AceTKen

Interesting to see a non-positive take! I always appreciate your write-ups.

I too wish there was more unification with certain elements. I can only imagine what they could do if they combined development resources into a few channels instead of being scattered to the winds. Maybe add an overall design aesthetic (while maintaining the means to change it) instead of just "it works I suppose."

I ran Mandrake Linux in roughly 2003 or so, but went back to Windows because games didn't work.

Ever since Windows 11 has come around I thought it was a good idea to possibly attempt to move to Linux again. I'm strongly leaning towards Mint because it's fairly Linux beginner friendly from what I hear.

I run an IT firm and we have recently been putting together an open-source stack.

The problem is that we use a lot of Microsoft software on the back end and some of that can't be replaced.

The other issue is that while gaming has come a long way, a good chunk of my 5,000 games still don't run on Linux. Newer ones tend to be glitchy for a great deal of time before they function perfectly. Also I happen to currently have an Nvidia card which I have heard is a problem.

If anyone has any recommendations, I would love to hear them! From servers, to productivity, to gaming I am open to whatever you guys would recommend.

Nope. Originally her party was elected when somebody else was at the helm, and then when Jason Kenney retired, she was just kind of put there.

Literally no one in the public voted for her originally.

I'm in Alberta but I vote NDP.

Before he left, Kenney was actually warning that the crazies were trying to take over. Hell, we thought Kenney was crazy. Turns out he was right about this one thing.

Literally nobody in the public voted for her in the first term at least.

Edit: WTF, Lemmy. I'm factually correct. Look at her Wikipedia page if you don't believe me.

She was appointed when Jason Kenney resigned. She won in the second term, not the first term. In the first term, the public was not given a chance to vote for her or not.

I can scale without issue most times and have done so multiple times during acquisitions.

Once we hit a certain number of people, I'd make the Matrix org system a little more fleshed-out. Right now our projects are from 1-10 people, but it wouldn't be hard to add an org-wide Scheduler role that can wrangle interested groups for projects. It's all about putting a plan into place before you make a decision, not deciding and then trying to FORCE things to fit. With Microsoft, I imagine they'd have to implement larger teams of relevant staff on each project and divide them into overall pods with the Scheduler able to change who is needed in each pod. It's doable, but without having been anywhere near that large, I'd have to see what was implemented along the way.

Also of interest, we don't have an issue with The Peter Principle as you're never forced to move out of a position of competence or interest. You're not salary limited simply because you don't want to be a manager; in fact, there are no managers.

Which I understand. It's why I called the company a "firm" as I feel it's a more accurate descriptor. The main difference is that we don't let employees just starting their trial period vote or lead a team yet until they get a feel for how we operate. We're quite a large swing from what normal companies do and it takes time to adjust and understand, not to mention that our processes are a complete rethink of how it is anywhere else.

The shares can be sold to other shareholders, but not to anyone outside the company. Unlike most corporations, we don't want solely financially invested shareholders as they're in business to extract value. They are parasites.

I've built this model out in hopes it will catch on. I feel that if most companies operated under Social Capitalism that we'd be substantially better off. Certain aspects of it are so important and such a step up from the norm that I don't understand how they weren't obvious to other owners. But... greed I guess. Greed hurts every system it's in.

That or take risks. That's actually one of the reasons I feel that the reward system needs to be in place, personally.

It doesn't need to be as massive or horrible as it is now (I still don't feel we need billionaires to exist), but see here for how I carry out my company while still keeping rewards intact.

Hrm. I don't know if I agree. I am the C.E.O. (and an Economist) of a medium-sized I.T. firm in Canada and designed the company to be as ethical as it could possibly be from the ground up.

1. All employees have equal votes after their initial 3 months is up in any part of the company that they are engaged in. I can (and have) been outvoted.
2. After employees are here long enough (3 years), they can purchase shares if they like.
3. I am the lowest paid full-time employee at the company by design. I do not take dividends.
4. We operate on a Matrix org chart meaning that the "boss" on every project changes based on who is best suited to lead it and who has experience in that area.
5. We have it in our charter that there are never any outside shareholders allowed. If you leave the company, your shares are purchased by the company for current market value. This includes myself.
6. We have acquired other companies. We have never had to pay for one. Our procedures and ticket counts are astronomically low compared with other I.T. companies (which are called MSPs) because we're exceptionally thorough that they literally give themselves to us.
7. We are as environmentally conscious as we can be. We redo and donate old systems to nonprofits and schools where we can. The only waste we put out is literally dead hardware - no forced upgrade cycle. Electricity bills also drop dramatically at clients we take over due to more efficient machine use.
8. During COVID, we gave away over $500k in free support. I figured it was more important that our nonprofit clients stay open than we stay open.
9. We have a full FOSS stack that we can deploy if a company is open to it (and would like to save a bit of cash to boot).
10. In nearly ten years, we've never had an employee leave, and never had a client leave (well, we had one restaurant client close during COVID, but I don't count that).
11. We have full benefits.
12. We have zero interest in "infinite growth" as it's not a functional model. We have turned down clients because they don't "get" us and would be a headache for our staff.

All that being said, I'm not bragging, I'm genuinely asking... what if other companies were run the way I run my company? What's the ethical issue? And no, this isn't theoretical, this is how we actually operate. There's no hidden evil.

I understand that not every business owner is "good." With proper regulation, however, we can make them at least behave way, way the fuck better. It's a form of Social Capitalism and it's exceedingly functional from my experience.

Oh man... you're speaking directly to why I made Actual Discussion (consider this a personal invite).

We frequently get one-time posters coming in and flaming (or downvoting without reading) on any thread that may not agree with them, then when challenged with sources, they vanish. It's brutal. I wish we could disable certain behaviours on our instance or in the Community itself.

Oh man... you're basically speaking directly to why I made our small community (consider this a personal invite). As I said elsewhere, I find Lemmy actively hostile.

The number of indignant replies and comment-free downvotes we get inundated with continually is… disheartening.

People want content, but actively detract from any content that doesn’t explicitly cater to them. It’s hard to take.

As someone who started and is extremely active in a small community, I find Lemmy actively hostile to the point where I'm considering closing up after less than a month.

The number of indignant replies and comment-free downvotes we get inundated with continually is... disheartening.

People want content, but actively detract from any content that doesn't cater to them. It's hard to take.

As someone who runs a community, the ability to disable downvotes and have more customization within that Community would help a great deal.

I also wouldn't mind the ability to post something like a Delta on a comment to show a changed view or something.