• 7 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: February 9th, 2025

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  • Because he’s not some guy on the internet saying his opinion, he is maintaining the most relevant Free Software kernel. So if he goes nuts, there is great potential for great disaster. I don’t think there are Linux distributions that use forks of the Linux kernel. (What notable forks are there anyway?) At the moment, they all depend on the original Linux kernel. There is currently no alternative. It would take a lot of disruption and a tremendous effort to establish and switch to a fork of the Linux kernel that is free of Linus’ influence. Today, I’d say jokingly I will switch to FreeDOS. But if this sloppification goes on, I guess I will have to.




  • Passkeys mean a spread of enshittification to ever more areas of life. Specifically, they

    • force me to use an extra OS on an extra device and keep it around just to use a site with passkeys.
    • add insecurity and inconvenience. I neither can backup the passkeys nor use them on another device. (That’s not implemented on Windows.) This user experience is laughable in 2026. The passkeys are forever locked on the device where I created them. I am forever chained to exactly one device. If it breaks down, my life ends because our lives depend on digital technology.
    • take away control from me and force me to trust third parties. I have to trust the hardware, the OS, the proprietary software, which makes me feel very uncomfortable as someone used to use Free software. Security by obscurity was always a bad idea.
    • deny me anonymity and control over my accounts. I can have only one account per domain.
    • are a black box with no user interface. With passwords I know exactly what account name and password I enter at which site. With passkeys I get asked for a PIN. That is all. There is no indication what exactly I authorize. This is a lot like clicking links in emails and giving your banking details to everyone who asks.

    The recommendation “do not use them” is cute. They are forced on people. I can’t choose.






  • The distinction between personal belongings and means of production is not at all clear-cut. In what flavor of socialism would I be allowed to own which dual-use goods? Examples:

    • My house and garden can be a place of production (for art, artisan goods, handicraft, foods, etc.).
    • May a musician own musical instruments or must he collect them from the warehouse of the local musical collective?
    • Computers and other electronics are classical dual-use goods. Do I have to share them with all kinds of people?
    • Cars and other vehicles. Are socialists going to emulate historical Albania in that cars are not allowed as personal property? Where will they draw the line? Are e-bikes allowed, or scooters, or freight bicycles?


  • Why would anyone want a chatbot to shit code? If you need to reuse (your own or others’) code, use functions. Functions are the right approach, or maybe try subroutines, procedures or methods. Flooding code bases with this verbose incoherent mess creates a lot of technical debt. Who will clean up after Linus and at what cost? Should not weeding out complexity and fixing bugs be a priority over creating more chaos?