SymbolicLink

Yeah and I just want to make it clear I am not arguing that no one should post anything that benefits them. We all gotta eat, get that bag 💰, etc.

I think if affiliates are allowed, the rule should be that the proper disclosures are in place so anyone viewing the community knows who is benefiting. Then the community can decide if they are okay with whatever is happening, as long as the users know exactly what's happening.

I posted in a reply below but here is the FTC’s stance

You should disclose your relationship to the retailer clearly and conspicuously on your site, so readers can decide how much weight to give your endorsement. You could say something like, “I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.” In some instances – like when the affiliate link is embedded in your product review – a single disclosure may be adequate.

I disagree, not making it explicit adds a level of abstraction and assumes that everyone needs to know how online affiliate programs work. Users should know, without any question or confusion, who exactly is benefiting and how whenever they use an affiliate link. Otherwise there are perverse incentives.

And its not just me, here is the FTC's stance.

You should disclose your relationship to the retailer clearly and conspicuously on your site, so readers can decide how much weight to give your endorsement. You could say something like, “I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.” In some instances – like when the affiliate link is embedded in your product review – a single disclosure may be adequate.

I know FTC is American, but I think its a good guideline.

Yeah I am not against people making money. In this case if just felt distasteful and not properly disclosed.

Most people will probably know that that affiliate link benefits the mod of that community, but many won't. People might just think "Oh wow that's cool, thanks for sending me in the right direction you charitable mod".

The problem is the lack of disclosure and the overall disingenuous feeling, not that someone is making cash.

Yeah I am okay leaving it to mods. But I think in this particular case if the mods themselves are posting affiliate links with no indication they are getting money for each use, that seems like misaligned incentives.

There were some subreddits that would have stickied posts or something that allowed affiliate links, but that aggregates it all into one place and also lays it out clearly for whoever visits.

My main concern is not that someone is making money, we all gotta eat, its just when people aren't aware they are potentially being manipulated for someones benefit.

Check out LibreOffice instead, it’s more modern and actively maintained.

I would go from the bottom up instead of top down.

Make a list of software and tools you use, and search for functional Linux native equivalents. Then find the distro that supports up to date versions of that software (through flatpak or the package manager).

You can honestly do 100% of this without even touching the command line if you choose something user friendly like Mint, Pop OS, Ubuntu, or Fedora. Don’t fall into the rabbit hole of finding the perfect distro. Go from what you need to what supports it.

keep the windows partition around for a while until you are 100% confident you can fully make the switch.

Also it’s good to get into the habit of using man or - -help instead of or in combination with searching on the internet. Makes you less reliant on searches and also ensures that your are using commands that correspond to the version of the software you are using

IE: man rm | grep recursive

Sneaky as in the wording doesn’t convey that they are getting a benefit (which they are). And it’s also written to intentionally confuse using wording like “use our affiliate link”. Who is “our”? It’s just one person who is trying to make some cash?

It’s just so out of place on the platform and shouldn’t be allowed IMO. Especially added by a mod in the sidebar of a community. Better approach would be a stickied post with affiliate links posted by users or something similar.

“If you’re interested in joining Wealthsimple, you can take advantage of our referral link. By using it, you’ll receive up to $3,000 in cash to trade stocks or crypto when you fund a DIY trading or Managed Investing account. Use code XXXXX or the link below to sign up.”

Plex, PiHole, Photoprism, Home Assistant, Syncthing in a hub and spoke config, Caddy for reverse proxy, custom containers for: yt-dlp, restic, and rsync.

Yeah my dock is a glorified charging station. Might just sell it to be honest. I thought of using it for the TV for some party games, but even still the experience is just a bit too buggy TBH.

I think docked mode is more useful if someone wants to use their deck for occasional productivity/browsing on a monitor.

Yeah I am a bit salty about all of the whole "Opt-out" telemetry thing. I know its just a proposal but just feels a bit slimy.

Fedora is upstream of RHEL which is supposed to result in a mutually beneficial arrangement where Fedora users are essentially testers / bug reporters of code that will eventually make its way into RHEL. Its just part of the collaborative, fast, and "open" nature of FOSS. Adding sneaky/opt-out telemetry just feels like a slap in the face.

super small ex. I am a big Podman user these days, and have submitted a few bug reports so the Podman github repos which has been fixed by RedHat staff. This makes it faster for them to test and release stable code to their paying customers. Just a small example but it adds up across all users to make RHEL a better product for them to sell. Just look into the Fedora discussion forum, there is so much bug reporting and fixing going on that will make its way to RHEL eventually.

Making and arguing for "Opt-out only" telemetry is just so tone deaf to the Linux community as a whole, but I think they got the memo after the shit storm that ensued over the past few days.

But HEY one of the biggest benefits of Linux is that I can pretty painlessly distro hop. I've done it before and can do it again. All my actual data is on my home server so no sweat off my back. openSUSE is looking pretty good, maybe I will give it a try.

I'm conflicted on this. I 100% think CLI applications should remain as packages but Flatpak IMO is superior for GUI. It just has a lot of "step in the right direction" sorts of things that address some of Linux's faults.

The big two positives for me are:

1. Makes it easier for developers to publish their own software and reach many distros at once. This has really helped with software availability and updates.
2. Sandboxing (although not perfect and Flatseal is kind of essential here, I hope this gets rolled into software centers or something).

I am on Fedora Silverblue and the concept of a base OS + Flatpaks just feels right for workstations. OCI containers (podman/docker/distrobox) as a bonus for development environments without borking your host.

But with this recent Fedora news (I know nothing has changed YET but I am just sussed out tbh), I am considering switching to OpenSUSE Aeon/Kalpa.