Ah, yes, the [insert super inconvenient and complex thing to do that most people don’t know, want or should do] will solve it! And when that fails, surely the user can just write their own OS, right? Bunch of skill-issued complainers we the users are.
Well, the hope was always that those of us inconvenienced by M$ would all collectively contribute to making Linux distros more convenient for everyone. But we can't ever seem to get inconvenienced enough to actually sufficiently mobilize and/or coordinate such an effort.
It does seem like linux is having its moment right now. there's the money and effort valve is putting into KDE making the steamdeck and steammachine polished for their hardware which helps all users of KDE. cachyos is making having a rolling distro really smooth and snappy on old hardware and making games work mostly ootb. stuff like winboat and wine will let you use the few windows apps you need. you are kinda stuck though if you want to use something like fusion360 or solidworks. freecad has improved quite a bit but it's still like gimp where it's slightly worse UX in a lot of ways.
Now… maybe we could condense the 10,000 pointless distros down to a dozen? Oops, nope. Now 10,001, except this one has the menu bar in the middle of the screen and it moves around.
The distros are not pointless. For every one of them there was a human being that wanted something to work differently and the nature of open source let them do it. That should be celebrated and the day we loose that flexibility would be a very sad day.
This. Not to mention that for the mainstream users there are mainstream distros that are largely the same they have always been: Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, so I never really understood the issue of having tons of distros out there for enthusiasts.
I think that both perspectives are right. We should celebrate diversity, but there's also power in consensus.
There needs to be some competition between ideas, but if every bit of disagreement about direction ends in "I'm going to build my own distro, with blackjack and hookers", then we as a community won't ever end up building something that can compete with the megacorps.
I mean, the super-easy option would be to just use BitLocker for FDE. No hassles, just works. But I fugured since everyone here on HN hates MS I wouldn't even bring that up. Don't trust MS? Enroll yourown keys
by default, yes. Can be disabled with a single click. That's something that even your Grandma can do, as opposed to installing VeraCrypt (with dozens of options on what to encrypt, and how, and when, ...)
No, it literally says the law says you must seek permission if you wanna leave for more than 3 months and the govt must always grant you this if not in a war. And if you fail to seek permission nothing happens. You can ignore it without consequence.
A lot of laws head this way. Sweeping chances but not enforced so people ignore it, then later there's nothing stopping the government going back 7 years after select individuals. Just because it wasn't ever enforced doesn't mean it isn't illegal. An example is disguised employment laws for contractors in the UK (IR35)
Yea, you violated a law that is not enforced. Like how you are violating the law if you give some money to the neighbors kid to mow your lawn or if you cook some pie and you give it away to a friend without having proper certifications (at least in Sweden on paper you need to have certification to do that. Of course it is not enforced)
And no, Germany does not allow retroactive criminal punishments. That’s more something that happens in Russia, China and probably soon America
I think it's like they want to have it on the books now so they can use it later. If they try to emergency legislate during wartime people will protest and/or flee the country the day before it starts applying.
All nation states are like that. They monopolise power and violence, and will defend that monopoly by sacrificing their citizens' lives if another state tries to infringe upon it.
I think it's clear that the interests of citizens and their state typically do not align. Unfortunately, most states have cultivated and propagated a different idea for decades, which is why so many people have a different perception of their state than the reality.
Yes you are: the article says that the permission must be granted in general by authorities (I guess no war and not active military) and no penalties for breaching it.
You are, but it's a shit law and surprising to still exist in Germany. Per the article it's not a new law, has been in effect since the 80s, and there have been no repercussions for violating this law.
Instead, my 2c, should have changed it to a notice you have to send the military, at most.
With all your respect the guidelines also mention this:
> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".
I'm self-hosting Forgejo on my own home server. It's super easy to do via Docker or as a single binary executable. I even have CI/CD runners on it, which was also very easy to set up. Definitely recommend for those who might not want to rely on someone else, be it Codeberg or not, but still get the same quality as Codeberg (as they literally run Forgejo themselves).
Do the immigration police in UK also murder their own citizens in broad daylight? What about incarceration (and falsely incarcerated) rates? What about general cases of police brutality? What about pedophile-run government where nobody ever gets arrested? What about a government that's bailing out known criminals for money? Or one that rug pulls its own citizens via crypto scams, phone scams, citizenship scams? USA is so far beyond comparison to any other country that it's not even funny. The whole place is a con artists paradise, run by con artists, for con artists.
Not to mention that they are actively hostile towards its own allies, threaten to annex ally territory, don't want to help its allies, and then when it can't pull off a war it on its own started, then EU is supposed to come help? And when we don't, we get insulted for not being friendly? Honestly, F USA, and everything that place stands for. What a toxic cesspool of a place.
Indeed. USA is gone, got taken over and is now RUSA. The rest of the world can see it. Look at the pain their latest stupid war is inflicting on Europe. Cui bono...
>What about pedophile-run government where nobody ever gets arrested?
This is just complete nonsense. We are not run by pedophiles. Nobody is being arrested because the people you want arrested have committed no crimes. Being in the Epstein files doesn't make someone a pedophile.
I find it odd that EU is judged by efforts that have time and time again _failed_, when I'd see that as a perfect example of a system actually working, because people do have the power to stop hostile legislation, whereas I see no such thing at all in the US.
So I buy a device ... with my own money ... which I supposedly then own, but then I need to ask some corporation permission to use it, and it treats me like a toddler by giving me a 24 hour wait period for the ability to install applications on that device? I'd understand if this "feature" was a part of Parental Controls, but I'm not a child, so this is insulting. I see Google saw how Microsoft likes to spit on its users and wanted a piece of that action. How is this legal?
I never bought into the apple ecosystem for the exact reason of not being able to feel ownership over my own device.
However i also understand the challenges google has. They/vendors are selling consumer devices with a consumer OS on it. Not everybody is tech savvy and a fair bit of people are too easy to trick into installing things.
An alternative could be to offer two versions(perhaps on phone activation). A business like version where a business(and people on HN) get full access. MDM and all. And average Joe mamas version that comes with more guard rails activated.
I can personally live with that 24 hour wait once, if it helps protect the average people from scammers etc.
> Not everybody is tech savvy and a fair bit of people are too easy to trick into installing things.
Almost nobody is tech savvy to understand how LLMs work and how subtly and convincingly they present incorrect facts, yet they are free to use by everyone.
Here, we are talking about the same company providing both of these services - an OS where they are supposedly trying to protect their users, and LLMs where no protections are needed (just censorship).
I'm just not buying their explanation, that's just an excuse. Why? Well my wifes grandmother (80ish woman living alone) showed us something on her phone a few months ago: Big red flashing text that her phone was somehow infected and she urgently needs to call x and do y. Now how did this scam get full screen access to her phone? She installed a card game app from the Google Play Store, which showed this scam as an ad. And the little logo in the bottom gave away one more detail: The ad was delivered via Google.
IMHO Google just wants to ensure Android stays under their control and they can make lots of money with it. They don't care if average Joe gets scamed (they even get a cut) and the measures they pretend to protect average Joe just don't work.
P.S.: Some speciation from my side: That ad was probably even targeted to less techsavy people power by Google.
I can understand that point, but I'd much rather vote for increased education than increased babysitting. Increased education would affect those that need it whereas increased babysitting affects everyone, including those who do not need it, and living in a society where everybody assumes you're a toddler because some people are easily gullible and ignorant is just horrible.
Just look how state works with solving all kind of problems with legislative regulations that, in the end, remove freedom of choice peace by peace. Neither you give responsibility to individuals to learn even from mistakes or take all of it. Of course because of our "safety".
You can always buy a Chinese android phone without a Gstack. Then uhm, well, you will have lots of freedom at least without having to wait 24 hours first.
yes, but we are talking about educating a billion people in developing countries. it's not just some people there, but the majority of the population. it will take a whole generation at least to fix that.
You are essentially a child to them. A child is just someone who has not yet developed the power to survive in a world full of adults. This is why parents guard and protect children, and when that fails society steps in to do it instead.
You are just a child to them. Not powerful enough to stick up for yourself. Ripe for abuse. The difference is society has decided not to step in to protect you from your abusive parents.
this is not about protecting children with parental controls but about protecting illiterate adults in developing countries who are being exploited by unscrupulous scammers.
yes, it's bad, and i don't like it either, but this is preferable over only allowing verified apps.
This sort of washing away fundamental problems with blanket statements like "oh it's just X, not a big deal", which then always keep adding up to a pretty big deal, is not helpful. Perhaps ignorance is the path to happiness for you, but not everybody wants to bend over to lords at megacorps.
A 24 hour wait like this can sometimes be the result of a security team not knowing what else to do. There are all sorts of weird threat models when you think hard about how devices are used, like partners who have legit access to a phone at a certain point in time.
What's next? I buy a car which I cannot drive in certain locations unless I ask for permission and wait 24h? Daddy Car Dealership please let me drive in this location, pretty please?
drones are already coming with mandatory GPS-based flight restrictions
cars are a funny example (but I know, car analogies are also mandatory!), because cars and driving is a very complex and regulated system, what you can drive, where, license, registration, car & road safety standards, where to park, when, how much to pay, etc...
this is the right answer. google is simply at a loss. they are not doing this to gain control, they are doing this because developing countries are demanding it. and those developing countries are the future markets with a lot of growth potential. so from google perspective they can't afford to ignore those markets, but also from a development perspective it would be unfair to deny those people access to modern technology just because they lack the education to avoid being scammed.
Right so by this logic, if I buy an electric car, and they decide to not let me drive on dirt-roads because the software won't allow me to and I need to ask special permission and wait 24h to be able to, that's also totally fine then, right? Do you not see the ridiculousness of this premise?
if you have problem with this vote with your wallet and don't support HW companies doing this or talk to your MEP or other representative to change the current legislation, I'm just telling what's the current status quo, don't kill the messenger
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