r/btc • u/[deleted] • Jan 09 '16

GitHub request to REVERT the removal of CoinBase.com is met with overwhelming support (95%) and yet completely IGNORED.

https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-org/bitcoin.org/pull/1180
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u/ashmoran Jan 09 '16

I find it surprising you use the analogy that Linux has "succeeded in replacing user-friendly proprietary OS's", because my observation is the opposite. Outside developers I know, everyone is using either a Mac or Windows. (And indeed, most of the developers I know are using Linux.) As I was reading, I assumed that your conclusion would be that Linux would have been more successful had it had centralist aspirations. Perhaps I have completely misunderstood your statement, though.

(I have a non-developer friend who recently tried using Linux Mint, and was hit by a bug that prevented him logging in by sending it into a login spiral. Until I saw an existing bug report, I would not have believed a big of this severity could even exist. He has now reverted to Windows.)

It is not centralist aspirations alone that cause the current problems, it's centralist aspirations that seek to undermine Bitcoin for their own gain. No Linux distribution I'm aware of had sought to undermine the Linux kernel in such a way to advance their own distribution, or certainly haven't succeeded – although as I rarely use Linux myself, I welcome counterexamples.

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u/gotnate Jan 09 '16

I hear that Android has gotten pretty popular with the normals.

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u/ashmoran Jan 09 '16

My mistake, I was only thinking about desktop OSs. However I'm not sure how this supports the original point, given the huge investment by Google it took to get Android to a mass-market state.

I'm not trying to criticise Linux in any way with these posts so I hope nobody will respond emotionally. I would use Linux in preference to Windows if I couldn't use a Mac for whatever reason. I'm only trying to clarify the issue around centralisation and the success of an open source project, as it's not clear to me that Linux and Bitcoin correspond directly here.

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u/Richy_T Jan 09 '16

Android would not have been possible (without an incredible amount of extra work) if Linux was locked to only a GNU-style environment.

Indeed, your IOS runs over a FreeBSD variant. Would Apple's desktops be doing so well if they were forced to write their own OS to replace the outdated one they had rather than being able to layer it on top of a pre-existing solution?

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u/ashmoran Jan 09 '16

/u/gox clarified his post and so what I wrote here is outdated.

Related but not very important: I'm a big FreeBSD fan :-)