Comment by jachee
4 years ago
Good luck finding a suitable replacement. Microsoft does unpredictable things to Windows. Linux maintainers do unpredictable things to all sorts of things.
Your only real recourse is to compile everything from source after a thorough review every time...
...or else trust someone.
Sure Apple had a problem here, but there are so many other reasons to trust them over any other org that I can't in good conscience switch platforms, because there's so much more anxiety elsewhere.
> Linux maintainers do unpredictable things to all sorts of things.
With Linux you don't have to worry about every program you launch being reported to the mothership, or that failure of the mothership to respond would cause your computer to not function.
If you're not reading all the source of everything you're running, any or all of it it absolutely could be reporting usage/stats/your data to a "mothership".
Just because there's no single central org involved doesn't mean there aren't risks.
You don't need to read it, you just need to be able to read it.
Just because there are risks doesn't mean the risks are meaningfully comparable.
3 replies →
We already know that, by design, macOS will report back to the mothership. If things are working 100% correctly, Apple will collect what programs you run and when you do so.
Linux won't report to the mothership by design. If things work 100% correctly, you don't have to worry about some company knowing what programs you run and when.
> If you're not reading all the source of everything you're running, any or all of it it absolutely could be reporting usage/stats/your data to a "mothership".
there's a big difference in threat vector between one mothership and 200.
Just because there's no single central org involved doesn't make it safe.
I've already found a replacement, Debian stable + i3wm has been my happy place for the last 5 years. No unexpected behavior changes on update, just bug fixes, it does what I tell it, nothing crazy like Debian maintainers dictating what binaries I can run... if you want more or less control you've got plenty of Ubuntu style distros in one direction and Arch style in the other.
If you're a media person then yeah, I feel bad for you, i've been there and it sucks, you're stuck with mac and windows if you require mainstream design apps.