2023 in Review
THE year 2023 was in some sense epic - unprecedented primarily in the sense that the "market share" of GNU/Linux on desktops and laptops surged when Microsoft was busy laying off tens of thousands of workers (while paying to media to distract from all that with puff pieces about mostly useless chatbots). The layoffs were a lot more massive than the media cared to acknowledge. Even GitHub had several big rounds of layoffs and a main office was permanently shut down. Microsoft has already moved to the "extinguish" phase in GitHub.
Among the other big news/developments for this year:
- The media is trying to convince us that Wayland is ready (even if for many users it is not)
- The systemd project is unable to hide its connections to Microsoft anymore (a fish rots from the head down)
- More evidence became available that UEFI 'secure' boot has nothing to do with security; it's more about cementing Windows monopoly
- IBM crushed RHEL clones some more; but the cloners found workarounds, arguably proving that IBM's efforts are futile if not self-harming
- Linux became more Rust-afflicted, for better or for worse
- Several GNU/Linux-orinteed news sites shut down or stopped covering this topic
Does that sound like we focus on the negatives? Well, at least we're not mindless cheerleaders. We self-evaluate, too.
The new (next) year is now just 19 days away. We're seeking help with server bills, hoping that readers can help us serve readers in the coming year (when we finally turn 20). Suffice to say, we thank you in advance. █