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Comment by kzrdude | Hacker News Reader

What about if we just form a class of programmers that exclusively work with Linux and buy Linux compatible laptops? That would be my preference.

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What's the point of that? One of the benefit of having a FOSS platform is that you can keep supporting and updating hardware and software that in the normal proprietary economy would have been abandoned a mere few years after entering the market. If instead of pushing for reverse engineering we simply made more and more people buy Linux-compatible devices (which still doesn't mean they'd run FOSS) we would have a humongous amount of perfectly fine hardware locked down and unable to be properly used.

I think if say 15% of buyers demand Linux support, then it can become a standard feature of most sold equipment. Just like Windows support.

> Just like Windows support.

Completely non-existent? Either a laptop comes with windows or you get zero support. See every chromebook ever.

That's martyrdom and it isn't even for a good cause IMO. If someone buys Windows-only hardware that loses support after a few years, that's on them.

> If someone buys Windows-only hardware that loses support after a few years, that's on them.

Unfortunately, the FOSS world isn't always able to cater to professional and prosumer crowds.

If it is absolutely critical to my work that a piece of hardware has feature X, then I'm going to buy it regardless.

I'd choose a FOSS-compatible solution if it were available, but this hasn't been the case many times in my career. (Yes, I can provide concrete examples if necessary.)

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