this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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The future of Linux (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 1 year ago by pmk@lemmy.sdf.org to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I'm not proposing anything here, I'm curious what you all think of the future.

What is your vision for what you want Linux to be?

I often read about wanting a smooth desktop experience like on MacOS, or having all the hardware and applications supported like Windows, or the convenience of Google products (mail, cloud storage, docs), etc.

A few years ago people were talking about convergence of phone/desktop, i.e. you plug your phone into a big screen and keyboard and it's now your desktop computer. That's one vision. ChromeOS has its "everything is in the cloud" vision. Stallman has his vision where no matter what it is, the most important part is that it's free software.

If you could decide the future of personal computing, what would it be?

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[–] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 33 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'd go a few levels deeper: the kernel development process seems to become more and more dysfunctional. Legacy code hindering innovation, bad people being bottlenecks and this absurdly ancient "send a patch via mail" process.

Currently, that's only sand in the gears, but if it gets worse, this could seriously threaten the future.

[–] Synthead@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm 100% with this. It doesn't have to be on GitHub, but something like GitHub would really help. It's easy to create a fork, a PR, and get good reviews on relevant lines of code. With email, not so much. In my opinion, If email really was better, few folks would adopt a VCS like GitHub.

[–] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I mean, you could still have emails as the base layer, de facto it already is a well-defined protocol layer on top of SMTP, so why not slap a nice GUI on it and call it a day?

[–] PHLAK@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

You mean something like https://patchwork.kernel.org?

[–] Synthead@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sounds like GitHub 😁

[–] andruid@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Except not proprietary and solely owned by a FAANG company.

[–] AnonStoleMyPants@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What the heck even is the point of using email for this?

[–] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 18 points 1 year ago

It's established and vendor/platform independent.

I get the idea, but come on, the inventor of git, a distributed VCS is unable to have an actually distributed development?

[–] BitSound@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Linus wrote git before anything like github existed, and the best way to do it was email. They just haven't switched away from using email

[–] myxi@feddit.nl 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"send a patch via mail" process.

I don't see a problem with it. I don't know what tools you use, but the current process certainly isn't ancient. Even if I use GitHub or something else, I still highly depend on my e-mail to actually know somebody published a patch and if I am supposed to review it. I don't have to use a GUI coupled with shitty UI decisions. E-mails are very simple in their own way and I don't find it ancient or bad.