Free Software is 'Food for the Soul' (and for Perfectly Fine But Supposedly "Old" PCs)
Let's prioritise free-as-in-freedom
LAST year (in December) I left my job after repeatedly clashing with my bosses and confronting them all year (over lies, ethical breaches and not yet what we'd later discover about pension fraud).
As I explained in my departure message, the company had adopted unethical clients and morbid practices. It was no longer about Free software, let alone "Open Source", which is in the company's registered name.
Free Software (or Free/libre software) is partly a movement, partly a technical adventure wherein engineers seek to exercise full control over their software (hardware is a lot harder because people cannot replicate or produce microchips inside their own homes). Sure, a lot of software functionality gets 'offloaded' to hardware over time (e.g. OpenCL), but that's an issue that's harder to tackle than firmware, proprietary so-called 'apps', and opaque operating systems that 'survey' the user's activities and reporting those to the NSA via PRISM (or similar programmes) partners. They can call it "telemetry" or whatever; the bottom line is, the user is perpetually oppressed, observed, and scrutinised by high-level hypocrites.
Software Freedom is a long adventure; we might never get to a destination (like a theological "promised land"), but the struggle itself helps keep abusers in check. Do the checks and balances. Imposing transparency on code is only a small part of the journey and the goal should remain... "Freedom".
We've noted that Canonical won't get you there but instead get you further away.
Marcia Wilbur tells us that MX Linux is one distro worth getting behind, whereas Canonical is a freerider. So in 2024 let's try to usher Ubuntu users to other distros. That in itself would weaken Microsoft's grip. Devuan, LMDE, and Peppermint seem like distros that we should root for (aside from MX Linux). The Linux Foundation has no control over them, except indirectly, and they listen to their users, not partner/clients such as Microsoft. █