Ultimately, yeah. The article points out that the way they want to do it is with unique designs, carbon neutrality, and transparency in the production chain.

I agree that we shouldn’t jump immediately to AI-enhancing it all. However, this survey is riddled with problems, from selection bias to external validity. Heck, even internal validity is a problem here! How does the survey account for social desirability bias, sunk cost fallacy, and anchoring bias? I’m so sorry if this sounds brutal or unfair, but I just hope to see less validity threats. I think I’d be less frustrated if the title could be something like “TechPowerUp survey shows 84% of 22,000 respondents don’t want AI-enhanced hardware”.

There’s a fair bit of bias in the terms “restrictive” and “permissive”, which make MIT seem like a ‘better’ choice than a give-and-take license like GPL.

The truth is, MIT is risky for developers. Using just one line from an MIT-licensed project will automatically allow others to exploit your work without giving back. I’d prefer to advocate for balanced licenses that protect both user and developer interests.

We are at risk

of losing many developers who would otherwise choose a license like the GPL. Fortunately, I’m glad to be surrounded by people, just like you, who care about licenses like GPL. By uploading this type of content and engaging with it, be show our commitment to it. I wish to suggest how we can deal with this threat.

We will lose developers who choose GPL if we use words that suggest GPL is “restrictive”. Sure, the word “restrictive” was avoided in this meme by using the word “copyleft”, but the cognitive jump from “permissive” to “restrictive” is minimal: just add an “opposite” and you’ve got “permissive is the opposite to restrictive”. It really is that simple. That’s how brain works (check out Relational Frame Theory to see how that works).

So what can we do about it?

Well, we can approach this with science. There is a historical global trend towards people being more meta-cognitive. That means that people are becoming more aware of how our thoughts interpret everyday reality and how to be intentional with our relationship with our thoughts so that we live better lives. We know this trend is happening to virtually everyone everywhere because of the work of brilliant sociologists like Anthony Giddens and Christian Welzel. Heck, even the history of psychology —going from noticing and changing behaviors (behaviorism) to noticing and changing behaviors and thoughts (cognitive-behaviorism), to noticing and changing the context and function of behaviors, thoughts, and emotions (functional contextualism)— reflects this trend.

We can use meta-cognition in our favor; we can use the meta-cognitive tool of framing to change how we think about GPL and MIT licenses. Effective communicators like influencers, political campaign experts, and influential activists use framing all the time. For example, instead of using the dangerous framing that suggests GPL is ‘restrictive’, we can use another one that truly displays the virtues of the license.

What would this other frame look like? I may not have a perfect answer, but here are some

ways of framing (thinking about) the relationship between licenses like GPL and MIT:

(ironically!!!, these were ‘suggested’ by an LLM; I wonder if these frames already existed)

• “Investment-Protecting Licenses” vs. “Investment-Risking Licenses” (as in developers invest by working on projects that they could (not) lose the ability to contribute to)
• “Community-Resource-Guarding Licenses” vs. “Exploitation-Vulnerable Licenses”
• “Give-and-Take Licenses” vs. “Take-and-Keep Licenses” ⭐
• “Freedom-Ensuring Licenses” vs. “Freedom-Risking Licenses” ⭐
• “Contribution-Rewarding Licenses” vs. “Contribution-Exploiting Licenses”
• “Open-Source-Preserving Licenses” vs. “Closed-Source-Enabling Licenses”

I’d be happy to hear what you think, including suggestions!

The article’s “valuing your time” argument is problematic in certain contexts. My brother has had so much trouble with his dual-boot (Windows and Linux). Yes, he could learn how to solve something in Linux every time a problem arises, but he also has to deliver his projects on time. Because of that, he mostly spends time on his Windows dual boot. Yeah, it sucks ethically and has its own pragmatic issues, but he has never had issues resolving dependencies or hunting down the most recent version that can actually be run in NixOS.

I don’t doubt these will become issues that will not be as problematic in the future, but right now my brother cannot use Linux reliably for his assignments.

Edit: My brother has tried what I use: Fedora and NixOS. He has also tried PopOS.

In Fedora, he found some of his software didn’t exist as .deb, and struggled to make .tar files work smoothly for him.

He tried NixOS afterward. He really liked the whole immutability thing, as well as the idea that apps would have their own dependencies.

His dependency problem happened in PopOS. If I remember correctly, it was a code editor that required a version of something that was different to what a package he used in his software was.

I think the order he tried was Fedora -> NixOS -> PopOS -> NixOS -> ? (Haven’t talked to him about it recently)

The way string of any material is woven should be durable. But plastic can be a magical material. It doesn’t cool when wet, regardless of whether it’s got fat on it (unlike wool, which requires lanolin). And its cheapness makes it readily available to billions of people.

To be clear, yes, we should avoid overproduction and overconsumption of plastic. Yes, we should research cheap ways of making durable and waterproof/still-warm-when-wet clothes that are biodegradable. Yes, we should require good filters in every washing machine and dryer so that we don’t get full of microplastics.

Ah. This makes sense! Thanks!

I’m not sure adblockers change the OS they report. Other tools I know for a fact do it.

Edit: However, as @aebletrae@hexbear.net mentions, adblockers don’t have to change what OS is reported to change the overall statistics. They explain how in a comment below.

I think most of the criticism on Telegraph regarding how Matrix handles rooms and events are addressed by the work behind linearized matrix: https://www.qwant.com/?l=en&q=linearized+matrix+messaging&t=web

EDIT BEINGS HERE

So I actually watched a talk by the person who coinded "enshittification", Cory Doctorow, recently, and I have changed my perspective about Kagi. I no longer think Kagi is doomed to enshittify.

Enshittification requires advertisers. As long as Kagi finances itself with money that does not come from advertisers, it will not enshittify.

This does not mean that it's not problematic that their code is closed-source.

EDIT ENDS HERE

I like what I hear about the user experience, but there are many problems I see with the service.

For one, it's based in the USA, so it is legally subject to the insane, antidemocratic, and awful state surveillance there.

It is also a corporation, so it is subject to enshittification. Currently, it is giving users loads of stuff so that users use it, but sooner or later investors will want their money back and Kagi will enshittify.

Finally, these two problems would be mitigated by open-sourcing and making libre their software. With that, alternatives in more sensible legislatures could open. Users could migrate to instances that are still libre and not enshittified.

It is really unfortunate that Kagi is doing so many things well while doing some fundamental things terribly. As it stands, Kagi is doomed to enshittify.

Just in case OP doesn’t know, this whole text comes from someone else. Some people prefer using words other than GNU/Linux.

Except a restaurant is not asking to log every word of yours in exchange for pizza.

I’ve been daily driving it for six months now. I wish I would’ve know the Nix language well enough before jumping in to attempt declarative configurations. Not that it’s hard.

I have had issues that have had me temporarily try Pop or Debian, but dependency hell is real and the Nix community is wonderful. I have been able to solve every single one of my handful of problems in less than a day or two (sometimes in minutes) with the community.

Edit: oh yeah, and documentation is not great… Again, the community has been my source of answers to many questions.

As many others have said, it’s hard to imagine life without NixOS once you get the hang of it.

Pro tip: think of a bracket as an S and a 2 on top of each other. Which one is on top of which will depend on whether you’re writing an opening bracket or a closing bracket. Just try it out and you’ll see which is which.

After you try it out, as another comment pointed out, think of your 2s and Ss as surrounding a circle. That way your traces get closer to the actual shape.

Same here. My issues atm are that NixOS is just too darn complicated sometimes… But that doesn’t mean stuff gets borked.

Can you explain how category theorists must be the least frustrated people alive? 😅

I think it improved by changing the HDMI card thingy and with the new processors.

• Nix (OS, the package manager, and the language) having excellent and exhaustive documentation.
• It being so easy to use that my grandmother could use it. Heck, a GUI to handle packages would be amazing!

The out of date problem you mention is something Nix contemplates. As of a couple hours ago, if you try to install Etcher (Balena Etcher, that is), you will get a message saying there’s an out of date dependency: Electron.

You can still try to install End of Life packages, but you have to type an instruction the ‘compiler’ tells you to type out. In other words, you have to be deliberate about installing out of date dependencies.

The other problem I understood it as “if I declaratively do this and then imperatively do that, how do I keep track of it all?”. If that is indeed what you’re asking, you’re right. That’s a problem. That’s why I try to keep everything in the config.

I’ve been using Nix now for a couple of months and the configuration file has been a great friend. Sometimes I don’t know how to configure something and I get lost and worried, but the community has helped me to fix my problems- .

And hello post-quantum encryption ✌️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UrdExQW0cs