Convos - self hosted web based client written in Perl of all things, because it’s small, simple, does exactly what I want and no more, and avoids my having to faff with client + bouncer which was getting old 10 years ago and feels positively withering now.

https://convos.chat/

Yes TheLounge is fantastic but I switched to Convos these days because it’s lighter weight and I somehow manage to overrun my disk much less often :)

Nice to see that KDE is so well supported! I’d been running Manjaro KDE the last time I had Linux installed on my desktop but I may give Debian a try this time around.

I’m not gonna speak for Canonical but snaps enable commercial vendors to more readily ship their apps on the Ubuntu platform.

Humans are inherently evil. There is but a thin veneer we call “civilization” that stops of from beating each other to death with whatever object can be brought to hand.

And what does any of this have to do with the price of tea in China? :)

I get it.

I don’t love Snaps either.

However, a thing I try to remember and wish others would as well is simply this: Canonical is a company. Their goal is to make money. They are not out to create the ultimate free as in freedom Linux distribution.

This does (to my mind) not make them evil, and ESPECIALLY doesn’t make the folks who work there evil. It makes them participants in the great horrible game that is Capitalism, and expecting anything else from them is going to lead to heartache, as you’ve seen.

If you want a Linux distro that shares your preferences and won’t try to jam snaps down your throat, you might consider giving Debian a whirl as many others have.

Continuing to ride the Ubuntu train and raging against the dying of the light when it continues chugging in the direction it’s been headed for YEARS seems … futile :)

Is that contract copyrighted?

I think by far the biggest problem with open source is that the user community fundamentally mis-understands the nature of the transaction involving them and the developer(s) of the software they’re using.

I think if we could make everyone sit down, take 10 minutes and just read The Social Contract Of Open Source a lot of people would keep developing OSS software.

Brass tacks: You are being given a gift. The person who gave you that gift owes you NOTHING because… They gave you a gift and by using their software you chose to accept it.

I see it all the time in the open source project I co-maintain, and I have it SUPER easy beacause ours is really just a bundle of configuration files for Neovim.

Gamer culture in one :)

They publish Runescape.

I never played it, I know it was ENORMOUSLY popular with a certain generation of folks :)

I know it’s awful but I see the acronym “MMORPG” and it’s an instant buzz kill.

You’re very VERY late to this party, but as the person who created it I’m happy to remove it.

Would you be willing to expand on what you mean please? What is the philosophy of this sub?

Fun meme, but honestly I think the only folks it’s gonna be a bad year for are AAA game devs, who I already sympathize with.

I think indies are gonna keep rocking some outstanding content. Content made with and for love will always beat content made for money IMO :)

Holy cow I’d love that too.

I want to buy a game, not an ongoing financial leeching.

Honestly I think that the entire landscape of science fiction awards has gone pear shaped and become hopelessly politicized.

And, like the hyper polarization of human society at large, I don’t see a solution.

You’ll always have the Sad Puppies (Vox Dei followers in sheep’s clothing) versus the folks who see themselves as doing good by amplifying under-represented voices.

At the end of the day maybe these larger awards need to go away and be replaced by partisan versions, which is kind of a sad fate to contemplate.

Baldur’s Gate 3 on the desktop because it’s so good and Bayonetta on my Steamdeck because I got it dirt cheap from humble bundle and it plays great there :)

I saw so many Meh reviews of The Expanse. Glad to hear someone who enjoyed it! I’m a HUUGE fan of the books and TV show and would love to play the game at some point!

I think everybody’s different. I mean, there do exist 23 year olds who are incredibly mature and fully formed as human beings, capable of making that kind of a Big Decision, but from what I’ve seen they’re pretty darn rare :)

I met my wife at 37 and married at 39. Best decision I ever didn’t intentionally make :)

But looking back, I had a TON of growing up to do before I was ready to seriously commit to marriage the way I personally view it. Pair bonding for life. Sure, people, things and desired change, but I’ve watched far too many god awful divorces to ever want to go through that, so I wanted to be really sure and I totally was. It’s been an awesome 16 years.

Yeah, “brand new” hardware is rough in the Linux-verse :) I think Linux advocates need to be more up front with that as well. Quite a number of them are rocking 15 year old Thinkpads because that’s what they read will maximize compatibility.