Most of the criticism I have seen online stems from how Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) plays fast and loose with the FLOSS ethos. The earliest controversy I can recall was the inclusion of the ‘Amazon shopping lens’ in its Unity desktop environment. There may have been earlier issues, but this one made mainstream headlines in the early 2010s. More recently, the push for Snap (its application bundle format), which relies on proprietary server-side components, which invited criticism.

That said, I still find the OS ideal for most users. It has been (and still is) a gateway OS for many Windows and macOS refugees, thanks to its strong community. It was for me nearly two decades ago, and I prefer to remember Ubuntu for the good it has done for the community.

This is an uphill battle in the face of corporate lobbying, learned fixedness, and, let’s face it, unintuitive UX that is found in some selection of FLOSS which is often absent in proprietary counterparts: something that people who are not tech savvy (tech-indifferent?) would prefer not to put up with.

However, I think the last problem can be mitigated with the right kind of focus and funding from such initiatives.

There have been many such initiatives[0][1] over the years in different countries where they eventually lose steam and fade away.

Also, is there an operating system backed or sponsored by EU that is actively maintained, analogous to BOSS[2] and Pardus[3]?

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:State-sponsored_Linux_distributions

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Operating_System_Solutions

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardus_(operating_system)

E: typo

How do you view diffs and merges when you say you don’t use git GUIs? External tool or terminal/command line?

Terminal.

I use Jetbrains IDEs and most of my life has been IDE based git interaction. And I honestly love it, easy access to see my diffs, the most common commit, push and stage(or shelve as Jetbrains does it, which is better than visual studio). Hassle free and available beats writing anything to me.

Perhaps, it is a mix of learned behaviour and cognitive fixation, as I started out my development journey predominantly using a terminal, that I cannot fathom Git GUI being hassle free.

Nice to read a different perspective on such a fundamental thing that I take for granted while working. Thank you for sharing it.

I always found Git GUIs, especially the ones built into IDEs, to be more confusing and clunkier than working with Git on a terminal. It often feels like unlearning what one knows about Git, and relearning it the way that specific GUI demands.

Heck, I am going through the aforementioned feeling as I force myself to use Magit on Emacs. It just does not feel intuitive. But I will not give up until I have made an honest and full attempt.

The only sensible Git GUI I ever used is Sublime Merge[0], after a coworker praised it immensely. Even that is reserved for the rarest of the rare times when the changes in the workspace gets unwieldy and unruly. For every other instance: Git CLI on a terminal.

[0] https://www.sublimemerge.com/

E: typo, and link to mentioned GUI.

Interesting. I still get the original response.

My organising system has a dual nature: it is either highly structured or a mess.

Information, such as documents, notes, spreadsheets, and images, is carefully organised into well-defined directories, no more than four or five levels deep. The destination directory is chosen at the time of download.

Anything that I expect to use more than once, even if only a few times, is dumped into a directory called GMS (Games, Movies, Software), which resides on a separate disk partition.

Everything else ends up in the Downloads directory, which is truncated every three months.

Transparent marketing.

Doing the job of developers and managers; AI is truly replacing us all.

BOSS.

I upvoted your comment just because it had links to the reference you made.

Also, the sketches were funny; thanks for sharing them.

https://piped.video/watch?v=2JO3oJybBTw

Love the dramatics.

This ancient one has learned the art of pragmatism. A little time in the trenches of enterprise development can do that – turn passionate ideals into practical choices.

Some days it’s C++, some days it’s Java, Python and so on. In the end, the code compiles, and the ancient one get paid.

NSFW food.

I am surprised that this post received so many genuine answers.

I might have agreed a decade or two ago, when I knew no better. But today, I find the tribalism surrounding programming languages comical.

I don’t particularly like Java, but I use it because it pays the bills. Similarly, I use C++ (which I prefer) when my work requires it.

Now a days many businesses choose Go.

Many companies may choose something other than Java, but Java is still the behemoth.

Such a decision is taken when the company is completely new or if it is a green field project.

Even in the case of the latter, companies just choose to stick with their existing tech (read: expertise and experience of their tech teams)…

My previous workplace did the same thing around 2020 with the words whitelist and blacklist and some other words.

It was around the same time when there was news about GitHub moving from master to main/mainline as the default Git branch.

At the point, I would consider the author’s scepticism being true a best case scenario, with every new piece of information I learn about Shadows.

It is baffling that it required so many years and attempts for Ubisoft to realise that their modern day storyline sucks. I would argue that it was a glorified side quest even during Desmond’s arc though it went downhill soon after that arc “closed”.

There is absolutely nothing that Ubisoft can say or do to win back my trust. This game is going to be as shallow as any of their recent entries, if not more.

I have gone through the links, and I still cannot find the answer to my question on what makes UPI “absolutely horrible when it comes to privacy” when compared to the other options in your original comment.

I still maintain that all practical means of digital transactions are inherently poor for privacy, regardless of the channel/medium. One is not less private than the other.

Of course, mediums like cryptocurrency exists which “promise” privacy while transacting. But they are not practical in India, and also do not operate at the scale of the options we are discussing about.

Also, I really appreciate responding back with links, but a line directly answering my question would have saved some time, especially since the links you shared are irrelevant to our discussion. None of the links actually do a comparison of the options or even state that one is outright better than the other. If anything, some of the comments in the linked forum posts only echo what I am saying about the lack of privacy across all digital transactions.

Can you expand on why UPI is horrible when it comes to privacy when compared to the other options you have mentioned?

I would not be doing any sort of digital transactions if I am worried about privacy as I don’t think one is better than the other in this matter. It would be naive to think so otherwise.