> I still spent weeks this year trying to sort out what magic combination of alsa, and pipewire and pulse-audio and wireplumber setting, configs and launch timings would get HDMI audio to not come up muted on a mini PC with integrated Radeon graphics in Ubuntu.
This sounds very much like an edge case. Why didn't you use Windows or MacOS on the mini PC instead? Was it because you were unable to do so?
> Or how about the huge fight that systemd has been (and continues to be).
That fight was over pretty much when Devuan and Artix formed.
> If we imagine a world where os init was regulated by the EU,
The EU would only be interested in regulating this if it were an OS init controlled by a monopoly abusing their position.
> Why didn't you use Windows or MacOS on the mini PC instead? Was it because you were unable to do so?
Because despite what you might assume from reading what I've written here today, I'm not against or opposed to open source and open protocol stuff. Everything I personally write I release open source. I push my own company to publish as much as we can as open protocols. I've been running some form of linux in one form or another since I first pulled down the MkLinux CDs over a 33.6 modem. I don't hate open systems. But I recognize that open systems have their own disadvantages and that a system being open doesn't inherently mean it's going to be a better experience or solution.
> The EU would only be interested in regulating this if it were an OS init controlled by a monopoly abusing their position.
And so as I've asked before in other places, what monopoly are they regulating here? If the other comments in this discussion are to be believed, iOS represents < 50% of the EU market. Not only that, but iOS represents a single os and a single hardware vendor. The only way to run iOS is to buy Apple hardware, and the only OS you can run on the Apple hardware is iOS. Meanwhile the entire rest of the cellphone market exists, has a fully open OS just like people want, and supposedly has an equal or superior experience to iPhone/iOS. Apple doesn't do anything to prevent retailers from selling non-Apple devices, they don't require app developers to sign exclusivity agreements, they don't require accessory vendors to sign exclusivity agreements. They don't require retailers to buy iOS licenses even for hardware sold without iOS. The only way one can construe Apple to have a monopoly is to say that they have a monopoly on the hardware that they manufacture. Which is a tautology. Sony has a monopoly on their TVs, Bose has a monopoly on their stereos, and Nintendo has a monopoly on their consoles. This is not a useful definition of a "market"
> Because despite what you might assume from reading what I've written here today, I'm not against or opposed to open source and open protocol stuff.
And the point of asking what I did was to point out maybe you wouldn't be able to get as far as you did without linux; certainly macos wasn't an option, right? Not a modern version at least. Why criticize an area linux is falling short when you're preferred OS isn't even an option? It just doesn't make sense in this context.
> And so as I've asked before in other places, what monopoly are they regulating here?
Are you the same type of person who would argue never had a monopoly because Apple and Netscape were available?
> And the point of asking what I did was to point out maybe you wouldn't be able to get as far as you did without linux; certainly macos wasn't an option, right? Not a modern version at least. Why criticize an area linux is falling short when you're preferred OS isn't even an option? It just doesn't make sense in this context.
That’s an awful lot of assumptions about both what I’m doing and what my preferences are based on the fact that I’m defending Apple having private APIs. To answer those assumptions:
1) my preferred OS for projects is actually Linux, because as I said I don’t hate open standards. Where I can get a better experience, or where I feel the trade offs are worth it, I prefer to start with an open resource
2) both macOS and windows would have been viable options for the project
3) in the project space, windows is actually the preferred os (or the one with the most general support anyway), but it’s not my preference (again see 1)
4) I’m criticizing an area where Linux is falling short because I’m using it as an example of open systems and standards not being some panacea or guarantee of a better experience. If open automatically meant better, one should be able to have a superior experience on Linux for this project. And yet…
> Are you the same type of person who would argue never had a monopoly because Apple and Netscape were available?
I assume you’re talking about Microsoft here, and no I’m would not argue they didn’t have a monopoly. But surely you can see the difference between a software vendor having 95% of the market for operating systems across multiple competing hardware vendors ( and that same software vendor forcing hardware vendors to buy licenses even for hardware that doesn’t include the OS) and a single vendor of both a piece of phone hardware that only runs one os and that same os which only runs on that hardware (both from the same vendor) who has less than half of the market for phones in general and does nothing to discourage retailers and sellers of their phones from selling competing products.
This sounds very much like an edge case. Why didn't you use Windows or MacOS on the mini PC instead? Was it because you were unable to do so?
> Or how about the huge fight that systemd has been (and continues to be).
That fight was over pretty much when Devuan and Artix formed.
> If we imagine a world where os init was regulated by the EU,
The EU would only be interested in regulating this if it were an OS init controlled by a monopoly abusing their position.