this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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Would it even be a good thing if Linux became super main stream? Maybe we should be careful what we wish for.
How would it be bad? More hardware support, more users not feeding data to corporations, more software support and so on.
I'm not sure. I envision a lot of regulatory stuff happening around the kernel as it becomes more popular & vital to infrastructure. As that happens, the direction of it becomes more controlled and eventually maybe becomes unrecognizable.
But maybe the fact it's open source flat out prevents that?
I really don't know, I'm not a futurists, I was just internet speculating.
The Linux kernel is already popular & vital to infrastructure, servers and Android exist
That's true.
But Android getting more & more locked down as time goes on is a good example of what I'm afraid of might start happening once there are too many cooks in the kitchen.
I'm just speculating out of nowhere.
I thought of a good metaphor even though this thread is basically dead.
I used to smoke cigarettes. In the State I lived in at the time, Oregon, they taxed cigarettes, but not tobacco. So I learned to roll my own & would make around 80 cigarettes for the equivalent price of a single pack of prefabs.
Now, because lawmakers aren't generally smokers, this flew under their radar for years. Until it didn't. Then they sewed that loophole up tight pretty quickly.
Right now Linux is vital to our infrastructure, but I don't think Lawmakers (& Oligarchs) really know that. I guess I'm a little concerned about what happens if they find out.
Security. The more popular a piece of software gets (including operating systems), it becomes a bigger attack surface for malicious actors to use.
Fundamentally, Windows security is not really that much of a swiss cheese people usually say it is. It's just that more people (researchers and malicious actors alike) are actively looking for vulnerabilities in it.
I mean, Linux is the operating system pretty much all servers run. There's probably many more machines running Linux than Windows. Sure, a new category of viruses would find its way over to Linux, but overall the security is good.
Not saying Windows sucks in that regard. But Windows sometimes just creates a stupid attack surface in their chase of squeezing every penny out of you.