I tried a snapshot release a few weeks ago, there are new features, but nothing too significant for me. I’m mostly running a stable 1.0 release, but 1.1 should be released very soon, we’ll see if it’s a big jump, like 1.0 was. Still a long way to go tbh, especially in terms of QoL improvements. I’m talking - why is it so hard to just extrude some text. Why browse for a .ttf file in 2026? Things like that.

Freecad is my daily driver and it’s pretty usable. Recently, it’s improved a lot, to the point it is now just mildly annoying.

In the past I mostly got to persuade them to allow me to use Linux. In one, however, they got me a macbook, so I resorted to living in the VM most of the time. I had to use xcode for some of the Mac development, but for the rest, I was masochistic enough to be able to withstand living in a VM. Though that mac was Intel based, now ARM ones would likely not perform as good to justify it. Asahi doesn’t work on newer ARM Macs AFAIK.

I recently set up a Navidrome/Lidarr setup and I’m beyond thrilled. Works great. I also recommend Symfonium app on android, it’s paid, but it’s worth it for the quality. On desktop, I’m trying out strawberry, but I find it a bit clunky, so I will probably try out other players. Use beet to download and ebmbed lyrics, and my music has never been better. I immediately ditched Spotify and haven’t looked back.

Well, not raping children is kind of a low bar. But didn’t he lobby Astra Zeneca not to open source the covid vaccine, because he has a stake there? Humanist my ass. Edit: someone already pointed this out already, I ought to read the thread before posting.

I’ve worked with Qualcomm SoCs a long time ago and, from my experience, the binary blobs ARE the biggest hurdle to the true Foss phone. Google is the most to blame, IMO, but also the rest of traditional OEMS of SoCs. They basically found the way to circumvent the OSS nature of Linux, which is why even though android is based on linux, the actual product and ecosystem looks nothing like regular Linux. What Google allowed with Android architecture, particularly with their HAL subsystem is force a layer in between native Linux device interface and Android system, so OEMs use that to implement whatever proprietary peripheral (device, sensor, etc) purely in userspace, rather that just as a kernel module. The kernel module is then just a userspace/kernelspace adapter, and everything is handled in the user space. This then means you dont have to have an open source driver, as it is not a part of kernel, and you just lock your driver into a binary blob. And in case of Qualcomm and I assume other oems, everything is just a binary blob. All sensors, microphone, GPS, modem, EVERYTHING. Yes, you can boot a basic Linux kernel, but no other functionality will work. If you had access to the blob source, you’d be able to fix, update and use a newer kernel versions eventually. HAL is technically not the cause of the problem, but it’s certainly an inspiration and almost a blueprint for how to lock down your hardware.