A trillion dollars wiped from software stocks. cURL forced to shut down its bug bounty over AI slop. Proxmox replacing VMware at enterprise scale.
The SaaS apocalypse is real, but it's not the end of software. It's the beginning of OpenSource's biggest era.
I wrote about what FOSDEM 2026 revealed, why maintainers need to embrace AI tools or risk being forked, and how even niche projects like https://www.thefreelantern.com now exist because creation costs collapsed.
https://hackernoon.com/the-saas-apocalypse-is-opensources-greatest-opportunity
Over the past few days and weeks, I’ve decided to downsize my digital and tech collection. I own so many computers, laptops, smartphones, smartwatches, accessories, and so on—I can never really use it all. I bought a lot of it just to own the latest “hot stuff.”
That’s why I’ve gotten rid of most of it—either giving it away or selling it for very little. And I’ve kept only the bare essentials. Often not even the newest or best.
For example: I now only use my Peladn Mini-PC with an old Ryzen 5 5500U as my computer; I don’t even use the newer, faster ones to their full potential, so I gave them away. I’ve now reinstalled Debian Stable on it, with an absolute minimum of programs—just the bare essentials: browser, LibreOffice, Tuta, Signal, VLC, Nextcloud, Localsend, Rustdesk.
I’ve moved away from Fedora because: Fedora = Red Hat = IBM = US Big Tech = US MAGA fascists.
I’m also saying goodbye to Proton and will only use Tuta and Posteo from now on.
All my new smartphones like the S25 Ultra, Pixel 10 Pro XL, etc., are gone; I’ve kept the cute Pixel 8a in beautiful blue, very compact, running GrapheneOS. That’s more than enough—it lasts almost 3 days, and here too, I’ve installed only the absolute essentials.
#linux #unix #opensource #freesoftware #debian #bigtech #surveillance #grapheneos #minimalism #digitaldetox #digitalminimalism #usa #trump #fedora #redhat #tuta #proton
This New Linux Distro Thinks Its Above The Law — @BrodieOnLinux@mstdn.social.
When defining what an operating system is, you must also take into consideration the structure of other operating systems and how they differ from Linux. Almost every modern operating system, MacOS, Windows, Android, iOS, *BSD, Haiku and so on are complete operating systems where the kernel and userspace components are developed in conjunction with each other.
Linux to date is the only operating system consisting mostly from a patchwork of different programs to provide the same functionality as an operating system. There is to my knowledge no other well known operating system with a modular design like Linux, hence why that should be weighed accordingly when differentiating a Linux distribution from an operating system. All of the aforementioned points made being strong reasons for why it should not be considered one as it does not share the same design structure as conventional operating systems.
At the end of the day, it really is just a kernel and a distribution of software and configuration files designed to automate deployment in a nice and convenient way for installation. If we were to use the very same logic that you have, then anything using Ansible would be considered an operating system as that too automates the deployment and configuration of software. We both know that is clearly not the case.
Tags: #Linux, #FreeSoftware, #FOSS, #FLOSS, #Privacy.
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