The role of "gatekeepers" is nothing new, of course.

And regulatory discourse, in the UK and perhaps elsewhere, seems to be focussed on demanding ever more gatekeeping.

But with great power comes great responsibility, and the power for one company to deny software updates - a power which a company has recently exercised - seems to me to demand an incredibly high degree of responsibility. One which I am sceptical can be satisfied.

I saw a toot, a few weeks ago, which said words to the effect of "some people here seem unreasonably worked up about software and licensing".

It is nice to have fedizens who are not computer geeks. I welcome both of them with open arms.

But this is a good example of why I, personally, care about computing and software Freedom. It is not abstract or irrelevant.

I do not care for this kind of centralised control, even covered deftly in the wrapping paper of "user safety".

@foxbasealpha @neil funny enough, I’ve been recommending Linux as a better alternative for grandmas for a couple of years now  
It think it works best for people who are either really into it (Linux enthusiasts) and for people with no tech literacy at all. You can set your grandparent (or parent or sibling or child or whoever, really) up with a web browser and email program on Linux and she’ll never need OS help again. No bitlocker errors, pdf reader pop up ads, full page windows upgrade prompts, no way to stuff it up.

I think where Linux can fall flat is everybody else. People who need to use specific stuff that’s not in a web browser (art, streaming have been issues for me with Linux) games outside of steam, or competitive pvp games, music production and so on.

@Mudlark @foxbasealpha

> for people with no tech literacy at all. You can set grandma up...

Please do consider using less sexist, ageist language here!