I’ve spent years championing Linux as the only escape from Big Tech, but I’m starting to get twitchy.
While we’re distracted by the Steam Deck making Linux “mainstream,” the corporate players and politicians are busy building a digital cage. Between California’s AB-1043 mandates and Microsoft’s “Face Check” infrastructure, I’m worried we’re heading for a hard schism: “Sanitised Linux” vs the “Free Rebel” distros.
If the compliant, age-gated version becomes the industry standard, where does that leave the rest of us? Digital exile?
I’ve put some thoughts together on why the “Golden Cage” is closing in and why education, not mandates, is the only real fix.
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That stupid Newsom age-gating OS bill is pure political theatre. It won’t affect Linux – too many capitalists would be inconvenienced, and inconveniencing capitalists is the last thing capitalist darling Newsom would do; he couldn’t even be bothered to support a modest 5% tax on billionaires.
Linux is here to stay – it runs the internet. And it will always be customizable, because that’s part of what gives it so much value.
Their building a Prison System ™️ regardless, open source (e.g. Linux) just offers SOME protections.
We have to do more regardless, but it’s still all part of the good fight in my book
Here’s one way that liberal fascism maintains control:
- Maintain control of everything
- If control is lost, create mass hysteria about “social media”, “kids,” “addiction”, “islam”, “immigration”, whatever, etc.
- Steamroll everything.
- Regain control.
It’s how they got TikTok, etc. It’s how they’ll try to get Lemmy, Linux, VPNs, etc. The wild part is how many lib “allies” will fully support this.
Yes, it’s a trap like everything else. It’s another front in the struggle.
Just to underscore what you said, this is achieved in FOSS via control of non-profit orgs & a monopoly on consumer chip architecture (for the time being)
The fascists’ weakness is their extreme overconfidence in everything they do.
That legislation is pushed by big tech lobbies, mainly Meta. The more people use open source the less power those big companies have to push shit like this.
Also we’ve had attempts to microslopify Linux before, by the hands of Canonical and Red Hat.
Also we’ve had attempts to microslopify Linux before, by the hands of Canonical and Red Hat.
the most recent example was done by the american gov’t instead of corporations when the kernel maintainers group kicked out russian developers.
Ive been running Linux for close to a decade now and one thing that I’ve noticed is rarely brought up in Linux circles is that Linux Kernel Development is heavily funded by major big tech corpos. Examples include Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and IBM.
There is a vested corporate interest in keeping Linux well maintained as it is the OS that underpins the vast majority of corporate server architecture and infrastructure.
I’m not saying Linux development wouldn’t exist without them, but imho, Linux certainly wouldn’t be as ubiquitous as it is today without this corporate backing. Thusly, it is worth noting that in many ways, we Linux users have not escaped corporate influence simply from switching from Windows or MacOS to Linux.
We’ve maybe lessened it to some degree, but to think we are somehow immune to the misguided mandates from state governments, like the latest recent age verification laws, is misguided.
This is why shaming the idiots who say things like “what’s the big deal, it’s just a field in a text file” is so important. They need to be made to understand that solidarity is required to resist the tyrants.
shaming the idiots
solidarity is required
Your team building tactics could use some work.
-An idiot
How the fuck is Linux a trap compared to the shenanigans of Microsoft?
Microsoft and other proprietary vendors are the trap, and Linux is the way to avoid it.I agree with you, that’s exactly what my post says.
Microsoft is the trap. My point is that “Sanitised Linux” is just Microsoft-style shenanigans being forced onto our ecosystem via regulation. I literally started the post by saying Linux is the only sanctuary left.
i 100% agree with you and i’m sharing this to warn you that there are plenty in this are that will balk at the message that you’re trying to share.
don’t let them deter you; most of them are visitors from captured origins and will refuse to accept it as a result.
OK I read it as Linux won’t cut it if we are forced to use Microsoft.
Microsoft will of course do everything possible to create that situation, as they’ve been doing very successfully since the 80’s.Linux is the only sanctuary left
Acktually there is still some Free and Open Source BSD variants. And for the lols we also have GNU Hurd. So even a world without Linux, does not mean we have to use Windows. (I don’t even count MacOS.)
bsd was originally a calfornia thing and california had made the first step to this reality; i bet big changes are coming their way.
But here’s the thing, nobody knows what operating system you choose to install. This regulation will be equally as effective as anti-pirating legislation has been, which is to say, essentially nil.
Actually, even without “tracking” individuals, the metadata is still there. I can see from my own anonymous, privacy-respecting server stats exactly how many hits are coming from Android versus GNU/Linux. There is no personal data involved, but the OS “fingerprint” is clear.
If a small, self-hosted blog can see that high-level data, then a bank or a government gateway definitely can. The comparison to anti-piracy doesn’t quite work because you don’t have to “log in” to a pirated movie, but you do have to authenticate for the services that actually matter. That’s where the compliance gate gets locked.
An operating system can lie about that though. The only reason it doesn’t is because of convention.
There is no technical reason it couldn’t look like a different OS. Try changing your user agent, it’s that simple in most cases.
And services can choose to only allow operating systems which don’t lie, have anti-tamper mechanisms, and authenticate themselves cryptographically. It has definitely been easy to spoof your identity in the past, but OP is talking about where we might be heading in the future. Since the laws about OS:es having to partially identify the user is so obviously useless in its current form, don’t you think the corporations and politicians who are pushing for it are going to keep expanding it when they get the opportunity?
User agents are just the tip of the iceberg. Between TCP/IP stack fingerprinting and modern hardware attestation (TPM/Secure Boot), pretending to be a different OS is becoming a lot harder than just changing a string in your browser settings. The ‘handshake’ I mentioned before is at a much deeper level than that.
I agree with you. The only thing I could see “Linux being a trap” would be, for people who expect Windows replacement without the Microsoft bullshit. So in one way this “could” be interpreted as a trap for those. But that is if I try to stretch it to justify calling it a trap.
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Year of linux?
Dude, please. I’m on my third decade of the thing already.
People don’t care about this beacuse they will make it so that if you don’t ask questions it just works.
In the meantime those of us that need to work in these jurisdictions need to comply with the bullshit so we hope to be able to continue to work with linux, but if that won’t be possible we will be forced to write software for microsoft or whatever else in the apple crap.
That is why there will be forks for the hobbyists, but for those that need to actually use a computer to make a living, compliance was always the only creal choice.
And as usual some asshole will come with the usual nazi comparison with compliance, like they did in the other seven posts were the subject was discussed. These people can risk their own family but the way they write, they probably aren’t even responsible for themselves
What people don’t realize is, that every year is the Year of Linux Desktop. We just beat the previous year. It’s like having a new world record every year.
I think if Linux becomes something for the masses it will no longer be for me. So I’m hoping that won’t happen.
End users just want their hand to be held by some kind of corporation. Happy to give up their information and privacy. To have no choices in interface etc.
Basically, Linux for the masses will look exactly like ChromeOS. Completely unusable for a power user with a need for privacy and control.
The issue with Linux is going to be if there will be a single distro that dominates or if it will be more distributed. Right now, it looks like Google and Valve are the closest to making dominant distros, but I can see at least one EU government one being created as well. If there are few distros, then I can see development getting locked to those distros rather than across all Linux.
The same thing happened with Android, Google ended up controlling Android so the open source side got hollowed out and the closed source side controlled by Google became necessary to running Android.
Meh it’s not like Linux is one static block of immutable code.
It’s modular.
So it’s not like all linux distros will evolve the same way. And OP points it out that some distros are affected by age verification laws while others are not at all.
So I think it makes no sense to panic and thinking all linux will converge to some Windows ersatz…
I think the fact there is so many distros out there is our strength but also what prevents people from discovering the right linux for them.
So this will be the year of linux discovery imo and all linux user should help out new users finding their way to a linux that fit them for their journey to freedom.
Not really but you do see already that Linux is becoming more opinionated. For example recently kde introduced a new display manager (to replace sddm) that requires systemd.
It’s becoming harder to get off the beaten track.
I had similar thoughts, but at the same time i honestly think that wouldn’t be an issue because of the nature of linux and it being free and open source. There’s bound to be distros out there that won’t conform to whatever bs the corpos come up with.
ChromeOS is basically the blueprint for the “Gold Cage”. My real worry is that “security” is just becoming a convenient excuse to swap user ownership for corporate control. Once that “masses” version becomes the legal standard for compliance, the rest of us are basically looking at digital exile.
End users just want their hand to be held by some kind of corporation.
SheepleOS
How would anyone place a 100% community driven distribution like Debian in such a cage? There’s no monetary leverage, the community is truly international, so local laws don’t apply …
Please note that it’s also one of the most prolific distributions, and the foundation p.e. for *buntu.If you’re living in an oppressive jurisdiction, your employer might obviously not allow you to use a truly free operating system, but that’s hardly Linux’s fault.
So if your favorite distribution is starting bullshit, just switch to the next one, there are literally thousands of them. That’s why “Year of the Linux desktop” is confusing: it’s “year of steamOs” or “year of *buntu”, probably even “year of Debian”, but most certainly never “year of the nixos desktop”.
You have choice. Use it.
My real worry isn’t that Debian will cave, but that the services we use every day—banks, government sites, DRM-heavy media—will start checking for a “compliant” kernel. If those “invisible borders” get built, you might have a truly free OS that’s effectively useless for 90% of the modern web.
It’s not about the distro failing; it’s about the “compliant” versions becoming the only key to the door. We have the choice now, but the gap between “free” and “functional” is definitely getting wider.
will start checking for a “compliant” kernel.
Reminds me of all the banking apps that rely on Google’s “secure” crap to run.
How will they check for a compliant kernel, at a technical level? I haven’t seen any proposed way to do that that can’t be easily circumvented.
It’s less about a “scan” and more about the “handshake.” Look at things like Windows 11 requiring a TPM and Secure Boot, or the Microsoft Pluton chip being baked into newer CPUs.
They don’t need to inspect your code. They just need a cryptographic “attestation” that says your hardware and kernel are in a “known good” state. If your DIY kernel doesn’t have the right digital signature from the manufacturer, the service whether it’s a bank or a Netflix stream, simply says “computer says no” and denies the connection.
Sure, we’ll find workarounds, but for 99% of people, that “invisible border” is a brick wall.
Sure, we’ll find workarounds
I’d phrase it as “we might occasionally find workarounds that kinda work sometimes”. I tried running de-Googled Android on my phone for a while, and the only reason I could use it for online banking, pay for public transport, contact health services, etc. was because some people had reverse-engineered Google’s services (i.e. microG). It also stopped working every now and then when something changed, and to my knowledge Google could also shut it down instantly if they started encrypting their APIs. I wouldn’t bet on there always being workarounds if this push to lock down operating systems and online services continues.
Someone else posted something interesting/alarming the other day… With AI becoming more advanced and also more accessible, it’s going to be increasingly difficult to keep spam, scams, etc. at bay. If the mainstream computing world ends up in this gilded cage trap, even if a minority choose to maintain and use forks that stay outside the system, it might be quite difficult to keep for example a forum functional.
How would anyone place a 100% community driven distribution like Debian in such a cage?
By getting the Debian deciding body to approve systemd a while back, for starters.
It’s apparently very easy.I swear people have rose tinted glasses as to the state of the init system before the current generation of system management daemons.
If you really want to have Debian without systemd there is always Duvean but the Debian architects are free to choose the technologies that solve the very real system orchestration problems that exist.
All used profusely by hobbysts and evangelists, the kind of people with a lot of spare time to write bullshit online, and never ran more than 5 machines for more than a year with evolving operational requirements.
Got data on that, have you?
Usage and contributions data on debian and rhel, the vast majority uses systemd and does not complain about it.
Edit: since you probably don’t care about people actually working with linux, a further datapoint is the steam hardware survey.
@halfdane This seems to be about more control, profits and data harvesting. Long live MX Linux.
It’s just the buzz-word of FOSS enthusiasts.
It is a myth, always has been. But the worry isn’t the “Year of Linux” happening, it’s the corporate version of it being forced on us via regulation.
The year of text based only Unix?
