This is why open source is important. If the fridge was running Linux, there would be some kind of source available so you could compile your own fridgeos and avoid their spy/ad ware.

Probably. I've always wished Microsoft would have "ported" the Windows UI to basically be like KDE or Gnome, and runnable on any linux distribution. Even being non-free, closed source, I think that would have been a successful product. Obviously it doesn't fit with their profit model of pushing Windows Server, but these days it is even more viable.

... is derived from FreeBSD. Microsoft could have saved the world literally trillions of dollars over the same time frame if they had done the same.

Long live BSD.

OSX is based on FreeBSD. Of course it changed the whole story.

That has nothing to do with "Linux" and everything to do with whatever software is managing your network. All the Windows-emulating network managers take away your freedom.

In FreeBSD, network interfaces are initialized at boot time and any configuration changes require re-running the startup scripts ala "service netif restart ". That will flip the interface up and down, but you're going to lose the connection anyway when the dhcp client runs. You can run the client manually, if you want, but you'll still lose connectivity either way.

I suppose you could use interface cloning to have a nearly "seamless" transition, only losing open connections.

Without Office, specifically Excel and less so Powerpoint, any Windows alternative has a hard ceiling. You need a pixel perfect, 100% compatible alternative, otherwise you're stuck.

Well, it seems that we agree on at least one thing.

Nice. Palmer cashed that check faaaaaaast.

Too true. Not a single work day goes by where I don't see multiple opportunities to swap out costly commercial software for FOSS that works better at my company, and every company I've ever worked for, but it just doesn't happen because managers don't care or don't know, and service companies are incentivized to recommend software that requires more service.

I do my part in areas where I influence, but it's literally only me.

This is very insightful, and I hope smart people have already been working on it.

So COBOL is just the punching bag here.

Agreed. Like it or not, Excel is THE standard for spreadsheets. Not supporting every part of excel (aside from vba) is like building train tracks of a different width. It's never going anywhere.

Every time I try to use Calc, the first thing that gets me is the shortcuts. I have decades of muscle memory with excel shortcuts, and so many people do that Microsoft still supports them for 20 years after the ribbon eliminated menus. Alt-e d r = delete row. Now and forever, there is no changing it. If you don't have that shortcut, you haven't just lost, you never got to play the game. Dozens of other shortcuts are the same.

Don't, it's a fecal analyzer.

Yeah money is meaningless because they have been living in this IPO/acquisition fantasy land where they can always pawn off whatever they "invested" in to individual investors or convince some big tech CEO to buy them out.

If OpenAI does manage to IPO... Ugh.

We are all going to pay for this, all of it. What do you think will happen when no one is buying all the excess electricity that is being built now? It's not like "dark fiber". If the utilities go bankrupt, the customers will foot the bill. If thet don't go bankrupt, the costs will be rolled onto the customer's bill.

It's pretty scary how fast this got out of control, but we have been psychologically primed for this for nearly a century. Science fiction has been portraying AI as something that just exists, so when these LLMs show up and appear to talk, no one doubts it. Imagine if the last 50 years was full of science fiction saying AI could never exist. Altman would be laughed off the stage.

AI company (walks back pledge|promises utopia|promises dystopia); everyone shrugs and continues to set money on fire.