entropy1111

So disk size is your concern? Because you can't possibly be worried about the kind of complexity I think you're hinting at. Not when just to boot your desktop you'll have to go "over" firmware, the OSes in your disks, the OSes hidden in your CPU, the OSes inside your GPU, a bloated kernel, so on and so forth.

If you use a modern computer you're living in pure bloat. Neofetch showing a small number of packages is placebo. "But I can make sense of everything that's installed in my machine" is placebo. Installing a 5mb window manager on top of that is placebo, and Wayfire feels lighter and faster than Sway in my tests. KDE Plasma is a full desktop environment and that's why it comes with bloat (features) included. Not using Krita because of dependencies doesn't feel like a good argument in the current state of desktop software. Security wise we have so many targets to attack that a few more packages would not make any difference.

I wish it wasn't like that too though. Let's just agree we have a very different definition to what bloat is and call it a day.

Bloated how? Disk size? API area? The default non-mobile buttons layout? The number of smaller packages that are designed this way because being monolithic made people call it bloated, triggering a major reorganization to what you see now?

Qt (and probably the KDE frameworks) resource usage is so optimized they made some lightweight DEs go "out of business".

I'm curious because I would stop using Linux if there was only GTK applications (I avoid Electron as well). I think the only exception that doesn't drive me mad is Inkscape but I don't need it. I'd rather have bloat than no features at all. GIMP has a manpage for manually drawing circles for christs sake.

>Privacy Guard) I was the one who purposely removed it.

I know that but it was the main selling point of the ROM for me. Also that I didn't even need a firewall because you could block network access.

>SafetyNet

I was commenting from the POV of a user who needs apps that demand SafetyNet access. You're right.

>Bribing

I was talking about ROM developers on e.g. XDA, not LineageOS the "company".

There's no point in using LineageOS after they dropped PrivacyGuard instead of expanding it. You start going down this road and suddenly you'll have a phone that doesn't pass SafetyNet anymore. You have to use 3rd-party applications and probably a ROM made by a random internet user not affiliated with LineageOS because they drop support for devices all the time. The phone manufacturers bribe ROM developers to do that or they just move on quickly.

MicroG is another really unstable experience. Google bought KaiOS and will buy the next KaiOS too. They moved and continue moving features to their proprietary castle. There's just no way you can win this fight against Google.

Long term the only solution is by some miracle a FOSS phone gets enough popularity for developers to want to make apps for it. I doubt it. My solution is unfortunately using two separates phones. Android and a FOSS one.

>it's totally possible to run Windows without any of the snooping

Researchers found that even Enterprise with special "baselines" installed was still sending data. Is this not the case anymore?

GNOME being slow and not having basic features like thumbnails in the file picker after almost 18 years was often attributed, by their maintainers, to be caused by GTK3 limitations. Even now Glade still needs a lot of "volunteering" to be production ready for GTK3. I don't use GTK anymore, this is my opinion after reading a lot about it and seeing recommendations like "if you need documentation just read existing code", "why is Glade missing X or Y? just copy some XML node, just edit the XML and pray".

Anyway who cares, maybe GTK4 is good and new GTK threads will not be full of people talking about how bad it was. But why not move the tools together with the rest? I know, it's open source, lack of maintainers, but I wouldn't dare to declare my toolkit stable until basic tools work. Qt is also guilty of doing that in some ways but at least the previous version is still production ready and they move really fast.

I don't know I'll ever get over my irrational anger about how they handle(d) GTK.

They add a unique identifier to EFIVARS. That's why if you install a MS store application without being logged in, completely wipe/replace your disks you can still see the list of previous installed applications in the store.

>what could Microsoft do that would change your perspective on them?

I mean it's really complicated. For starters I'd like them to stop forcing people to use their bad products just because they were there first to lock down the market and or abused their position. This is still happening today.

Then I'll be more open to use their good products, and there's plenty of that. I want to be excited when MS announces a new technology, not to be reminded of how bad they behave as a company and the negative impact they have on my life.

>And do you hold other companies (FAANG) do the same standard?

Yes. At least with e.g. Apple and Google I can just not use their products, but with Google it's getting harder and harder as they monopolize the web and close/lock Android even more. Google removed don't be evil from their motto, MS should change theirs to We love open source when it's convenient. Nothing wrong with doing manipulative PR like everyone else, but don't be surprised when some people don't want to drink it.

My recollection from previous OIN threads was that it came with a lot of caveats. I can't comment any further from lack of knowledge about patents and its subtleties. Would love to see an analysis of what really happened in practice since they did that.

>This is really cool. Kudos to Microsoft for really getting open source lately

If they get open source so much it means not open sourcing what really matters is intentional. And quite frankly getting rid of patents, their litigiousness and data collection. But I'm asking too much and I would settle for them to just stop suffocating competitors, innovation and stop with vendor lock in. Same deal for their competitors.

Anything that really matters is just like the same old MS you know. DirectX, Office, Xbox, everything SaaS, IDE, compilers, debuggers, language servers, file formats, UI frameworks, UI patents, GitHub, Windows, Server, you'll find examples in every area. Practices like buying or killing competitors like Vulkan related acquisitions. I get it they are a company and need to maximize profits, so it's cool.

Microsoft has so many quality projects and good people working for them, it's just so frustrating that it's still like this. This will only get worse as the exploitative behavior and business models of their competitors like Google force their hand to do the same.