Given how entrenched the major desktop and mobile platforms are, I've despaired in recent years of finding a future that is not just more of the same, ever growing layers of cruft, middleware, and technical debt.
But perhaps a silver lining exists in the industry's "AI" madness causing everyone to commit to utterly destroying the quality, stability, and reliability of their software and platforms:
Maybe there are some good opportunities here for folks who are interested in a fresh start.
@swetland Yeah, exactly this. Stability has its pros and cons, stability itself is often the seed of its own disruption, and that disruption tends to be accidental and unpredictable. It's something one tends to recognize only in hindsight.
Accepting that, and that it will almost certainly come from folks two or three generations younger than me routing around the BS they're inheriting from my generation, has helped steer a near-constant sense of dread toward something approaching optimism.
It's certainly helped me feel less preachy, although some might say I'm deluding myself in that regard.
I've been saying the desktop as a metaphor along with files and folders is dead and a replacement is inevitable, and people either think I'm nuts or want to tar and feather me.
@swetland I think so!
I don't want to be all "year of the Linux desktop", but as you say, there might be a unique confluence happening.
A) distaste for enshitifying proprietary platforms
B) better-than-ever FOSS options while reaching a level of "just works" that passes some threshold for a bigger set of users
C) a lot of perfectly usable but out-of-support-window hardware available to be repurposed.
Brian Swetland
Elton Cora (Honorary)
bitsavers.org
Niels Moseley
Aaron In Minnesota
Girl Lich 🏳️⚧️⚢💀