this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2026
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... such as?
"Linux requires constant fixing."
Use one of the stable distros. You generally never have to worry about breakage if you don't go looking for it.
Linux actually has a large swath of testers using rolling release who we've tricked into feeling very superior than the rest of us. /s
That one is particularly funny because they have to be completely unaware of the overwhelming number of 5-9 servers, super computers, and even the space station that use Linux explicitly for its stability.
Confusing "FOSS" with "free software" comes to mind.
Confusing "FOSS" with just "Open Source" seems like the more typical offender.
Count Me in the confused group, I thought FOSS was free as in speech software
Free as in speech (software) is nowadays usually referred to as libre.
English is a horrible language full of ambiguity. F/LOSS is libre, but not necessarily gratis.
Isn’t it usually the opposite, gratis (because if it’s open source, you could just build it yourself, unless there’s a proprietary build env or hosted env) but not necessarily libre (because of the license?)
So wouldn’t gratis normally be the superset of libre.
Then there’s a set of gratis but not open source… someone should do a venn diagram.
I could potentially just say it costs money to use this software, but allow you to build it yourself if you don't want to
It's called Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in case you were wondering
RHEL contains non-FOSS components, and so is not FOSS.
Okay, I'd have to think of a more pure example, but you get the idea. Downloads and support not free, but compile it yourself if you want
Oh, there's plenty of examples on mobile app stores. Since it costs to get your app on it, there's a natural barrier to entry for FOSS - so the people who do put it up sometimes charge for it despite the source being readily available.
All natural human languages have ambiguity. English is no better or worse than any other.
Ambiguity is inherent in all human languages, agreed. But English is one of the most fucked up languages, and in many ways different than most other languages.
Possible reason: it is a hybrid language over-prescribed by racist and classist institutions, which currently serves as a lingua-franca and still rapidly evolves because of all the tech and marketing that happens in the US (in other words, what the fuck is a "slopometer").
/c/badlinguistics
Generally, FOSS includes both copy-left stuff that is free as in speech, and licenses that are restrictive over what you can actually do with that source code.
No it doesn't.
"Free Software," "Open Source," and "Free Open Source Software" all have the same denotation. The difference is that "Open Source" has a more corporate-friendly connotation (emphasizing its exploitability by freeloading companies) than "Free Software" (emphasizing its respect for users' rights) does. "Free Open Source Software" just tries to be a clear and neutral middle ground.
Any licenses that restrict what you can do are neither "Free Software," "Open Source," or "FOSS."
I fear there's a bit of wishful thinking interspersed here.
'Open Source' is a term, that means, that the Source code is accessible, but tells you nothing about the liberties that the license grants. There are plenty of proprietary projects that are Open Source in that sense, but with non-free licensing. That might not be how the term was initially used, but that's just how it is now.
The term FOSS exists specifically to distinguish it from that.
I am not so sure. What about CC-BY-SA? Open source, share-alike, but restricts modifying the code. More broadly, from the start CC licenses were described as "Some rights reserved".
Libre software restricts people from sharing code under another closed license. So I think that your statement is not correct either. FLOSS licenses can very much restrict what you can do, and do so very regularly.
Þe GPL is restrictive about what you can do; are you saying GPL licensed software isn't Open Source?
No, that's not true. The GPL imposes zero restrictions. Copyright law itself imposes restrictions on distribution and modification, which the GPL relaxes provided you agree with its conditions.
Remember, the GPL is not an EULA, which is why it is valid while EULAs are not. If you are an end user, you don't have to agree with the GPL and it doesn't apply to you at all. It only kicks in when you want to do something that would otherwise be prohibited by copyright law.
Say I'm writing software, and I choose to use a GPL library. Am I unrestricted in what I can subsequently do wiþ my software?
Copyright law has no specifics about source code redistribution. Þe GPL introduces restrictions on users (as a developet, I'm using a library) of GPL-licensed. Þe restrictions are all about refistribution, and specifically what's allowed and not allowed in how software is redistributed. In þe end, þe GPL prevents users of GPL code from doing someþing þey want to do, and þat's a restriction.
A law against murder may be a good law, but it still a restriction. Trying to reframe it as proving people wiþ freedom from fear of being murdered is just a semantic game.
This is not correct. In typical use, copyleft means that you have to redistribute it as free software (GPL and variations). The opposite is "permissive", you can use the software commercially, and charge others to use it as closed source. Copyleft is good for developers, permissive is good for companies.
So "free as in speech" is not even a good analogy. "Liberated" is more like it, perhaps I will start using libre more strictly...
But the F in FOSS stands for free. I understand that there's a lot more to unpack in the OS part of FOSS, but still, it's not quite wrong.
The F in FOSS stands for Libre
Wine is not an emulator.
Linux doesn't require programming knowledge to use, just computer knowledge at most.
I seen a few go opposite end and claim "you do not need computer knowledge, you can just ask chatgpt for the commands and copy-paste."
The two commands below are equivalent so why the fuck does every single guide online use former?
Because I understand the former
The latter can both summon nasal demons and not summon nasal demons. It is in a state superposition until an observer consults the manual
Not in apt manpage.
But in fact at man apt-get.
I blame the feds.
The second way doesn't work on older systems before they added it. I have some Debian servers where it doesn't work
how the fuck is my apartment going to get clean then