I am an old fart. My first Unix machine was a VME 68xx running Unix Version 7 around 1986. I am mostly a developper, but I've been doing sysadmin work as an aside (unavoidable in small companies) more or less continuously for the last 30 years.

Recently, on upgrading my Debian home server (can't remember if it was Wheezy->Jessie or Jessie->Stretch), the server did not come back on the network after the upgrade. Go down to the garage where it lives: single user mode. No explanation nothing. After wasting 2 hours trying to guess what was happening, the explanation was that there was a stray entry in fstab. Nothing related to the real important stuff (/ or /usr), something like /proc/bus/usb or such. Systemd just decided that single user was the right thing to do. No ssh, no nothing. If the server had been remote, this would have been a major issue, instead of a couple of uncomfortable hours (restarting from backups would have been possible but would have changed a quasi-routine thing into one or more days of work).

I can't remember a machine being so nasty to me since the 90s (Unixware maybe :) )

Actually I should not have mixed proprietary and open-source in the original comment.

The important point is the proprietary and closed nature of the Sonos system. You can buy commercial standards-based UPnP/DLNA elements (media servers, receivers, remotes), which will interoperate independant of their vendor (there are many). Standards ensure competition, so no vendor can be too evil. Such a system is only very marginally harder to put together than buying Sonos.

I agree that going full open-source requires more effort and is not for everybody (otoh, most people have a geek friend). But the important aspect is open standards vs proprietary protocols.

Why do people buy this stuff when it's so easy to set up an UPnP home audio system based on open source components ?

Don't be shy, please name them.

4-5 6-8-20 :)

Nope, I am listing a solution for people who know nothing about the DNS.

This is a sincere question: what is the problem with forwarding ?

Full email hosting is a bit technically challenging.

What everybody can do, which provides almost the same advantages, is purchase a domain name at a registrar which will include email forwarding with it (I use gandi.net, but I guess that many others do). The typical price is around 15$ per year.

You get email addresses which are forever yours, and use whatever hosting service is currently convenient (e.g.: your current ISP) for performing the actual work.

Everybody knows that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe.

Your strawman would not even look nice in a schoolyard.

I do agree with this in fact, and I quite probably run binary blobs on some of my computers. This is besides the point.

The point is that I respect the right of the people who give me a free license to use their software to decide the terms of the license.

If I disagree with these, the only reasonable answer is to use something else (which I would pay for), not abuse them saying that they don't respect my freedom.

Feel free to install Windows 10 and see what freedoms this gains you. And if you think that insults and profanities give weight to your arguments, you need to think again...

Nobody forces you to use GPLed software.

The people who write it have the right to distribute it as they see fit.

You are still free to go buy other software or write your own. But bitching because free software does come with strings attached is seriously disingenuous,

Those who remember the command line, linux dweebs aside, are dead or retired. Correction: those who remember having nothing but a command line are dead or retired.

Still alive, beg to differ. I'd even venture that there are some people who began with punchcards who are still around.

Just an anecdote: during a recent upgrade from Debian Wheezy to Jessie, the first boot into the new system failed with a message from systemd about mtab not being a link into /proc/something (a trivial problem as far as I can see).

Can't remember the exact message from systemd, but it was something about being "frozen"

No going into single user, nothing, just F... you and go reboot on the CD image. Happy enough that the machine was on my desk...

And they wonder why many people don't like systemd....

Oops should not write at 4AM. s/rentability/profitability/