Abolition requires imagination. Is Linux becoming the privacy friendly and FLOSS status quo that we’re all forced to accept? What comes next? I just created /c/beyondlinux.
Abolition requires imagination. Is Linux becoming the privacy friendly and FLOSS status quo that we’re all forced to accept? What comes next? I just created /c/beyondlinux.
I’m really sorry I couldn’t make clearer the imagination that comes with creating a usable and FLOSS operating system! The article is a little pessimistic, sure, but check out some resources on up-and-coming kernels like Zircon and SeL4 in particular and tell me what you think.
I have seen a couple of other FLOSS operating systems including 9front and Redox, though I haven’t heard of Zircon. In fact I do believe that eventually one of these projects will or should succeed Linux. I believe Linux is too burdened with historical baggage to innovate properly. I’m most familiar with 9front, and some of the ideas in its design seem so brilliant to me that I really hope it becomes the future. (As far as the article content itself, I’m not knowledgeable enough about that area to comment on it.)
Zircon is the kernel for Fuchsia.
Just my two cents:
I will never, ever trust anything made by Google. seL4, sure since it’s both formally verified and the kernel itself is a very small codebase (you still need to be careful of who’s making your userspace programs with any seL4 OS though), but there are way too many places to hide backdoors even in open source projects for CIA/NSA backed Google to ever be a viable option for security. It’s something that the UnGoogled Chromium and UnGoogled Android projects have proven time and time again because even as projects with the express intent to remove Google dependence, they’re still finding existing Google stuff in weird places and are adamant that they’re never sure that they’ve removed everything.