This isn’t speaking, but writing (or typing). Using ‘correct’ spelling & grammar helps ESL speakers read the language as well as those relying on text translation software. Some folks make typos & it’s fine to make mistakes but it’s also strange to act like it’s just as easy to understand. Apostrophes have a specific meaning & many folks rely on them for understanding.
I’m learning a foreign language now & I can tell you it is a massive stumbling block when you run into what you think is a new word, but is ‘just’ a misspelling.
My issue with this account is not its corrections, but if you want to be the correction bot, at least get the typography right too. ’ is as ASCII holdover & it should be ’.
I mean… at a certain point though, can you blame them? The system is so heavily corrupt that even criminals walk free, so ofc a high-ranking police officer will too. Like if the governor, mayor, and chief of police are all active members of the actual KKK, is a noobie’s job to overturn all of society to make it more just, or can they do at least some good if they keep their heads down and focus on what they can affect?
Most Americans (I am one) are lazy AF, always wanting others to do work for us. Trash collectors: “just make my garbage go away” (rather than work towards a more sustainable lifestyle). Doctors: “make a pill for that” (rather than eat healthy and exercise, but accepting that death eventually comes for us all). Police: “just make crime go away” (rather than work to address the systemic imbalances in the system that cause it.
Ultimately it is not only the job of police to police the police, but also the Mayor and thus the voters to choose what we want done. And if one side refuses to function - which sometimes but isn’t always the police - then it is lazy to place all the blame onto them.
Also, since when did the job of police ever include “changing” anything? Their whole thing is to “maintain the status quo”, which is like the polar opposite of change? Oh… now I get it:-P.
Police: “just make crime go away” (rather than work to address the systemic imbalances in the system that cause it.
I hope you don’t actually think that’s the source of crime. It’s a big one but far from the only one. Dahmer didn’t kidnap and eat people because of a systemic imbalance for example.
True, though haven’t studies shown that it is the major one, currently? So if the goal were to reduce even if not eliminate all crime, it might be a great place to start.
This is all true, but it’s interesting how people often forget another simple option: the software is commercial - it is simply sold on some website/store. Just like you can buy the game Mindustry on Steam, but it is Libre Software and even though you can get the build for free on GitHub and its itch.io page, people still pay for the Steam version. I wonder why people forget about this option, since it’s probably the simplest one.
Of course, Steam is a proprietary, unethical platform, so I’m just using it as an example - I’m not saying we should sell there.
Is it? On GOG you can download games without installing their proprietary client (there is also a libre alternative called Heroic Games Launcher, but that’s made by the community). Itch has a libre client and it’s also optional. Both those platforms don’t put DRM in games, unlike Steam.
Steam has forced updates. This means that game developers can push an update that for example deletes content from your game and as far as I know, you can’t really refuse it.
On a page of every game that is sold on Steam, you will see text that says “Buy”. But I’m pretty sure their ToS says that you are only renting games from them. So they are misleading their users.
That’s why I said “one of the fairest” and not “the fairest one”. There’s a whole lot of what steam does and other companies won’t ever do, for instance, Proton. I am forever thankful for it especially, since it motivated me to give linux the second chance. Not to say, that this particular technology turned the whole OS table around.
Steam is not perfect by any means, but people behind it offering quite a fair deal both for the devs and especially for customers. There’s basically no alternatives, bc steam has so much more to it than just storing your game library and being a game vendor.
On a page of every game that is sold on Steam, you will see text that says “Buy”. But I’m pretty sure their ToS says that you are only renting games from them. So they are misleading their users.
Not actually owning games sucks, but find me a digital marketplace that doesn’t say that you’re only “renting” them or some other bullshit. Steam doesn’t call it renting, rather, I quote, “As a Subscriber you may obtain access to certain services, software and content available to Subscribers or purchase certain Hardware”, where the subscriber is the word to call any user that has a steam account, nothing less nothing more: “You become a subscriber of Steam (“Subscriber”) by completing the registration of a Steam user account.” store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/#1
Basically, this wording is a backdoor for them, in case their servers will be shut down and they won’t be physically able to provide any game files. Yes, it opens some ways to exploit this, but unlike some other companies like Ubisoft, Valve never seem to use it this way. Also, torrents do exist, and guess what, they’re DRM free, just as you like it, I assume. That’s actually exactly why they should exist, imo: to preserve things.
Valve didn’t invent Proton. As far as I understand, it’s just a fork of WINE. I think the only difference is that it contains fixes for Steam versions of games. For non Steam games everyone uses WINE. I’m sure Proton is convenient for Steam users, though.
Not actually owning games sucks, but find me a digital marketplace that doesn’t say that you’re only “renting” them or some other bullshit.
Since GOG and itch.io give you DRM-free offline installers of games, I believe that you do own the games that you buy there. I haven’t read their ToS, though. It is possible that they say the same thing.
Steam doesn’t call it renting, rather, I quote, “As a Subscriber you may obtain access to certain services, software and content available to Subscribers or purchase certain Hardware”, where the subscriber is the word to call any user that has a steam account, nothing less nothing more: “You become a subscriber of Steam (“Subscriber”) by completing the registration of a Steam user account.” store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/#1
Thanks for finding the exact quote. They didn’t use that word, but to me it sounds like renting. You have access to software as long as you are a subscriber. But I probably wouldn’t mind this if their games didn’t have DRM. Then, if at some point you stopped being a subscriber, you would still be able to play your games (at least the ones you’ve downloaded). Another interesting thing is that they can ban you for selling your Steam account. But before Steam became popular, it was usually possible to sell used games.
Also, torrents do exist, and guess what, they’re DRM free, just as you like it, I assume. That’s actually exactly why they should exist, imo: to preserve things.
The point is that DRM is unethical. I refuse to pay for anything that contains DRM. Breaking it is illegal, requires special skills and sometimes it’s very difficult even for experts (Denuvo). If those games were Free Software, any programmer could remove DRM from them and distribute such modified copy. That’s exactly why we need to get rid of proprietary software - so that developers don’t have power over users. I also think that piracy should exist, but it doesn’t solve our issues with software freedom. Nobody should restrict what people can do with their software and their computers.
Oh no, Proton is not just “WINE with extra steps”, Proton is the directX to Vulkan translator, and unlike previous attempts, its so good that some games perform better than on Windows. Not to mention that Valve managed to solve the problems around anti-cheats and all of this works with minimal tweaking. If it were as simple as you say, somebody should’ve already done their own proton before Valve, also, in this case there were no community forks of it, that allows to use its power without the need to launch Steam (github.com/GloriousEggroll/wine-ge-custom). And yea, Proton is FOSS. Nice of them, to make a revolution and then just let the people actually have it, don’t you think? If, for example, Take Two were like this, most of modern games could’ve had beautiful procedural character animations powered by Euphoria engine.
The point is that DRM is unethical. I refuse to pay for anything that contains DRM. Breaking it is illegal, requires special skills and sometimes it’s very difficult even for experts…
DRM is unethical indeed, yet, to use them or not is the choice of the dev. Ban modern DRMs today and what you’ll achieve is that companies will try to squirm around and use something even more dirty. Also DRMs are already not the shittiest malware big companies trying to install on your machine, it would be anti-cheat. Why noone talks obout them? There are methods to detect cheaters without installing a rootkit spyware on all the end-users PCs.
…That’s exactly why we need to get rid of proprietary software - so that developers don’t have power over users. I also think that piracy should exist, but it doesn’t solve our issues with software freedom. Nobody should restrict what people can do with their software and their computers.
Lol. Sorry, but the games and DRM are not why. The most important reason to it is that we’re losing proprietary software’s technologies. Technologies that might help advace our modern day of living. Also because what they’re restricting is basically a knoledge, and knowledge shoud be free, not because your poor ass can’t own their games.
And Proton is the example that Valve contributes to FOSS community, unlike literally every other major game company, even CDPR.
Thats not even all of it to why i stand on my point, Steam prices are also the most humane, especially if we mention all this bunch of sales steam is famous for. They were there from the beginning, even though they could’ve done something similar to PSN in terms of pricing policy, given that steam was and still kinda is de-facto monopoly, since other game stores on pc have only the fractions of steam’s profits at the most.
But WINE does exactly that, it translates different Windows APIs. I’ve been using it to play games (including Steam games) way before Proton was released. It has existed for 30 years now. Proton came 25 years later and according to Wikipedia:
Proton is developed by Valve in cooperation with developers from CodeWeavers.[2] It is a collection of software and libraries combined with a patched version of Wine to improve performance and compatibility with Windows games. Proton is designed for integration into the Steam client as “Steam Play”.[3] It is officially distributed through the client, although third party forks can be manually installed.
You can see for yourself that it uses WINE and other software that WINE also uses, like DXVK: github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton
Not to mention that Valve managed to solve the problems around anti-cheats and all of this works with minimal tweaking.
If this is truly their achievement, then it is impressive.
Nice of them, to make a revolution and then just let the people actually have it, don’t you think?
If there is a revolution, then it seems that it’s mostly an achievement of WINE, DXVK and other developers. It is great that Valve contributes to Free Software, though. But that doesn’t change they fact that they also make proprietary software, which is unethical and they are doing it to attract people to their proprietary platform. WINE is licensed under a Copyleft LGPL license, so it’s also possible that Valve had no other choice in this case. Since last I checked even SteamOS was proprietary, there are good reasons to doubt their intentions.
Also DRMs are already not the shittiest malware big companies trying to install on your machine, it would be anti-cheat. Why noone talks obout them? There are methods to detect cheaters without installing a rootkit spyware on all the end-users PCs.
I talk about it, but most people don’t care about stuff like that at all.
Lol. Sorry, but the games and DRM are not why. The most important reason to it is that we’re losing proprietary software’s technologies. Technologies that might help advace our modern day of living. Also because what they’re restricting is basically a knoledge, and knowledge shoud be free, not because your poor ass can’t own their games.
My argument was that people deserve to be able to control their computers and to do that, they need to be able to control the software. Your reason is very important too. You can watch Richard Stallman’s talk for more: youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM
And Proton is the example that Valve contributes to FOSS community, unlike literally every other major game company, even CDPR.
That is true.
Thats not even all of it to why i stand on my point, Steam prices are also the most humane, especially if we mention all this bunch of sales steam is famous for. They were there from the beginning, even though they could’ve done something similar to PSN in terms of pricing policy, given that steam was and still kinda is de-facto monopoly, since other game stores on pc have only the fractions of steam’s profits at the most.
What you are saying is true, but before Steam became popular, it was possible to buy used games on physical media for cheap. Now even physical copies of PC games have Valve’s DRM, so I blame Valve for destroying the used games market on PC (on consoles it still exists).
Maybe you’re right and I’m romanticizing the evil there. I will remain thankful to Valve tho. I never managed to view proprietary saftware as something particularily evil, tbh, but rather as an annoying obstacle we should eventually overcome.
It’s not easy to have freedom when you are a gamer. Steam and Epic Games Store are both proprietary (but for Epic you can use Heroic Games Launcher) and so are most games. There aren’t that many libre games and maybe around 10 of them are good. I hope that will change in the future.
thanks. I forgot about that. But I’d like to add, that this models kind of feels like “donations with extra steps” to me. i.e. you can get it for free, but you choose to pay the developer even though you have to.
People can get proprietary software for free too, if they don’t mind pirating it. It might be illegal and the risk of getting malware increases, but many people do it anyway. Sometimes it’s even better than the original, because the pirated version won’t have DRM.
So in practice nobody has to pay for any software, any movie, etc. People just choose to do it. In case of Free Software getting it for free is just easier and safer. In theory this might mean that there is less incentive to pay for it, but some projects that I’ve seen seem to be successful. Maybe people don’t know they can get it for free, or it’s too much effort, or they are simply fine with paying.
The best example that comes to mind is Ardour, a FOSS digital audio workstation that charges for binaries. Their FAQ says
If you want the convenience of using our ready-to-run version and/or for support from Ardour developers and experienced users, we ask that you pay something for this.
If you don’t want to pay for a ready-to-run version, then you’ll need to get the source code and build it yourself. We do not provide assistance with this process and particularly on Windows and macOS this can be challenging and take a long time. Also, for Windows, there are no instructions.
It’s a bit mixed in with the “pay for support” model, since you’re basically on your own if you build it yourself. Which probably makes support a lot easier, since there are fewer supported configurations. This seems like a pretty workable model for something as complex as Ardour, but idk how well it would work for simpler projects.
think it also helps that Ardor is used directly by individual users, and its proprietary competitors are often quite expensive. If you’re making something that already has a lot of “free as in beer” competition, this may be harder to pull off.
That is interesting! I had no idea, since it’s packaged in Debian, so I was able to easily install it for free, without even knowing there is a paid version.
Ironically, Steam is one of the platforms with the most free games, but yes, I hate it with all my heart, since many years ago I bought the game Portal on CD, to realize that it required a Steam account to be able to play it. Furthermore, the same thing happens with the other games they provide, adding that they require downloading the client, which is loaded along with the game, unnecessarily spending resources, apart from the fact that it is slow as hell to open. With GOG more of the same, apart from the fact that it bores you with spam emails, the worst EPIC, which also requires complete personal data for registration. I miss the old days, when you went to the store, bought the game CD and in peace.
I bought The Orange Box, so I had the same problem. All physical copies of games are like this now and Valve is the reason. That killed the used games market on PC. You used to be able to sell your game after you got bored of it, but not anymore.
GOG’s client is proprietary just like Steam and Epic, which is bad, but the difference is that their client is optional. You can get offline installers of games directly from the website, because games there are DRM-free. So that makes GOG better than those platforms. There is also a Free Software alternative client developed by the community - Heroic Games Launcher. It works with Epic Games Store as well.
Another store is itch.io, which sells DRM-free games and their optional client is Free Software. But this store only has indie games.
After ruining copyright law and borrowing from public domain works, Disney finally loses a property to public domain. An incredible start to the new year!
People dont hate on ubuntu cause its inherently bad. They hate on it because its a corporate distro and they do some questionable stuff sometimes. The OS runs fine.
Why not debian unstable? Its better than ubuntu in pretty much every way imo. Somewhat less user friendly i guess.
Debian unstable is not really unstable, but it’s also not as stable as Ubuntu. I’m told that when bugs appear they are fixed fast.
I ran Debian testing for years. That is a rolling release where package updates are a few weeks behind unstable. The delay gives unstable users time to hit bugs before they get into testing.
When I wanted certain packages to be really up-to-date I would pin those select packages to unstable or to experimental. But I never tried running full unstable myself so I didn’t get the experience to know whether that would be less trouble overall.
It’s relatively alright for something that’s called unstable. There is also testing which is tested for at least 10 days. And you can mix and match, but that’s not recommended either.
I wouldn’t put it on my server. And I wouldn’t recommend it to someone who isn’t okay with fixing the occasional hiccup. But I’ve been using it for years and I like it.
However, mind that it’s not supported and they do not pay attention to security fixes.
I used to run Debian testing on my servers. These days I don’t have much free time to mess with them, so they’re all running the stable release with unattended-upgrades.
However, mind that it’s not supported and they do not pay attention to security fixes.
To be clear, it can still get security updates, but it’s the package maintainer’s responsibility to upload them. Some maintainers are very responsive while others take a while. On the other hand, Debian stable has a security team that quickly uploads patches to all officially supported packages (just the “main” repo, not contrib, non-free, or non-free-firmware).
Thanks for clarifying. Yeah I implied that but didn’t explain all the nuances. I’ve been scolded before for advertising the use of Debian testing. I’m quite happy with it. But since I’m not running any cutting edge things on my server and Docker etc have become quite stable… I don’t see any need to put testing on the server. I also use stable there and embrace the security fixes and stability / low maintenance. I however run testing/unstable on my laptop.
It’s not actually unstable, more accurately it’s tested and verified as much as Debian stable, meaning it’s fine for desktop use but I wouldn’t use it for a server or critical system I plan on running 24/7 without interruption, both since it may have bugs that develop after long term use and gets more frequent updates which will be missed and render it out of date quickly if it’s running constantly.
Unstable is pretty damn stable, feels arch-y to me, and arch rarely has issues. If there are issues they’re fixed fast.
Testing is the middle ground. Tested for a bit by unstable peeps but thats it.
It’s unstable in the sense that it doesn’t stay the same for a long time. Stable is the release that will essentially stay the same until you install a different release.
Sid is the kid next door (Iirc) from Toy Story who would melt and mutilate toys for fun. He may have been a different kind of unstable.
Side question on this, why are people suggesting Debian, a stable but “old” distro, but never mention RHEL / Rocky? They are on par with stability (and quite possibly RHEL wins on it). Did you know that you can get a free licence if you register as a developer?
If we pretend the issue is just the corporate aspects of Ubuntu/Canonical, Red Hat and RHEL have all of those and then some. People just try not to think about that because Fedora is so nice.
As for Rocky: The status of that is pretty much in massive flux since Redhat bounce between tolerating it and wanting it to be even deader than CentOS depending on the day.
Are we really back to the 00s? Are we going to start calling it Micro$hill next?
And “Legally it can’t be stopped” doesn’t really bode well for long term support in the context of contributors and so forth. It won’t prevent me from using Rocky (I actually really like it for servers I will likely re-image sooner than later) but it also means I am not going to recommend it to people looking for a distro.
When looking at the 8.x and 9.x releases Rocky is the most popular distro for enterprise Linux. Even more popular than R hell, and yes I’m still bitter about what they did to centos.
Technically they have to give the code to people who use their product. And the general public is not it. Except I guess the free license one would be problematic. Unless their is something in the license for your use.
You do not have to sign a licensing aggreement when you pull the image from Iron Bank, or spin up cloud VMs. In both of those cases you will get access to their source.
As the other reply said, Fedora and RHEL harbor the same problem as Ubuntu in terms of corporate backing.
They’re all as stable at it gets when it comes to linux distros; all those “server distributions”.
I guess people recommend debian because that’s what they know. It’s got the biggest community, so the most support.
Nothing against Rocky, but i wont recommend it if i’ve never used it.
I prefer software with defaults that are in line with my preferences. I rather have sensible defaults and a nice OOTB experience, instead of fighting my distro and it’s packages.
tbf, every actual neo-nazi is probably doing everything they can to further piss off Israel. It’s just a convenient opportunity is all, if someone is actually a hater.
They’re not anywhere close to the majority, the majority just wants to save lives. But they’re loud and sometimes clever, and good at hijacking other people’s causes.
Both anti-semitism and anti-arabism exist, and both are bigotry, because all Jews and all Arabs are not the same, and will never all be the same. Any more than all Americans are the same.
It’s a hard world though, right? Means we’re going to need something better than simple, easy tools to wrestle with it. That’s just how hard it is, and how little it cares about anyone’s wishes for it to be simpler.
Too many people see the world in black and white. You are either good or evil. Every person is both good and evil, but the media and propagandists want you to see one side as pure evil. Obviously it works because I see these kinds of posts everywhere. I don’t see it getting any better since everyone carries a handheld propaganda machine with them all the time.
I’m someone who knows that every person is both good and bad, and it’s a struggle that every one has. Looking at things as black and white, and every human struggle as being a fight against good and evil is a very misplaced, and dangerous way of thinking.
In a shitty ironic way, many neo-nazis are showing their really true colors as neo-fascists. They just want to support genocide and at this point, Jews are whiter than Palestinians, and they just want that same thing to happen against Black or Arab people around them. I’m happy to continue to use the word neo-nazi, but it’s a much broader spectrum of shittiness at this point.
Part of it is there’s at least two competing factions of crazy-talkers. One is the Book of Revelations types, I don’t know exactly how its supposed to work, but they want the second coming, and it’s supposed to happen over there and be ushered in by chaos.
Other is Jewish conspiracy theory types, who just like seeing what they perceive as the ultimate “ruling class” brought low. They don’t really need any holy book-type religions, their actual religion is just worldly power in all its forms–a depressing confluence of ignorance of what actually makes people strong, and pragmatism towards what it seems like makes people strong to them.
I always think the revelation types that think they’re definitely getting saved before the apocalypse is funny. The Bible says 144,000 will be saved, but the current estimate of Christians on earth is about 2.2 billion from what I can find. So you just gotta hit that 0.006545% chance.
While they’re at it, they can go to the casino, bet their entire life savings on a single number on the roulette wheel, do that twice in a row, and their odds of winning that are 11x higher than being picked for rapture.
I’m Jewish and the first ones, from two who talked to me years ago, either goes
“All jews must return to Isreal so the end times can happen” (she then got worse and rude when I said no thanks, so I don’t know more than that) and the second was
“The end times will only happen when jews have a kingdom in Isreal and most jews return to the holy land for the last war”
They both claimed to like me being Jewish because there needed to be jews in order for the end times to happen and I just went back to stocking groceries and ignoring them mostly
I generally agree. When I pull out the specific term neo-nazi, I’m referring to an extremely specific brand of bigot. The kind that probably has Hitler saluted themselves in the mirror before. Hardcore, not some filthy casual bigotry.
Not the guys that will bully and call names, the guys that would kill if they could. That’s their desire, murder, so long as they can get away with it.
Due to the root word Semite, the term is prone to being invoked as a misnomer by those who interpret it as referring to racist hatred directed at all “Semitic people” (i.e., those who speak Semitic languages, such as Arabs, Assyrians, and Arameans). This usage is erroneous; the compound word antisemitismus (lit. ‘antisemitism’) was first used in print in Germany in 1879[17] as a “scientific-sounding term” for Judenhass (lit. ‘Jew-hatred’),[18][19][20][21][22] and it has since been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment alone.
The meaning is “anti-Judaism” though. You’re the one wanting to define it differently. Be my guest, but it’s just good to know what the term means when people use it.
Anti-semitism exists, absolutely yes. But condemning the state of Israel of war crimes is not example of one, no matter how Israeli government tries to twist it.
If you support the action of Israel against the civilians of Palestine, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Jew or not - you deserve the scorn you get.
If you’re a Jew and you do not support this hell, I’m very sorry if you get any hostility directed to you, you’re a victim too. You deserve love and safety. Condemnation of the actions of Israel is in no way directed at you.
But Israeli military generals and government should face international trial for what they’ve done. It is crazy somebody in their right mind dares to support them in the 21st century.
Agreed. I was just wanting to point out that not everyone who seems to be criticizing Israel for war crimes actually cares about war crimes in the slightest, it’s more about what is actually a rare chance to simply hurt Jewish people in an actually substantial way. Since this small minority of actually severely anti-semitic people is extremely passionate about their beliefs, they are a surprisingly loud and disruptive force in what should otherwise be straightforward criticism of valid war crimes.
Many Israelis are emotionally devastated atm, which is one of the factors behind their irrational behavior imo. This makes them vulnerable to being pushed too far, by simply making them even angrier. They are not currently stable, at all. It’s a collective madness of sorts, and it should be approached with care, not trolling.
I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!
It’s not even just “political”, it is politics. Deciding to collaboratively make an operating system (infrastructure, practically) which is free for everyone and asking anyone using it to help out is doing politics, at least in a world where people are politically motivated to restrict people’s ability to go and do that somehow.
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