I could open-source defecating into your hands and clapping if you like, but it probably won’t increase demand or convert people, even open source advocates, into true believers if they don’t already like doing it.

And there are absolutely problems with Mullenweg’s stewardship, whatever else you might think of the product.

I agree but I suspect that the problem is that people have different opinions on where the line is on that. Presumably somebody, somewhere actually plays that stupid candy crush thing on Windows for example. It’s probably a ‘valuable service’ for it to be pre installed for them.

I kinda hate them but they’re allowed to like it.

What’s stopping the downloaded script from wiping my home directory? If you use this, how can you feel comfortable?

You’re not wrong, but there’s an element of trust in anything like this and it’s all about your comfort level. How can you truly trust any code you didn’t write and complie yourself. Actually, how do you trust the compiler.

And let’s be honest, even if you trust my code implicitly (Hey, I’m a bofh, what could go wrong?) then that simply means that you’re trusting me not to do anything malicious to your system.

Even if your trust is well-placed in that regard, I don’t need to be malicious to wipe your system or introduce a configuation error that makes you vulnerable to others, it’s perfectly possible to do all that by just being incompetent. Or even being a normally competent person who was just having a bad day while writing the script you’re running now. Ooops.

The reärmament drive is scary, we need to see more popular pushback against this.

It might be scary, but not rearming may be scarier. If we’ve seen anything in recent history, it’s that two large countries run by leaders who are bullies care little for what you or I or anyone else wants.

I’m one of the many recent immigrants from reddit so I guess that’s my start to alternatives.

I don’t think I can walk away from many of the American tech services I use, but what I have done is reviewed what I use, change what I can and walk away from what I can. I’ve curtailed my optional spend on American companies, goods, and services. We can all do that at least.