For instance, the MIT license being popular is pretty hard evidence that FOSS doesn’t necessarily mean anti-corporate, and for many users GitHub still more or less does what it says on the tin.
I’m pretty sure that MIT license is that popular out of ignorance, instead of an informed decision to allow corporate to steal and make money out of their code.
I believe the core reason is that, when MS bought it, and while they make it worse day by day, the number of projects in Github was already huge and it just keeps growing. That being said, it is still the main platform to find FOSS projects, and to have your project be found.
A lot of people are migrating though. The good thing about the FOSS community and philosophy is that they don’t really need to rely on shitty companies like Microsoft. They can (and many actually do) just move on, at least regarding their own personal projects.
I believe Linux will experience a slow, steady growth because the technical alternatives for most Windows features and softwares already exist, making it pretty much a matter of time until people realize it. But the friction, like IT retraining, vendor certified vendor support from Adobe and other shit, and general user habits, are still too high.
Edit: Although, on a second thought, maybe not even that slow given Microsoft incompetence at managing Windows.
Valve’s Proton support bringing gaming to Linux effectively, Windows 10 reaching its EoL deeming millions of perfectly functional PCs as e-waste by requiring TPM 2.0 and a short list of CPUs, and Microsoft’s aggressive and incessant push of invasive telemetry and AI features (like that shit Recall stuff), are certainly driving a lot of users toward Linux. If Microsoft keep making decisions like this, I’m not sure how long they will be able retain their user base.
In my experience, the main cons are overall support from some 3rd party applications. I can’t as easily access some software as I can on Windows, such as a digital certificate software that’s required for my job, for example, which requires me to have Windows on a VM just to upload some files on a specific system. In this case, Wine/Bottles unfortunately does not work.
And, for gaming, sometimes modding is not as simple as it might be on Windows, requiring some extra tinkering to make things run on a same prefix, which is generally not very intuitive.
But the gap is definitely way narrower nowadays. Running games, without mods, is super easy with Steam or Heroic. And software support is also huge nowadays! Even Nvidia driver support is getting much better - I usually have zero issues running (stock) games on CachyOS with Proton.
My Windows usage nowadays is very minimal. And even then, I don’t really support Microsoft anymore… I don’t pay for a Win11 license, I don’t use Windows Office, I don’t use Xbox app, and I definitely don’t use OneDrive. And I also cleaned lots of telemetry and other bullshit with WinUtil.
And regarding the pros: Full control over my device (never again locked by the system to access a path even with admin rights, for example) is the big one.
No telemetry, no ads, no one trying to force me to use software I don’t want, and ZERO dark patterns. No more having intrusive notifications asking me if I want to use software X when I said I didn’t numerous times, while also offering me just “maybe later” as an option. No software being intrusively installed on my system without my consent. No setting options being silently re-enabled without my consent after an update.
And, as a nice extra, Linux distro’s are generally way cleaner and lighter than Windows, with much better performance all around, since they’re not filled with clutter and a bunch of shady processes running in background.
I despise using Windows nowadays. I don’t want to use a product or a service that does not respect me as a consumer.
I have it on my desktop just as a remote server for gaming with Moonlight/Sunshine, and as a VM on my laptop exclusively to digitally sign some documents as I mentioned earlier. Other than that, everything else I do, I do with Linux. I don’t miss Windows at all, and that has been the case for some years now.
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As others have mentioned, you’re not forced to. But Debian is indeed way more conservative in that regard if you use their stable release. Particularly I think you won’t have issues with either regarding hardware compatibility or performance. But for what reason would you want Arch or Cachy OS if you don’t mind me asking?
Just so you know, if you install Distrobox you can run pretty much any app from any distro (except drivers), regardless if you choose Debian or Arch. So if I were you, I’d choose Debian if you’re worried about stability, and choose Arch/CachyOS if you want to keep up to date features and drivers. Then use Flatpak and Distrobox to download pretty much any app you want.
I particularly use CachyOS and have zero issues with it with my Asus Vivobook with a Ryzen 5825U released on 2023.