I mean, even if they're broadly unenforceable, companies include them anyways as a means of intimidation. This FTC decision basically puts up a giant neon sign telling everyone "yeah this isn't legal" which makes it pretty cut and dry. Big companies thrive on ambiguity because that's where an expensive lawyer comes in to argue the case whichever way; they will have a much harder time doing that now.
I had to resolder the switches on my G Pro Wireless. I absolutely love the mouse but they use pretty much the cheapest Omron switches they can, unless that's changed recently.
Was surprisingly not terrible to take apart and reassemble but you do have to pull off the adhesive-applied low-friction sliders at the bottom, so I would recommend buying replacement ones if you find yourself in that situation. Doesn't help that I also had a $150 mousepad that goes with it that's proprietary to specific Logitech gaming mice.
For what it's worth I only did it because I absolutely love the mouse and setup; I love the design and weight plus the convenience of a low-latency wireless mouse that literally never runs out of battery.
Perhaps they are bad examples, but my point was more that I think those ecosystems thrive in spite of the company that owns the upstream at this point more than because of it. They did tremendously useful work getting the projects off the ground but it ostensibly seems like they get in the way more often than not; that said, I haven't done any open source work on either of the two. I'd be interested to hear your take, I could be pretty far off the mark.
Honestly my main examples I'd point to right now are situations like manifest V3 and Android nitpicks like the recent Bluetooth 2-tap change; don't get me wrong, they are easy to fork and have thriving ecosystems in terms of volunteer dedication, but those forks still primarily targeted towards technical users (with some exceptions) and companies selling devices like the Freedom Phone (and other, actually neat, useful, properly privacy focused devices which is awesome!). By far, however, most users are on the upstream branch due to "default choice" psychology and have to deal with the bullshit that's increasingly integrated into the proprietary elements that Google seems to be making harder and harder to separate from the open source ones. I suppose that's why education and getting the word out are all the more important though.
Could be the sensationalist end of the tech news cycle getting me spun up on an overall inaccurate view of things.
There is also the point I have to raise that security update support is always a very valuable asset that can be worth dealing with some downsides to get ahold of. I'm hoping a lot of those can be pulled into open source projects on more of a piecemeal basis where applicable?
I'd be happy to be proven wrong about my rudimentary assessment. I have enough things to be doomer about and honestly it would be nice to have one or two fewer!
Chromium is still open source, as is Android to some extent. I get that the two companies (Google and Proton) are in completely different size classes, but something being open source doesn't necessarily mean it stays healthy. Sure people can fork it, but the issue tends to lie in continuous maintenance by volunteers against continuous maintenance by a large company that's constantly adding in anti-features along with desired ones.
I'm not necessarily saying Proton will go down that route, but trying to become big and bundled as a value proposition opens the door for that behavior once they get enough people locked into the ecosystem.
A "privacy" company acquiring and centralizing various projects to be under its umbrella seems kind of worrisome to me even if it's done with pure intentions.
On the education thing, this AP article doesn't go too heavily into policy details but does cover the extent of Gates' influence on the American education system.
Or were you talking about the controversies surrounding the Foundation's handling of certain diseases? Here's one from PBS that's arguably the most neutral I could find outlining criticisms regarding joint efforts between the Gates Foundation, WHO, and various governments/orgs on eradicating polio and issues with their strategies.
I'm picturing a CEO in a board meeting suddenly turning heel on the fiscal policy and spinning it as "y'know it really is our duty as a fortune 500 American company to be paying our taxes because it pays dividends back into this country..." met by the credulous looks from everyone else in the room and mix of eager to pensive nods from other Executives.
The C-suite trying to pull fast ones by Accounting hoping they won't notice but getting their plots subtly foiled by the existence of so many tax loopholes.
The only thing across the runtime that definitely 100% for sure won't happen is the blanket lowest-pay raises, but it frequently gets brought up as a joke that's only funny for the first few episodes and quickly becomes a tired cliche; the last resort suggestion that has to be tried and shot down every. single. time even though it becomes increasingly clear that it would be a net positive for everyone. In that sense, the humor is still there, but it's in the cynical acknowledgement of the situation rather than the lowest paid employee actually being the butt of the joke.
Imagine a world where combined C-suite salaries were capped at the tax burden a company owes past a certain point. I think that would be incredibly funny to see the conflict of interest at play. Want your accounting/legal department to research tax loopholes to exploit? Sure thing, but it's coming straight out of your paycheck!
Oh, you "had a bad year"? Probably shouldn't be taking home a hundred million dollars then.
Combined with a "top pay can't make more than x times the salary of the lowest paid employee" with the exception being the tax thing, I could see it being a great double bind into making companies either pay their workers more or actually pay their share in taxes.
I know it would basically never happen in the US but a girl can dream
I mean, even if they're broadly unenforceable, companies include them anyways as a means of intimidation. This FTC decision basically puts up a giant neon sign telling everyone "yeah this isn't legal" which makes it pretty cut and dry. Big companies thrive on ambiguity because that's where an expensive lawyer comes in to argue the case whichever way; they will have a much harder time doing that now.