Futurology

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We're about to have our privacy dramatically reduced in desktop computing. Some people think the solution is an open-source OS, but one that isn't Linux. (kschroeder.substack.com)

submitted 6 months ago by Lugh to c/futurology

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[–] mkwt@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

MacOS kernel is actually a BSD UNIX and contains no part of Linux.

But I think that's really interesting, because I think this author would agree that MacOS is a user friendly operating system, even if it might not be a privacy respecting operating system.

And that makes sense, because MacOS has architectural similarities to BeOS through its NeXTSTEP heritage. They both have microkernel architecture, with an extensive system-provided graphical toolkit (both systems use the word "kits" for libraries) in an object oriented programming language (C++ for BeOS; Objective-C for NeXT and MacOS). Both BeOS and NeXTSTEP started development around the same time in the 1990s.

So the complaint about Linux here has nothing to do with the Linux kernel. I don't think the author cares about system calls, networking performance, or driver support. The complaint is with the GNU tools + GNOME or KDE or whatever user space that has no design guidelines, and where the only real lingua franca is the old sh shell.

I feel like the people warning not to ditch Linux here are mainly worried about hardware support, which is also very valid. But this stuff we're talking about here is also valid, and it's a serious problem for Linux.