alt Hacker NewsFrom the linked Gitlab writeup: "Some changes to OpenSSH are used from Arachnoid's SSHelper." I'm very glad to see this port of open-source code I wrote years ago, especially now that Google has removed SSHelper from the Google Play store (BTW still available at https://arachnoid.com/android/SSHelper).
After years of trying to keep up with Google's perpetual Android tweaks, I gave up and accepted that they would eventually remove any apps that weren't updated for each new Android version.
These events only remind me how out-of-date I am as a programmer. I wrote and released my first major title, Apple Writer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer) in 1979. It lasted for six years in various forms, then was replaced by better programs. I wasn't a corporation, I was an individual, and my programs (then and since) have been individual projects.
In modern times, individual releases are rare, and in the future are likely to be even more rare, replaced by collaborations between developer teams and AI.
Not saying things were better in the past. Just different.
I'll say things were better in the past. It's obviously subjective, but I hate the direction things are going.
The user is now viewed as a security threat to their own device, the hyper-churn culture of the javascript ecosystem is now embedding in other areas even systems (like Android, as you point out), "updates" for apps and to a lesser but growing extent OSes, are routinely pushed and forced on users regardless whether they contain new bugs/regressions or horrible UI/UX changes, more and more software is becoming proprietary SaaS and "subscription" based, and backwards compatibility is for the birds. In the name of "security", tech companies and even individual devs are turning our own home networks into opaque spy apparatuses that make network connections that we (the owners of the network) can't even inspect. Even maintaining self-hosted apps is becoming a several-hours-per-week job.
It feels like during the late 00s and early 10s we had some real golden years of open source, but now the poisonous engineering culture that pushes the above things is poised to squash it as a "daily driver" for people. For example, once Microsoft completes their requirements for TPMS and can do hardware attestation like Apple and Google, the ratchet of websites not working (or not working completely) unless the device passes hardware attestation will start, and it will make life on a Linux laptop/desktop similar to how Tor is now where you get endless CAPTCHA hell and nobody cares because you're in a tiny minority of users and many of the tools that provide technological liberation for an individual are also tools used by gray and black hat actors.
And I haven't even gotten to the Apple-ization of everything where it's becoming all about building walled gardens. I remember when compatibility was a selling point of hardware/software.
It's not all bad of course, but it does feel like a lot more bad than good is developing. Happy Monday everyone!