Google soft-forked Linux for Android (maintained in parallel IIRC) but re-merged into the mainline, presumably because why maintain a whole operating system?

In theory the Linux Foundation would keep Google, Microsoft, AMD, whoever playing nice with each other for mutual benefit and maintenance of Linux, but like you said, and the source of my worry, is who else would have Linus’ combination of prestige, principles, and perseverance?

I’m sure there are others who could fill the role, but even Linus is still bullying Nvidia with only partial success. The most vital role Linus probably has had for some time now is leadership. But even someone who might have superior soft-skills wouldn’t have the history, which certainly contributes to his authority.

Glad someone finally mentioned Bus Factor.

On topic, I wonder if Linux technically has a bus factor problem. In theory, anyone could fork, take all the source give and start making Johnix, Tomix, or Whosix. Everything is documented and all the code is available.

In the real world, you have multiple teams and individuals submitting code from all over the world. Sure you’ve got the Linux Foundation, but who would have the respect and authority to keep everyone contributing instead of forking off?

I know there are several seminal works locked in archives or even just lost.

I couldn’t think of any specific examples off the top of my head, but I was considering the fate of Microprose, Sierra On-Line, and other studios that were gobbled up, disbanded, broken up, etc.

Your Mechwarrior example is a good example of licensing, where you might have defunct TTRPG studios (FASA) licensing a property to a have company it studio that has also gone though several mergers.

There should be a “use it or lose it” provision in copyright law, kind of like back in the day with what happened to “It’s A Wonderful Life”. The only reason IAWL became a Christmas classic isbecause it became public domain.

And this is the real cost. Sorry Mario Brothers will pretty much always be available as long as Nintendo is around, but obscure games or classics with disputed Copyright will disappear.

Who is out there even trying to stream the old Sierra games? At least they are on GoG, but I know even GoG has tried to track down current copyright holders for old classics and the are plenty of orphan games where after several mergers and divestments, there is some uncertainty, and it’s not worth it for any of the potential copyright holders to sort it out and license it, and unfortunately it’s not worth it for GoG to publish it to find out if they’ll sue GoG.

This is why Abandonware is such an important concept.

Didn’t think Knoppix was obscure, but that was my gateway to Linux first on all my personal PCs.

I guess the years have passed it by.

I remember when 128 but SSL Encryption was export restricted in the mid 90’s. When I first opened an online banking account, the Bank sent a CD with a customized version of Netscape Navigator with 128 bit SSL, and the bank logo in place of the Netscape N.

I think it was PS3 that shipped with “Other OS” functionality, and were sold a little cheaper than production costs would indicate, to make it up on games.

Only thing is, a bunch of institutions discovered you could order a pallet of PS3’s, set up Linux, and have a pretty skookum cluster for cheap.

I’m pretty sure Sony dropped “Other OS” not because of vague concerns of piracy, but because they were effectively subsidizing supercomputers.

Don’t know if any of those PS3 clusters made it onto Top500.

That was exactly what I thought it was. Classic! And an official RFC (although introduced on April 1).

Right there with you!

My first experience with the internet was Gopher.

The police also knocked and only entered after he answered it sounded like. While certainly armed and probably prepared for something wild, they didn’t force entry with guns at the ready.

Once again, mostly comparing to videos of US police interactions, which is kind of weird as a non-USian commenting on a German police interrogation. Would be curious to see an “audit the audit” type review of this.

Respect. Only through destruction can we be purified.

The standard I recall being established back in the nineties as to whether strong encryption was even legal in the US was “substantial non-infringing use” or similar. It’s been awhile.

The problem with key-escrow or anything similar is that any proscribed circumvention is also available to the “bad guys”.

I think Telegram’s stance would be that they can’t moderate because of strong end-to-end encryption. Back in the day the parallel would have been made to the phone system or mail.

Of course this is all happening in France, so I have no idea what the combination of French and EU laws will have on this, but I would still broadly expect that if a parallel can be made to mail or phone, Telegram would be in the clear. The phone company and mail service have no expectation of content moderation.

I guess we’ll see.

VAX/VMS was still around then, and as far as I recall, that was the king for uptime.

Linux back then supported much less hardware. I can remember even in the early aughts, there was while families of popular wireless network chipsets that weren’t supported.

Pretty much exactly what happened to me. Mostly open source apps on Windows. Set up dual boot with Windows default. One day I noticed I was switching to Linux more often than not, so changed to Linux default.

Some controllers are almost integral to the experience. Intellivision and Colecovision come to mind. Having said that, emulation and modern controls are generally great, and generally my preference.

I’ve got a 15 year old SD/USB combo card on my keychain. I plugged it into a TV around 6-7 years ago because there were a couple of kids movies on there.

I also know I have some Portable apps on there, but probably a little out of date

This has been my experience. I used Fedora for a while years ago, but rpm was already second fiddle to deb. Plus, I was already selling into my “old man distro” so I kept ending up with some Ubuntu version.

I did recently Manjaro and Linux Mint, but ended up with Ubuntu again, although this time Kubuntu, Ubuntu with KDE!

No shade from me though for going with Red Hat.

Probably, but I think that every month that CDL went unchallenged was slowly building a precedent. I wonder if they had stuck to CDL if we’d still be waiting for the publishers to blink.

During the pandemic, Internet Archive very publicly announced they were relaxing their one physical copy per digitally loaned copy.

I think of they had maintained their 1:1 CDL method, the publishers would still be uncomfortable to be the one to sue first, especially since there was a decent argument and IA would have been pretty sympathetic.

Their pandemic policy was effectively not substantially different from a shadow library., and just set up a slam dunk case for the publishers.

I think if they hadn’t abandoned the CDL modern during the pandemic, they could have kept it going indefinitely. Even if it wasn’t likely fair use, it might have been. More than that, it would have been bad press for the publisher to make the first move.

Abandoning CDL during the pandemic was just waving a red flag and giving the publishers a slam dunk case.

I think if IA had just held the line with CDL, they could have over time just effectively established a precedent. Lost opportunity.