Writing
Tagged “opinion”
11 articles
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AI Is Not the Solution. It's the Tool.
The argument against AI is the argument I heard against Google in 1998, with the nouns swapped. It was a bet against literacy then, and it lost. The tool is neutral; the judgment has to stay yours.
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OPINION: Why Linus Torvalds’ Decision to Exclude Russian Contributors is Justified
Last week about a dozen maintainers tied to sanctioned Russian companies were removed from the Linux kernel's maintainers list, and Linus Torvalds refused to reverse it. What actually happened, what it does and doesn't…
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A Veteran’s Perspective on the Harmful Impact of Return to Office (RTO)
An open letter to CEOs from someone with thirty years in IT. Forcing technical staff back to the office full time is a step backward. The evidence says hybrid work keeps productivity and cuts attrition, the best…
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Is Red Hat the New SCO?
SCO tried to make money from Linux by claiming to own part of it, and sued until it went bankrupt. Red Hat hasn't sued anyone. But its move to put RHEL's source behind a subscription agreement uses contracts to restrict…
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OPINION: How Politics Threaten Innovation
Open source only works because code crosses borders freely and someone pays the people who maintain it. Three political currents are pushing against both: markets that reward taking without giving back, nationalism that…
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Embracing the New
The first thing many people do on a new Linux desktop is make it look like Windows. That's understandable, and it leaves most of the good parts unused. Why it's worth learning what GNOME and KDE Plasma actually do…
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OPINION: Why Webmin is Bad
Webmin puts a root-privileged web server on port 10000 and edits your configuration files with its own parsers. It has shipped a backdoor, it hides what it changes, and it keeps people from learning the system…
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OPINION: Do We Really Need Another Linux Distribution?
There are hundreds of Linux distributions, and someone is starting another one right now. Do we need it? Probably not. Should they do it anyway? Probably yes. What all that choice really costs, what it's given us, and…
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The Broad Expertise of Linux Engineers
Linux engineering roles tend to span more layers than the equivalent Windows roles. That isn't because Linux people are smarter. It's because of where Linux runs and how open systems are put together. Why the job is so…
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OPINION: A Betrayal of the Open Source Spirit
Red Hat built a billion-dollar business on other people's open source and on a promise that anyone could rebuild what it sold. Then it ended CentOS and put RHEL's source behind a subscription agreement. Two weeks after…
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OPINION: Why I Prefer Debian
Debian is my default for almost everything. Not because it's exciting, but because it's boring in all the right ways, and because nobody can sell it. The reasons, the trade-offs I accept, and where I'd pick something…