I don't like the wordings and insinuations in the article. Ubuntu Linux 'snuck' into Dell laptops? Dell - best known for good-quality mass-produced PCs - end up building Linux laptops? What are they saying? Linux is low quality and it being in Dell laptops is bad?
Dell and Canonical have a partnership. And Linux isn't a choice that's forced on consumers. That's hardly what one can say about Windows. An ad-ridden spyware that's disguised as an OS and forced down everyone's throat even when we don't want it. (Not dell, but there are cases where I had to buy a laptop and clean out Windows).
I don't understand the author's exact intentions (I read the entire article). Seems like they are trying to say something positive. But the choice of words is bad.
Honestly, I'm more surprised that it wasn't caught by some review process. We normies may not consider it. But with 8 billion individuals on this planet, the chances of this happening is near 100%, without sufficient safeguards in place. If this is what happens to something as obvious as translation, imagine how compromised all those cryptic open source code must be!
The fundamental problem here is those monopolies having unfettered access to regulatory law making processes. Right now it's as if these companies are free to regulate themselves and everyone is unhappy because they misuse those powers to enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else. The minimum requirement is to break them up for such overreach.
I agree with your assertion that there isn't a perfect format. But the example you gave - markdown vs latex has a counter example - org mode. It can be used for both purposes and a load of others. Matroska container is similarly versatile. They are examples that carefully designed formats can reach a high level of versatility, though they may never become the perfect solution.
More specifically, XDG is more related to Linux. It was the name of the freedesktop group. OpenSSH is more related to OpenBSD. However, none of that is strictly true - freedesktop/XDG isn't just about desktop, XDG directories are not completely neglected by OpenBSD and OpenSSH isn't used by just OpenBSD. dotfiles sprawling is a common problem - so OpenSSH should probably follow it as well.
That usually isn't a problem as long as they keep it to themselves and away from the community. There are many Foss developers who are like that - they don't cause a controversy. This one seems to be different and openly toxic.
I get what you're saying. But remember - invidious is just another frontend to the same website that doesn't care about your freedom. Now you are blocking at a server, instead of blocking in your browser. If you care about freedom, then you must leave that abusive service behind.
It has become fashionable for some to take a defeatist condescending stance like this when it comes to issues that affect everyone. If you think it makes you look smart, it doesn't. These are pressing issues and people have to take action. If you don't want to, go ahead and disappear. But don't talk down to those who are and those who are calling for it.
Google is an ad company first, and everything else later. There are countless examples of them pushing tracking technologies that nobody wants - AMP, FLOC/Privacy sandbox, manifest v3 to kill adblockers. The list is just too long. At this point, any argument in favor of Google is just astroturfing.
Don't gate keep what? That's such a lazy way of shutting down criticism. People are responsible for taking consumer decisions that don't ruin their future prospects. At least in the case of using browsers, regular folks can be forgiven since decisions that destroy the web ecosystem are taken before they use those anti-features. But 'nerds' have the foresight to see it coming - if they keep using Chrome, then it's pure laziness. They are responsible for letting this happen by not communicating enough and not raising a voice to warn others. In any fields, it's the job of the experts to inform others about potential pitfalls. In tech, that role belongs to nerds. If you aren't doing that then you probably don't have what it is needed to be a 'nerd'.
I can’t even log into patreon with disabling firefoxs Cross site blocking because I use Google oauth to log in.
Back to my point. We wouldn't be in this state if 'nerds' did their job in the first place.
We all did. It's very much possible that they really meant it at the time. Most companies start with a lot of idealism. And then they become successful and consequently the target of cronies. They feel like they're entitled to everyone else's earnings and the dark pattern begins.
I don't remember exactly who, but there was one game developer who was all praises for that 1%. The Linux users were the most prolific testers who sent back detailed bug reports with ways to recreate the bug, logs and often core dumps even. That 1% helped the devs, as well as the other 99%.
Ooh! Looks like 9 muskrats who pre-ordered the stupidtruck ended up here by mistake, instead of on X.