Comment by iamnothere
1 day ago
Under no circumstances should we be “mandating” how hobbyists write their software. If you want to scope this to commercial OSes, be my guest. That’s not what was done here.
1 day ago
Under no circumstances should we be “mandating” how hobbyists write their software. If you want to scope this to commercial OSes, be my guest. That’s not what was done here.
I'm not sure where the line between "hobby" and "professional" lies when it comes to linux distributions. Many of them are nonprofit but not really hobbyist at this point. Debian sure feels like a professional product to me (I daily drive it).
We regulate how a hobbyist constructs and uses a radio. We regulate how a hobbyist constructs a shed in his yard or makes modifications to the electrical wiring in his house.
I think mandating the implementation of strictly device local filtering based on a standardized HTTP header (or in the case of apps an attached metadata field) would be reasonably non-invasive and of benefit to society (similar to mandating USB C).
> I'm not sure where the line between "hobby" and "professional" lies when it comes to linux distributions. Many of them are nonprofit but not really hobbyist at this point. Debian sure feels like a professional product to me (I daily drive it).
"Professional" means you're being paid for the work. Debian is free (gratis), contributors are volunteers, and that makes it not professional.
What about Ubuntu? Its a combination of work by volunteers and paid employees, it is distributed by a commercial company, and said company sells support contracts, but the OS itself is free.
And there are developers who are paid to work on various components of linux from the kernel, to Gnome, does that make it professional?
Is Android not professional, because you don't pay for the OS itself, and it is primarily supported by ad revenue?
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