806 karma · joined January 9, 2021
Two suggestions:
- Rename the game to just "Voronoi". There is enough in here that it feels like more than just an incremental update to Go!
- Highlight the latest piece that moved like on OGS, otherwise it is easy to lose track.
Afaic this is DOA, there is no excuse in implementing the core toolchain of a new language in a memory-unsafe manner in 2026.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124324
2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19432702
3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30855065
About the shadiness: every project takes or is inspired by other projects, none have come up in a vacuum. Even with the sketchy reputation, Manjaro seems to have the support needed to actually turn into a Linux winner in the long-term.
This is not a zero sum game: I believe we can have both an OSS approach to Linux while at the same time having a channel of commercial development that brings more adoption (and fun, hackable devices!). This "one holy way" and the multitude of community-based distros can coexist, in the same way that commercial software companies and OSS communities have already learned to.
Commercial development allows you to afford to control the hardware, make deals with other companies, and pay people to build compatibility with your system (i.e. Nvidia), which is what Microsoft and Apple did to keep their position. Server distros like Debian, Ubuntu, and Redhat already have deep foundational and corporate backing, and are a joy to use.
There are definitely drawbacks such as vendor lock-in and all the issues that come with corporate vs community control of the software. However, I believe having a single center of development and revenue (to pay for the development), while at the same time having fully open source software and hardware is possible and would have a huge impact.
Also: I've seen some hidden costs of supporting custom OS installs being discussed, i.e. procuring extra chips to allow open boot. This may have factored into Pine64's decision.
Sounds like either Pine64 has grown past this and decided to pivot, or has been losing revenue due to a lack of customers from this niche market. Personally, as a hacker I love playing with different OSes. However, if I was to use any open source device like a PinePhone or Pine64 board to build something, I'd prefer a stable environment backed by an established foundation. Environment setup is hell, and figuring out which open-source OS works best, if it will be supported in the future, and how to install it would slow me down immensely.
Improvements and advancements would stagnate due to the 25x duplicated effort, and resources would be lost in keeping those projects happy. Also, any potential user looking to switch would be deluged with options, which is what crippled desktop Linux.
While I do not understand enough about Pine to know why they specifically made the business decision to gut their dev community and go with Manjaro Linux, my guess would be something along the lines of Manjaro's widespread dominance as a top Linux distro backed by a powerful foundation. Pine is pivoting to what they have decided is their future: a full-stack hardware to software open source offering that in their eyes would have a better shot at cracking open the phone market.
They probably were aware of the consequences, but have bet on making it big and creating a new, streamlined ecosystem after extinguishing this one. It remains to be seen if they will succeed.
The only philanthropy stories I am interested in are the ones where dedicated people of character start from the ground, consider the needs of actual human beings, and work with their representative governments to bring change. Not this technology-will-fix-everything glitzy renders cryptocurrency-upgrades-society hubristic bullshit. People give that crap way too much airtime. Plus, the singer involved seems to have a sketchy history, which makes his intent here even more dubious (probably not doing this out of the kindness of his heart...)
1. It sets a precedent for future "regulatory creep": if we can force tech companies to filter porn, why not filter other things? Who will stop us?
2. When the government makes a law, it impacts everything. There is no discretion, because everyone is under equal risk of liability if the law is violated. What would the consequences of this be for modelling, legitimate sexual services, and other fields? Would the damage this does be amplified by how it meshes with other laws? There is so much ambiguity that making such a sweeping and damaging action will have reverberative consequences everywhere that nobody thought of beforehand.
Their only concern is maximizing their revenue in any way possible, because otherwise they will cease being competitive and go out of business. Ergo this lovely new "Privacy Sandbox" that provides advertisers with a standardized, direct way to get to you. As long as Google or any other advertiser has sway over Internet standards, there will be a fox guarding the henhouse type situation. Moral of the story: don't use Chrome.
Some are very niche paid businesses like SaaS or privacy-focused mail that provide very specific and uniquely tailored services to a small set of clients. These are probably the easiest to understand, as at their core is a simple, logical transaction. However, they don't defeat companies like Google at scale due to the fact that not many people want to pay for bits that they already pay their Internet provider to deliver, and the fact that accommodating everyone's needs in such a business is overly costly.
All the gargantuan scalable platforms are not really selling a technology - technology is the vehicle connecting customers to their service. Their real money maker lies outside the Internet, whether it is shipping and merchandise (Amazon), or selling an audience (Google/Facebook). I find it to be a similar scenario to McDonalds's famous franchise business model of owning the land the burger is made on, while not selling the burger itself. If you want real customer service, you need to find the local restaurant in your area and pay more (Plausible/Fathom, Hey.com, Fastmail).
A common trend in response to this kind of environment has been to offer some services for free and drive users to pay more for specific use cases if they need to (especially power users and enterprises). However, doing this kind of monetization wrong can easily lobotomize your business and push users away, as seen with the ongoing news media crisis and paywalls. And it also turns out that companies used to one kind of business model find it difficult to pivot to others, for example with Google's continual failure to make paid services.
In all cases, when looking at the Internet you need to examine your customers (or your needs) and focus on accessing them, even if that means tearing down any conventions you already have. This can apply to anything from the news media looking to fully digitize, or independent bloggers looking for analytics that serves them.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/07/sidewalk-labs-shuts-down-t...
[2] https://theconversation.com/will-silicon-valleys-new-company...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle
[2] https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/what-i...