Recent events have had me thinking a lot more about which tools we will be allowed to use in the workplace.
It was difficult to undo the damage that using Windows for most of my life affected my perception of computers.
Using Linux has widened my perspective on technology in general and made it a lot more fun to explore low level and systems programming.
Do many of you get to use Linux tools at work? How would you feel about more small establishments and local shops using software that gives them more control?
I’d imagine payment software, and a whole slough of other services are now sold as SaaSes when historically they did not need to be digitized or have an unnecessary middle man.
Just a little Tuesday thought for discussion. Hope you all are doing well.
-G
I switched to Linux 15 years ago and I work in the legal industry as a computer guy, so I’ve been trying. The main obstacle in my experience has been liability insurance; if an entity like a small law firm uses Linux instead of Windows, their liability insurance rates increase; with Linux and other FOSS software, there is no deep-pocketed corporation to sue if a technical failure costs you money. Recent changes to Swiss law might help convince insurance companies that Linux is genuinely better enough that this will change, but insurance companies are the heart of all that is corporate and conservative, and famously hard to sway without mountains of evidence gathered on their terms by their people. Microsoft products are defective by design because institutions that only care about the bottom line do not want their users empowered.
This makes a whole lot of sense… Will be interesting to see the direction the Swiss go, when it comes to supporting an enterprise with their software infrastructure.
Really makes me treasure the nerds and bookworms in my life… 📕🪱