, though. Cortana has absolutely nothing to do with updates, and the fact that you cannot remove it without breaking shit is a sign of some pretty terrible design mentality at Microsoft.
Come on, we don't need to turn every article into a systemd bashfest, do we? Give it time, it'll blow over. People will either fix its problems or replace it, nobody wants unstable systems. This is what happens to software projects that aren't stagnant. They change over time, usually for the better, but sometimes for the worse. The latter changes will be ironed out in time by the former, they always are. systemd is problematic, but it's not the end of Linux.
Firefox: the extension thing is a problem, but most people really don't use a massive pile of extensions. As for the UI - UI design changes and evolves too, get used to it. I liked the old UI better too, but it wasn't objectively better.
Or even better, write an extension to "fix" the UI. Part of the reason that Firefox does have some extension-related stability issues is the extreme flexibility of the extension interface. It's a blessing and a curse. Make use of it, write an extension to rearrange the UI back the way you like it. I'm sure plenty of people, myself included, would love to have such a thing.
GNOME 3: branch out a bit! Step out of your comfort zone. There are other desktop environments out there, some of which are just as old-school as you wish G3 still were.
(And yeah, for the record, I agree that GNOME 3 is a terrible, smelly ball of terribleness. Doesn't mean it's the end of Linux, it just means that GNOME's fifteen minutes are up and it's time for us to move on. Let it die, and don't worry, it's not taking anything important with it.)
I never advocated exchanging liberty for - not even safety, just convenience. I just pointed out that a large number of people either do not agree with Franklin, or do not see it that way.
Benjamin Franklin was a very intelligent man, but that doesn't make everything he said immediate, objective truth. Simply quoting him doesn't really add all that much to the discussion.
Haha, this is the biggest "Linux!!!!" flamebait article... Anyway, yeah, it seems fairly obvious. The trend for years has been a move back to server-side processing and services that are very heavy on collected user data.
The thing is, it's not just Evul Micro$oft spying on you with a telescope - the spying comes wrapped in services that people actually want. For many people it's a tradeoff - they know they're giving their data away, but they're willing to give up a bit of privacy for the convenience that comes with the service. I find that the average person doesn't usually have the same reverence for privacy as the average Slashdotter.
It's already been said, and it'll be said a hundred more times before we let this article go, but yes, Linux and FOSS in general are the answer. We've been going back and forth about the Year of the Linux Desktop, but really, this is where FOSS shines: as a relatively minority choice for enthusiasts. Let people make their privacy tradeoff choice in peace, it's a perfectly valid choice to make if one most of us (myself included) find highly distasteful, and the rest of us can work on and use FOSS to our heart's content.
Coming from the hardware side too, as more of an EE guy than a programmer: OSHW is getting more and more possible. Powerful hardware that is amenable to use in open designs is becoming more available every year. I can jump over to DigiKey and buy an ARM chip that is capable of running Linux and has more computing power than some of my first desktop computers for $20. The chip designs themselves tend not to be open, but they do tend to be quite well documented - the high end is almost always closed and subject to NDA, but there is little pressure to move that line backwards, and as the high end moves forward, the devices available to the OSHW developer get better and better.
I don't think this is the end of computing privacy, I think this is just the logical conclusion of computers (read: the computers in your pocket!) becoming popular, and starting to work the way Average Joe expects them to. Enthusiasts will always be here, and I think this is the start of a new era for them.
Meh, not everything here has to be news per se - it's a discussion topic. One of the best parts of this place (sometimes...) is the discussion.