what else were they meant to spend it on, improving their country’s economy?

I think (aka speculate) that the fact that Windows is the largest OS plays into the fact that Linux-Mac compatibility isn’t more developed.

I bet some 90% of desktop software is available on Windows (even many core KDE are on Windows!) so targeting them brings most Apple apps onto Linux “for free”. Especially since Apple’s insistence on trying to make Metal a thing hurts gaming support, which is a big driver behind Linux compatibility development.

The few applications that MacOS has over both Linux and Windows are usually so embedded into the Apple ecosystem that you’re not getting much by porting them anyway. iTunes? The App Store? Garage Band? Probably doesn’t help that many of those apps also use Apple’s own UI framework which isn’t really portable.

However, stuff not designed to live in Apple land like Teams for Mac or Adobe CC might be more possible. But still far too few applications to necessitate the effort to bring them over.

Pop is the only one that really ever makes any reference to windows in its marketing. I’m more talking about distros like Zorin which are targeting public sector orgs and windows users by bundling windows compatibility apps and features into the ISO.

The other examples definitely do also target “new users” which of course means Windows users too, but they aren’t explicitly tying their distros to Windows software compatibility the same way some are.

I did some reading in AV1 and it’s derivative formats - are they any more accessible to Linux than HEVC/H265? Fedora IIRC removed support for them and a few other codecs out of the box over some patent concerns or something.

Fucking hell you could cut the Reddit-tier snark with a knife.

BSD is more binary compatible than Windows. The fact there’s less MacOS ports on Linux seems to me like a lack of resources, but if you have a reason beyond 🤓☝️ then I’m genuinely interested.

Yup. Same issue will plague all Windows-alternative distros. Unless serious work is done to fix Microsoft 365 and Adobe creative cloud, there’s genuinely little benefit trying to claim Linux is an alternative for all but a minority of people.

That, or we can work on improving the alternatives to those apps. GIMP, Inkscape, and OnlyOffice are on a spectrum of laughably bad to just-about-comparable to their proprietary counterparts.

I don’t think it’s an insurmountable issue: I think there’s more we could do to bring Apple software to Linux (using a BSD-based kernel means a lot less complexity!) and with it the few applications that currently don’t play well with WINE.

Google’s involvement is weird, not for any conspiracy reasons but because the chromium team previously cancelled JPEG-XL.

🤓☝️ ahh comment.

This isn’t Rust’s fault lmao, this is distro maintainers trying to fuck with dependencies on software which has been proven to be a horrible way of managing software distribution for years.

When it’s a problem with other languages, we don’t pin the blame on them. However, because Linux and its developer community is being dragged by its heels to accept ANYTHING more modern than C99 and mailing lists, the typical suspects are using any opportunity to slow progress.

The same shit has happened/is happening with Wayland. The same shit will happen when the next new technology offers a way for Linux to improve itself. A few jackasses who haven’t had to learn anything new for a lifetime are gonna always be upset that new Devs might nip at their heels.

TLDR Debian and the traditional Linux package management system is antiquated and insecure, but somehow this is the fault of one of the many programming languages that is designed around the sensible expectations of being able to manage your own dependencies.

The video attached is a perfect example of the kind of “I’m not prepared to learn anything new so everyone else is wrong” attitude that is eating away at Linux like a cancer.

If memory safety isn’t adopted into the kernel, and C fanaticism discarded, Linux will face the same fate as the kernels it once replaced. Does the Linux foundation want to drag its heels and stuff millions into AI ventures whilst sysadmins quietly shift to new kernels that offer memory safety, or does it want to be part of that future?

no.