Yeah I find GPL to be ironically non-free because it removes the right for anybody to use the code as they see fit, basically adding a restriction on the developer.

I find it absurd when people force me to use GPL for my research work and they aren’t even in the field to know that adding restrictions on something thats good for the scientific benefit is foolish. RMS isn’t funding research or building any kind of quantum computer, it’s the big corporations that do that. This is just involving politics in science.

Forcing GPL for research is foolish because nobody would be interested in implementing your work. After all, it’s those big corporations that have enough funding to take up on bigger ideas and research.

GPL is fine for basic software for consumers and I’d argue it should be used more but for research, its just a bad license.

How about LGPL

C is a general purpose programming language. People also use it for high level software in certain parts of the software world, not just low level.

I just have a few more features left that I want to implement and that’ll conclude the development of the core package manager but rest depends on bringing packages into the repository

This is purely subjective and depends on whom you’re talking to. While I’ve had series of burn out stages with free software development and maintenance, I only distanced myself from writing code but not the community altogether. I also only work for orgs that are run by volunteers not by companies so theres that. If you work on projects that are led by a company, you’ll always feel like you’re being used because there’s no sense of belonging.

Python? Yes

These days I prefer reading manuals and documentation to get the most basic version of anything running and then build up on it. If anything goes wrong, I go to stackoverflow

Just use the live installer, it includes the calamares installer which is as simple as installation in mint.

Wdym not user friendly? I use Debian everyday and the stuff you were talking about dates back to the bullseye days.

Trixie is a lot more user friendly and even includes the calamares installer now which is a GUI installer that’s similar to mint’s one

It also comes with gnome software and you can enable flatpaks with 2 commands. I don’t see how that’s not user friendly in any way.

Of course nonfree software is a different case but you can always use snap or flatpak for it

Debian is a stable operating system and as user friendly as mint once you get past the installation.

Mint also uses a Ubuntu base but Debian has better quality of packages and is less likely to break.

LMDE is also a good option in this case

Most folks I know don’t know the existence of security updates or Windows 10’s EOL so they just keep using it. Even if I told them about the EOL their pcs wouldn’t run Windows 11 nor they’re interested in Linux