I previously didn’t really care but selfhosting has slowly pushed me to really care about my media and data. Moved to Linux, try to prefer FOSS even if some minor function is lost. But considering when it’s not worth it.
For me, it’s that I have 100% control and the devs respect the consumers enough to show they have nothing to hide.
As a tech nerd who understands the value of data and how it relates to companies in the modern day it personally concerns me to make sure my info isn’t easily collectable. I can list off moral argumants for foss and rant about how I’m fighting the good fight against corporate/government surveillance but really that’s just window dressing fluff. The core of it like many things is power, control, and dominance.
Data is money. Money is power. Therefore, data is power. The more of my data I let leak, the more power others have over me. I own my computer, I own my data. its mine so I need to fully control and enforce my power over it otherwise its not really mine and instead some companies who will eventually play power and control games with me over who really gets to control the bytes on the screen.
Fuck you and your forced candy crush ads in the start screen Microsoft, Get off my harddrive. Fuck you and your always listening nonesense FAANG and PRISM, your spyware riddled portable tappy computer gets put in a soundproof Faraday cage when I don’t need to use it. I’m not a stupid animal. You might rightfully get away with treating the general population like ones but I see through your bullshit and and know your games. You want to spy on me? Fine but it will cost you. Step up your game and get some fucking alphabet boys om a salary in a van across the street like the good old days when mass survailance 1984 style was a concern and not a fashion accessory.
Im like this and I totally drank the foss cool aid after hearing stallman talk. But yeah at the end of the day I do things based on usability. Heck I only recently started using linux and I stuck to windows partially do to keeping myself and my wife on the same thing but windows 11 was just to much. I sorta wish I did it earlier to show her how functional it is sooner.
I prefer FOSS but I will use others if there’s nothing FOSS that fits my needs.
Me, not a purist, but heavily prefer FOSS. My wife does use a proprietary Linux scanner app but that is it. On Android about 14% of my apps are proprietary.
I don’t care much about ‘open source’ by itself. That’s just a way to share code and workload between devs. I’m not a dev, I’m barely much of a geek (but I did wrote a few Bash scripts, does that qualify? ;)
I care a lot more about the software being Free/Libre.
I moved to Linux because of the GNU and because of its focus on, well, user freedoms. Also, because I care about privacy and worry to see how quickly it’s being eaten away.
So, I always favor a Libre software over a proprietary one, even if it lacks certain features. But I’m not against using something proprietary when I have to.
