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Linus Torvalds and Bill Gates Meet for the First Time Ever

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  • it's a nonprofit he directly benefits from because it has his name on it. he directly benefits from it by using it as a way to sway political power. he directly benefits from it through financial gains paid through the organization.

    the entire concept of the foundation is contingent on his financial success. something of which he is well known for destroying lives for.

    so tell me, how many of those ruined lives were acceptable for the good that his charity does? how many more lives must be ruined for the good to continue to be acceptable? would you find it acceptable if your life was destroyed to continue the good his charity does? would you be willing to accept your life to be ruined or ended to support the continuation of his charity?

    I don't understand why you don't see the obvious correlation between the two so I'll over simplify it.

    bad man makes bad money making people suffer. bad money makes good stuff happen under bad man name. bad man still bad man doing good stuff for bad reasons.

    you sit and justify his actions by arguing he's doing good things. I question if he's doing good things just to do them or if they're a byproduct of him "cleansing" his name. after all, bad men do bad things. Ever heard of Alfred Nobel?

    Forget it, they're out there thinking they'll be the next one to "benefit" some million dollars from the billionaire table

  • Search the web for “polio”

    Google en passant.

  • ::: spoiler spoiler
    sdfsafsafsdaf
    :::

    Name one bad historical person that didn't do at least some good.

    Your moral compass is broken.

  • Lol no. Of all the sleazy and greasy millionaires, Gates is one of the few whose actions speaks for themselves. Dude has been doing noble causes for most of my life.

    I'm all for talking shit about the rich, but it better be true.

    His pr firm really works well.

    Check out when elon ditched his pr firm. He went frm that loved lil crazy fun type to what he really is.

  • It's still giving money away though? Why would you want there to be taxes on charity?

    Giving away money? You sweet summer child.

    Research don't want "his" (the foundations) money, it comes with so many strings attached all your lives work now belongs to the B&M foundation.

  • ::: spoiler spoiler
    sdfsafsafsdaf
    :::

    Every dictator did "some good work", are you thinking they are good people?

    IMO your moral compass need maintenance.

  • Sounds like you're cherry picking both; I've seen plenty of garbage that costs money as well.

    Sure, but if you look at the top quality softwares, the majority of them are paid.

    Because money is a big encouragement to make them as flawless as possible. Something FOSS just doesn't have.

  • You're right, it's not a bad analogy, you're just failing to make a cogent point. Even though you're trolling, I'll bite:

    "Using a grocery store" encompasses everything from buying fresh ingredients and cooking your meal (assembling a computer from parts, customizing it to your liking) to buying entrees and sides you like at the deli (ordering a custom build with parts you picked, letting someone else do the legwork) to buying whatever TV dinners are on special in the freezer aisle (walking into a Best Buy or Apple Store and buying anything with a screen, because you need a computer and don't care about the details)

    "Hunting for all of your food and cooking it from absolute scratch" would be what, writing all your own software? Fabricating your own CPU from silicon? Obviously vanishingly few people are doing that, though there certainly are people with electronics knowledge going more granular than slotting parts into an ATX motherboard. But that's not what myself (or anyone in this thread from what I can tell) is advocating people do. If you think it is, you grossly misunderstand FOSS. I'm genuinely curious what you think I'm getting at by saying some things are overly simple.

    What I'm frustrated with, to use your analogy, are the companies making TV dinners who don't even include the microwave wattage in their vague instructions on the box. And subsequently, the customers buying them, turning an already mediocre product into a disastrous result, and trashing the company on social media. Then reaching out to the manufacturer only to be told they just need to buy a new microwave. Sometimes the customer doesn't even bother to read and puts the TV dinner in the oven instead, then gets mad when their kitchen fills with smoke and their dinner is inedible because of the melted plastic.

    It is the perfect analogy, because you are a techy, not a survival hunter.

    You buying at a grocery store is out of convenience, the alternative is learning how to hunt like a survival hunter.

    Just like how the average user wants the convenience of easy to use software, because they don't want to learn the alternative like you.

    If everyone was like you, then easy to use software wouldn't be selling so much.

  • Keep in mind this status quo is already the result of decades of oversimplification. I am not saying everyone needs to compile the Linux kernel in order to have a computer. I'm saying you should have a basic level of familiarity with the computer you're using, same as any other tool.

    You should know how to check and top up your engine oil, change a tire in an emergency, etc, if you're going to own a car.
    You should know how to safely handle, operate, store, transport, and clean your firearm if you're going to own a gun.
    You should know how to empty the chamber or bag, clean the filters correctly, what not to suck up and how to troubleshoot if you do, if you're going to own a vacuum.
    You should know how to operate it, when and how it should be cleaned, and what not to do while it's running, if you're going to own an electric range.
    You should know the difference between a web browser and your computer's filesystem, the difference between RAM and storage, and that you can Internet search most errors to judge whether you're comfortable trying to fix them yourself or not, if you're going to own a computer.

    There will ALWAYS be a point where it's more worth paying someone else instead of learning something yourself. But it's about the cost-benefit analysis, and the threshold for what's considered "intricate" is a depressingly low bar where computers are concerned. As I'm sure you are well aware.

    you should have a basic level of familiarity with the computer you’re using, same as any other tool

    Obviously not, they can use it without that understanding just fine for whatever they want to do. That is enough understanding for them. If their computer explodes, they just buy an other one.

  • No, it's not. We have other shit to do and very limited quality time.

    Though, if we compare nowadays distros like Bazzite with Windows 11..

  • It's actually the perfect analogy, you just can't see it because you're stuck in the bubble.

    If you think big tech doesnt cut corners and offloads the work to the users you are in a bubble; there's software that is secure, performant, pretty, doesn't break on its own, and doesn't have an obsolescency clock ticking inside. Oh, and doesn't spy on you dismantling society by the minute.

  • Name one bad historical person that didn't do at least some good.

    Your moral compass is broken.

    The charity did more than some good though.

    Also, name one good historical person that didn't do at least some bad.

    It is almost like things aren't black and white but more like Yin and Yang.

  • I've said this before here, but techy people vastly overestimate both the ability and the patience of the typical user, and it's the reason so few people use FOSS products.

    Products from big tech aimed at private individuals are designed to be as simple to use as possible, which is why they're so popular.

    And this in turn led to the younger generations being less tech-literate.

  • His pr firm really works well.

    Check out when elon ditched his pr firm. He went frm that loved lil crazy fun type to what he really is.

    Sure, and where is your proof that Bill needs one, let alone uses one?

    And don't come with a list of actions the majority of people don't care about.

  • I've said this before here, but techy people vastly overestimate both the ability and the patience of the typical user, and it's the reason so few people use FOSS products.

    Products from big tech aimed at private individuals are designed to be as simple to use as possible, which is why they're so popular.

    Nah, I have worked in IT education and in helpdesk. Average user doesn't have a better time getting into Microsoft products, it's not easier for them than FOSS. The reason for Windows domination is Microsoft spending money and lobbying power to put it in front of every user.

  • That has to be one of the most out of touch takes I've seen in a while. You're basically saying that things should be intentionally more complicated, and you expect the result to be people just power through and getting used to things being that way, instead of just stopping.

    Or instead just not hiding things that need not be hidden, like file extensions, despite your OS relying on them for identifying types.

  • Both Torvalds and Gates are nerds... Gates decided to monetize it and Torvalds decided to give it away.

    But without Microsoft's "PC on every desktop" vision for the '90s, we may not have seen such an increased demand for server infrastructure which is all running the Linux kernel now.

    Arguably Torvalds' strategy had a greater impact than Gates because now many of us carry his kernel in our pocket. But I think both needed each other to get where we are today.

    But without Microsoft’s “PC on every desktop” vision for the '90s, we may not have seen such an increased demand for server infrastructure which is all running the Linux kernel now.

    Debatable, in my opinion. There were lots of other companies trying to build personal computers back in those times (IBM being the most prominent). If Microsoft had never existed (or gone about things in a different way), things would have been different, no doubt, but they would still be very important and popular devices. The business-use aspect alone had a great draw and from there, I suspect that adoption at homes, schools, etc. would still follow in a very strong way.

  • Do you hunt for all of your food and cook it from absolute scratch?

    I bet you sometimes use a grocery store.

    Yet you still better know how to cook, despite convenience food existing. Hunting is more analogous to calling kernel interfaces.

  • That has to be one of the most out of touch takes I've seen in a while. You're basically saying that things should be intentionally more complicated, and you expect the result to be people just power through and getting used to things being that way, instead of just stopping.

    To add to subignition's point, there is a value in learning useful software. More complicated software means that there is a learning curve - so while you are less productive while learning how to use it, once you gain more experience, you ultimately become more productive. On the other hand, if you want the software to be useful to everyone regardless of his level of experience, you ultimately have to eliminate more complex functionality that makes the software more useful.

    Software is increasingly being distilled down to more and more basic elements, and ultimately, I think that means that people are able to get less done with them these days. This is just my opinion, but in general I have seen computer literacy dropping and people's productivity likewise decreasing, at least from what I've observed from the 1990s up until today. Especially at work, the Linux users that I see are much more knowledgeable and productive than Apple users.

  • Buddy, if I open Photoshop it's gonna take me hours to learn how to do one thing too, what a horrible example lmao. There's like so many easy slam dunks you could've said too.

    Agreed. People just think the first tool that they learned is the easiest to use. I've been a longtime Gimp user and find it pretty easy to do what I want.* The few times someone asked me to do something in Photoshop, I was pretty helpless. Of course, I'm a pretty basic user - I wouldn't dispute that Photoshop is more powerful, but which one is easier to use is very subjective and the vast majority of the time, it just boils down to which one you use more often.

    I've seen the same with people who grew up on Libreoffice and then started smashing their computer when they were asked to use MSOffice.

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    I wonder if a legitimate case could be made for a class action lawsuit to stop this? The class would literally include ever person alive and yet to be born/
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    Niemand hat geantwortet
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    it becomes a form of censorship when snall websites and forums shut down because they don’t have the capacity to comply. In this scenario that's not a consideration. We're talking about algorithmically-driven content, which wouldn't apply to Lemmy, Mastodon, or many mom-and-pop sized pages and forums. Those have human moderation anyway, which the big sites don't. If you're making editorial decisions by weighting algorithmically-driven content, it's not censorship to hold you accountable for the consequences of your editorial decisions. (Just as we would any major media outlet.)
  • Could Windows and installed apps upload all my personal files?

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    Yes, every application has access to everything. The only exception are those weird apps that use the universal framework or whatever that thing is called, those need to ask for permissions. But most of the apps on your PC have full access to everything. And Windows does collect and upload a lot of personal information and they could easily upload everything on your system. The same of course applies for the apps as well, they have access to everything except privileged folders (those usually don't contain your personal data, but system files).
  • Sitting up and waiting.

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    What new AI slop hell is this?
  • How Do I Prepare My Phone for a Protest?

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    So first, even here we see foundation money and big tech, not government. Facebook, Google, etc mostly love net neutrality, tolerate encryption, anf see utility in anonymous internet access, mostly because these things don't interfere with their core advertising businesses, and generally have helped them. I didn't see Comcast and others in the ISP oligopoly on that list, probably because they would not benefit from net neutrality, encryption, and privacy for obvious reasons. The EFF advocates for particular civil libertarian policies, always has. That does attract certain donors, but not others. They have plenty of diverse and grassroots support too. One day they may have to choose between their corpo donors and their values, but I have yet to see them abandon principles.
  • We Should Immediately Nationalize SpaceX and Starlink

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    How many of those Saturn V rockets landed themselves back on the launch pad? NASAs milestones were not the same as, nor anywhere near as hard as, SpaceX’s. Your incompetence line shows you’re not capable of being impartial in this so there’s no real point continuing. You’re saying the guy responsible for the EV market we have no, the almost fully self driving cars we have now, the satellite internet network we have now, and the reusable spaceship booster rockets we have now is “incompetent”. You’re not here to actually have a discussion.
  • Indian Government orders censoring of accounts on X

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    Why? Because you can’t sell them?