Back when I moved over to linux I wanted to get away from the mainstream. Fedora/Red Hat were too mainstream for me at the time but I have never had any real objections to it. I eventually ended up settling on Debian and ever since then i’ve stuck with descendants of that distro because having the same toolchains of software as Debian makes transitioning distros slightly easier.
I guess my only takeaway is that if I want to protect my IP then anyone who has access to the software should be required to sign a terms & agreement that specifically written to prevent this kind of thing, regardless IANAL, but i’m pretty sure this is all legal according to copyright law. The engine and therefore the code is different, the assets are custom and slightly different. If this were a trademark or patent related case then there might be a something else to go on.
DOS/Win 3.1 -> Win95 -> Win98 SE -> windowXP -> open?SuSe(1 week) -> Mandrake -> (a month) -> WindowsVista -> Debian(a couple years) ->Win8(a few months) -> Ubuntu/Kubuntu (a couple years) -> Pop_OS! (currently). I still have a windows vm installed but it rarely gets used.
That’s kind of the highlights sort of how I remember it. It’s been a long time . 15-20 years of gnu/linux usage. I’ve also been using a raspberry pi with raspbian/raspberry pi os since the first gen device was released, too.
at the time I installed Mandrake it was one of the only distros that had a graphical installer besides Red Hat. I remember that was a driving factor for my decision making back then.
I used to crash my Debian and eventual Ubuntu distros with regularity due to outdated PPAs. It was such a headache, and it’s why I still put my /home directory on a seperate partition just to make a reinstall safe for my personal files. I thought I didn’t like Appimages and their bloat until Snap came along. I hated Snap so much it convinced me switch distro’s again. Now I’m on Pop! and I love Flatpaks by comparison and now think Appimages are alright…
It’s 10+ years later and I still irrationally worry about crashing my system due to outdated & conflicting source dependencies. In hindsight the problems with PPAs clearly had a lasting impact on me.
If you want a third party candidate to have a chance of winning or even influencing politics then you have to actually vote third party. My comment was no more in bad faith than the people who dogmatically shout “vote blue no matter who.” or “A vote for third party is a vote for trump.” or some other condescending remark. The point is that people like to try to brow-beat others into voting for candidates that they also claim don’t represent them. I’ve long been tired of making fear-based political decisions just so I can elect someone who doesn’t represent me. If it’s truly only a choice between some guy I don’t like and some guy who will end democracy, then you have no real choice and Democracy has already ended -if it ever began. I will likely be voting for Cornel West or Green Party (as I did during the last General Election) because I actually like and agree with their proposed policy, not because I’m scared of someone else winning. So yes we could really use your vote even if it’s just to get us to 5%. If you choose not to then that is your choice, and at least we are offering you that.