Facebook is banning posts that mention various Linux-related topics, sites, or groups. Some users may also see their accounts locked or limited when posting Linux topics. Major open-source operating system news, reviews, and discussion site DistroWatch is at the center of the controversy, as it seems to be the first to have noticed that Facebook’s Community Standards had blackballed it.
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DistroWatch says that the Facebook ban took effect on January 19. Readers have reported difficulty posting links to the site on this social media platform. Moreover, some have told DistroWatch that their Facebook accounts have been locked or limited after sharing posts mentioning Linux topics.
If you’re wondering if there might be something specific to DistroWatch.com, something on the site that the owners/operators perhaps don’t even know about, for example, then it seems pretty safe to rule out such a possibility. Reports show that “multiple groups associated with Linux and Linux discussions have either been shut down or had many of their posts removed.” However, we tested a few other Facebook posts with mentions of Linux, and they didn’t get blocked immediately.
Man pages, help files, and commented configuration files galore
Technical documentation != Tutorials. Not even remotely.
Linux support forums might be hostile to entitled noobs looking for a handout and a quick fix
“Oh so you use Linux? Name every distro (to prove you ‘put in the effort’ to my standards)”
Sarcasm aside, Lime Buzz is completely correct; FOSS as an ecosystem has cultivated an air of ahem techno-elitism, and that severely undermines its actual usefulness as a tool of individual freedom or certainly resistance. If a tool requires a bunch of X (time, money, base knowledge, etc) in order to utilize, it’s not going to be useful to people who do not have that resource to spend on it. Which is going to be the majority of any given group. And that has really made it as an ecosystem much less important than many other concerns. Individual projects can still be important, but Linux is certainly not going to save us from Authoritarianism.
Corporations pay for support services. The code is free (as in speech). No one ever claimed that the support was also (or even should be) free.
Corporations may unfortunately be people, but people are certainly not corporations, and shouldn’t be expected to pay for everything corporations do.
If you believe that Linux actually helps people- that it materially improves their lives over being trapped in a predatory tech world built by for-profit entities who are happy to sell their customers out to a fascist government- then you are conceptualizing the relationship between Linux evangelists and new users incorrectly. We’re not providing sales and tech support in that case, we’re providing them aid. And aid workers don’t ask people to show how much they’ve tried to help themselves before offering them help.
And if you don’t think Linux actually aids peoples’ lives, then you just agree with Lime Buzz that
There are far more important things to worry about and to do.
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Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Technical documentation != Tutorials. Not even remotely.
“Oh so you use Linux? Name every distro (to prove you ‘put in the effort’ to my standards)”
Sarcasm aside, Lime Buzz is completely correct; FOSS as an ecosystem has cultivated an air of ahem techno-elitism, and that severely undermines its actual usefulness as a tool of individual freedom or certainly resistance. If a tool requires a bunch of X (time, money, base knowledge, etc) in order to utilize, it’s not going to be useful to people who do not have that resource to spend on it. Which is going to be the majority of any given group. And that has really made it as an ecosystem much less important than many other concerns. Individual projects can still be important, but Linux is certainly not going to save us from Authoritarianism.
Corporations may unfortunately be people, but people are certainly not corporations, and shouldn’t be expected to pay for everything corporations do.
If you believe that Linux actually helps people- that it materially improves their lives over being trapped in a predatory tech world built by for-profit entities who are happy to sell their customers out to a fascist government- then you are conceptualizing the relationship between Linux evangelists and new users incorrectly. We’re not providing sales and tech support in that case, we’re providing them aid. And aid workers don’t ask people to show how much they’ve tried to help themselves before offering them help.
And if you don’t think Linux actually aids peoples’ lives, then you just agree with Lime Buzz that
Thanks for explaining what I was getting at better than I am able to currently, genuinely.