I may understand “opinionated” differently from you, but the main issue is that when you do want to change something, you can’t. Or it’s some unsupported hack, or (best case) you flip some hidden configuration variable (that will probably break with the next release).
KDE is well configured from the get go as well, you don’t have to change anything and it will work well. But if you do decide that you don’t like some of their defaults, you can tweak many aspects of it.
It wouldn’t really be an issue if you didn’t need an extension for every single basic functionality…
Because of how stupidly opinionated Gnome is I switched to KDE a year or so ago and have been extremely happy with it. And what do you know I don’t even need any extensions, because sane stuff like tray icons are builtin.
I do use an extension for distributing windows in custom areas though, and it didn’t even break throughout the (I believe) 2 large updates there were since I started using it.
That’s what PieFed changes though. You can still track how someone votes, but you can’t tie it to a specific profile (without doing some extra analysis and even then you can’t be completely sure).
Or, with my suggestion, you could track how that specific account votes, but it would be easy to obfuscate who exactly it is and (hopefully) impossible to track to the user’s other identities.
I think this approach kinda fixes that issue though, no? You can use it the way it is now, and others can be anonymous.
I mean it would be also nice if you could log into multiple accounts and easily switch between them for each vote and comment, but this is also good, IMO.
I don’t think dual boot has ever been a good solution (unless you also run one or both of the OS’s under the other in a VM).
Like, if you are unsure about linux, trying it out, learning, whatever, you can just boot a live"cd", or maybe install it on an external (flash) drive.
If you are kinda sure you want to switch, just nuke Windows; it’s easier to switch that way than to have everything on two systems, having to switch.
…and it still doesn’t solve the issue that literally anyone can run their own instance and just capture the data.
When you comment you make a conscious decision to put your opinion out there and sign it with your “name” (or alternatively you switch to a “burner” account and do it pseudonymously).
But when you vote for stuff it’s often without much thinking, and it’s private on pretty much every other platform. Where it isn’t it’s usually blatantly obvious that that is the case.
What difference does it make that votes can be viewed, other than for transparency during discussion?
There are many reasons that have been stated time and time again; one is simply that people may wish to stay anonymous when supporting certain opinions.
To me it feels like comments are what you can actually stand behind publicly, while votes also show what you think privately. And not everyone is willing to stand behind all of their opinions publicly, often for fear of backlash or harassment.
AGPL, to prevent streaming (while not sharing the code).
Regular Fedora is more than stable enough for day to day use. I’d start there and then with use see if it’s a good fit.