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Comment by AshamedCaptain | Hacker News Reader

This is an absurd remark, yet often made.

Whenever a solution to a technical problem is "recompile components of the OS", this means the answer to the same problem in a "non-linux"/non-free system would be "piss and moan and bend over and take it up the tail pipe". aka: no solution whatsoever. The developer's way or the highway.

The point is: once your problem is complicated enough that your only resort is to edit the software, free software _at least_ gives you the chance to do that. It's no wonder people actually suggest doing it. Proprietary software does not. It's no wonder people _don't_ suggest doing it.

If it was supposed to be a complain, better rephrase it.

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> Whenever a solution to a technical problem is "recompile components of the OS", this means the answer to the same problem in a "non-linux"/non-free system

The kicker being that such problems are so rare as to be functionally nonexistent, and even in such cases, usually contacting the vendor can at least give you some options. A few anecdotes from my own experiences:

1) Windows\MacOS have never simply refused to use a network card, for no apparent reason.

2) MacOS has never destroyed it's own bootloader because it was Tuesday and it was bored: Windows did it once, but it was repaired automatically by the recovery partition.

3) Windows\MacOS have never refused to play audio after resuming from standby until rebooted.

> The point is: once your problem is complicated enough that your only resort is to edit the software, free software _at least_ gives you the chance to do that

But conversely, I don't have to edit software I paid for that's built on a reliable, if imperfect, OS. A reboot fixes almost anything wrong with Windows, and sure, I'd appreciate it if it could be like linux and stretch it's uptime into years, but also, a reboot takes less time than a run for coffee.

That a solution technically exists is less important than the accessibility of the solution.

> That a solution technically exists is less important than the accessibility of the solution.

No, it's not, and I really want to emphasize that. If the alternative is _no solution_ then the accessibility of the solution is a rather moot point. That is the point I was trying to make.

What you want to say is that it does not matter if free software makes it _possible_ to solve your problems, because (you claim) you don't have these problems with proprietary software, or (you claim) you have a simpler solution available for those that is only applicable to the proprietary software.

I am not going to enter that particular discussion. I just wanted to point out how it is absurd to simply claim that "as long as people keep recommending recompiling stuff open source won't work" when actually A) people recommend it _because you can actually do it_ , unlike alternatives B) being able to recompile stuff is actually a major if not the main strength of free software, so it is a strange argument to point it as a negative.

> I just wanted to point out how it is absurd to simply claim that "as long as people keep recommending recompiling stuff open source won't work" when actually A) people recommend it _because you can actually do it_ , unlike alternatives B) being able to recompile stuff is actually a major if not the main strength of free software, so it is a strange argument to point it as a negative.

And my reply to that is, in the context of mainstreaming Linux to the wider computer using audience, that's ridiculous. You might as well tell every person who owns a car to never pay for repairs again, because you can, via the proper hardware, reprogram the ECM. That "solution" applies only to an interested subculture of (awesome) people who hack shit.

To say to my aunt Doris that Ubuntu can be better for her to use than Windows and then require her to learn a fair bit of bash script and C# to complete that journey is ridiculous.

> You might as well tell every person who owns a car to never pay for repairs again, because you can, via the proper hardware, reprogram the ECM.

No one, absolutely no one is saying that (specially the part about "never pay for repairs again" -- another common nonsense).

What I am saying is that between a otherwise-identical non-reprogrammable ECM and a reprogrammable ECM, the objectively better choice is the reprogrammable ECM. Because even if you don't know how to do it, you at least have the choice to let someone else do it. It doesn't matter if you personally do or don't understand how to reprogram ECMs. The choice is still clear.

> my aunt Doris that Ubuntu can be better for her to use than Windows and then require her to learn a fair bit of bash script and C# to complete that journey is ridiculous.

Your aunt Doris doesn't have to learn C#. But she _has_ the option to, she has the option to follow the instructions from someone she apparently read on the Internet (what motivated this discussion, I thought), AND she has the option to convince/hire someone to do it for her. When your aunt Doris hits the same issue with Windows, .... she's stuck! Better luck with Apple!

I suggest that if you have any interest whatsoever in free software, spend some time to understand this aspect, because it can and does reframe the discussion. If you remove the free part from "free software", what remains is basically just software; the same as any other piece of software, a rotting bug-laden piece of shit. Why deny this feature?

>2) MacOS has never destroyed it's own bootloader because it was Tuesday and it was bored: Windows did it once, but it was repaired automatically by the recovery partition.

Must have been one hell of a hangover from that Mardi Gras ball.

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