what's the point?

The point is to be able to use your hardware in the manner you deem appropriate, and to ensure it is not doing sneaky shit behind your back.

If, instead of a Playstation, we were talking about rooting LG televisions to run custom Linux builds stripped of pervasive privacy-violating code and "apps," I suspect your opinion might be rather different. (And no, when the entire industry has turned to the Dark Side, voting with your wallet doesn't work.)

Iovine, the music executive and Dr. Dre's partner in Beats by Dre, [ ... ]

...Yeah, thought so.

Sony MDR-V6 forever, dudes...

"It is clear Flock has aspirations far beyond ALPRs to become a digital platform for policing," [emphasis mine]

They misspelled, "Orwellian suveillance and harrassment."

Law enforcement officers are already abusing Flock's existing capabilities for stalking. This will not improve matters one iota.

The expansion pack is currently available only for the platforms listed. If you own Quake from GOG.com, the Epic Store, or own the original CD-ROM, you are, for the moment, SOL.

Zymurgy's First Law of Evolving System Dynamics:
Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can.

So. Who wants to bet that no one will point out what abysmal sysadmins they are, letting internal servers run amok all over the open Internet, only finding out days afterward after someone had to tell them.

And who wants to further bet that the AI grifters will respond that the only way to prevent this from happening again is to give them trillions more dollars so they can build bigger, "hardened" datacenters?

Is there no level of rank incompetence they won't excuse?

Now, AI advancements — and pressure on executives to show they're embracing the new technology [ ... ]

#include <goose_chase_meme.h>

"From who?

"...PRESSURE FROM WHO, M*TH*RF*CK*R!?"

Oh, no, it's perfectly "legal." You "agreed" to allow your TV to be used like this in the EULA when you installed the app. ( https://blog.includesecurity.c... )

SCO and its successors struggled to survive, but interested parties kept the lawsuit alive [ ... ]

You misspelled "Microsoft."

Speaking of which: Is Micros~1 still shaking down companies using Linux for royalties over unspecified patents they allegedly hold?

Google's argument is simply a trivial permutation of that slob's "worthless clause" defense, with which he tried (and failed) to escape felony criminal conviction for fraud.

Perhaps more significantly, Google is now on record, testifying and admitting, under oath, that their LLM-generated summaries are garbage.

Correct, as anyone can see by looking at who they rounded up.

"Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist "

But in the next state over, the next company will also treat you as badly as they can get away with.

The natural model for a programmer's union is the Screen Actor's Guild. That's another field with a wide range of talent. SAG members can get the best pay their agents can negotiate, lots for stars. But everyone is protected from exploitation.

"Hey, what's the big deal? We used to append 'P.S. I love you. Get your free email at Hotmail' to every outgoing email way back in the day, and no one ever had a problem with that..."