Programmer Humor

I don't have the luxury of turning down jobs for windows, but I do draw the line at using it on my own systems. They want me to use it, they have to provide the hardware.

Google products are acceptible though? 🤨

Man, imagine being in a financial situation where you could afford to turn down a job just because of if the OS you'd be using

In a Gmail client 🤮

This reads as not only privileged and out of touch, but you couldn't tell from the job requirements and interviews that it was a Windows shop?

Fucking based.

God you must make a ton of money

I also wouldn’t take a job that required using Windows. Yuck!

While I prefer Linux and use it wherever I can, I use about every major OS on a regular basis. I have a machine that dual boots Windows due to some expensive specialized software I own that doesn’t work on Linux yet, I have an iPhone because Linux phones aren’t good enough to be a daily driver and Graphene doesn’t work with certain apps I need, I have an Android tablet / Android TVs because they have a usable UX while allowing sideloading of OSS apps that respect my privacy, and I use macOS on my work machine because company IT doesn’t support Linux. Yes, I’d prefer to run Linux on every device, but there are practical reasons for using other OSes, and it’s not like a competent techie can’t learn to use whatever. I assume Linux will continue to gain market share across form factors, but we are not there yet. I’ve actually never worked anywhere where Linux was supported, and while I’ll refuse to work somewhere with unethical business practices, I probably won’t choose to be unemployed to avoid using Windows. Google, for example, does support Linux devices for employees, but I’d rather use a Windows laptop somewhere else than actively build tools for surveillance capitalism.

TL;DR - Pick your battles.

While it takes about 8-16 hours of concerted effort, there are ways to castrate Windows into a mild approximation of what it was before.

The big question mark is Windows 12… and whether AI and spyware/malware features such as Recall will be baked into core functionality such that it will be impossible to remove or reliably deactivate.

I’m still with Windows for now, owing to requirements that have no non-Windows alternative (which include supporting and actually opening client data files for the desktop version of Quicken, for example), but I do foresee a time when I would reliably extract my last foot out of the Windows ecosystem.

Thankfully, their server products still appear to be enshittification-free. For now.

Honestly, yeah, I'd do the same. After several past jobs required Linux, even downgrading to a Mac feels pretty bad. Can't imagine Macroslop Wangblows.

Guy just sounds entitled and precious they wouldn't stump for a Macbook.