Honestly if I had to deal with degooglers and Linux fanboys as much as he did I'd probably go batshit insane. Kudos to him

There are some things that can be described as philosophy of Linux (e.g. "don't break userspace", "I only care about the code"), but the idea that "Linux is about [freedom|choice|privacy|openness]" is entirely mythological. It's just a neat free software operating system kernel that has been used to build operating systems, many of which are free software.

Of course, Linux is "too fragmented" because there isn't a standard "linux desktop environment" (or package manager, or shell, etc) unless it's systemd in which case it's "about choice" and we need "init freedom."

Personally, as a free software enthusiast, I feel entitled to the "four freedoms" with every tool I use, no matter how large or small. I have no problem paying for free software and have done so in the past. For me the four freedoms are the point. A proprietary license is either a dealbreaker or a very large downside.

So, for me:

Is source‑available meaningfully different from closed‑source?

No. "Source available" in this context is a type of proprietary license. The fact that source code is visible does not make it not proprietary, because it is shared under a license that favors the interest of the rightsholder above those of its users. I talk about this often when contrasting so-called business and ethical licenses with true FOSS licenses. A true FOSS license grants modification and distribution rights and does not impose usage restrictions, a proprietary license imposes usage restrictions. With a FOSS license I don't need to worry that whatever I'm using the software for somehow infringes the rightsholder's personal ethics, and it encourages forking and code reuse.

In other words, thinking about it in terms of whether the source code is open or closed or "available" is missing the point entirely for the free software community. The point is what are you are allowed to do with the software and what restrictions are the rightsholder imposing on your usage of the software. Keep in mind most users are not programmers and thus being able to see source code does not impart any direct advantage to them, but allowing the community (which does include programmers) the four freedoms means things like forks and customizations can be spread.

Do you expect small tools to default to open‑source?

As said above I use free software wherever possible. Thinking about it I guess I generally do expect a small hobbyist tool (as opposed to something that exists to be a product) to be free software, but then again I use platforms that are favored by free software enthusiasts. On Windows I suppose it's more common to see these as proprietary freeware apps.

Does hosting something on GitHub imply a FOSS expectation?

For me it does not, I've learned to always look for a license to make sure, but I think a lot of people do not understand that GitHub can host proprietary projects too.

For someone planning a larger ecosystem later, which model is the most reasonable starting point?

You'll need to elaborate on this more. If you are planning to grow a free software community then using a true free software license is important. Free software and open source licenses are known to not impose usage restrictions that favor the rightsholder's interests above the user's, as I have said. On the other hand, if your goal is to create a business around the project, you need to balance your users rights against your business interests. Starting out with a free software license then switching to a proprietary source available license once you have a captive ecosystem will create resentment and guarantee a community based fork of the last true FOSS version.

It should be noted this is not any sort of actual anti-malware tool. By "lists the trackers" it just means it looks for strings in the compiled bytecode. This is prone to false positives (if the "tracker" classes are stubbed out, e.g. in Fennec F-Droid) and doesn't actually tell you if or how these libraries are actually used.

The silver lining of "AI" is that it's a convenient excuse to be anti-user. It's okay as long as you are "fighting the AI"

I expect to be chugging verification cans in 2027

/e/OS is just LineageOS with a bunch of cloud crap and a proprietary map app.

Their voice to text feature uses a cloud server that uses OpenAI on the backend. This is something that could and should run locally, but the local ones are apparently not good enough and instead of investing into developing them they are going to use a cloudy thing. But hey, I guess OpenAI is not google, so it is kosher.

https://community.e.foundation/t/voice-to-text-feature-using-open-ai/70509

Just use LineageOS

People should start doing so. This "android isn't real linux" nonsense is actively harmful misinformation at this point

According to the degooglers over on reddit this was one of the rare good proprietary apps

It is also (as far as I can tell) proprietary

Free software is about freedom, not price. It is perfectly ok to sell free software. Even if Voyager cost money to download as long as it gives users the four freedoms it is free software.

As far as I know there are several non-free Lemmy apps as well as a handful of paid apps.

Is mobian still maintained? I had a quick look a couple days ago and their last blog post was 3+ years ago.

October 2025 by my reckoning.

https://blog.mobian.org/posts/2025/10/new-stable-rotating-keys/

Linux, the kernel, is the thing that containers run on top of. The container does not actually contain an instance of Linux, it shares it with the host.