In the past, I would've said no. It absolutely had severe vulnerabilities, no question about it. Anything in userland monitoring keystrokes, mouse input, and display of anything else is userland is genuinely concerning; that said, these were byproducts of architectural decisions made long ago in open source software - not quite the same as deliberately writing code explicitly and specifically to take away privacy and control from your users the way Microsoft and Apple do.
These days however, the negligence of the current custodian, Red Hat, does seem to border on malicious, especially when forks like XLibre are continuing to patch vulnerabilities while Red Hat refuses to merge patches into the "official" X11, as part of a coercive strategy of trying to force all users onto Wayland by allowing X11 to become even worse through active refusal and neglect to merge good PR's with security patches, despite being the official project owner and custodian.
As a final note, I did not say that Windows and Mac OS were spyware, I said they were functionally spyware. There's a meaningful and nuanced difference between those two claims that I'm not sure you are discerning in accordance with my intent.
Can you be more specific about what parts of my perspective appear crazy, or fan-fic to you? There is heaps of well-documented evidence from reputable sources to support all of my claims that I would be eager to offer. What specific claims do you find dubious?
Is the snark really necessary here? These companies (Microsoft, Apple) have genuinely concerning practices regarding user ownership/control, data privacy, and there are legitimate concerns regarding the stewardship practices of Red Hat. I'm trying to engage in good faith, I've demonstrated a willingness to take your criticism seriously, and I'm willing to substantiate my claims, I don't understand why you're being so rude.
If you don't care enough to keep the conversation going, that's fine, but why do the whole catty "mean girl" / light bullying / social ostracization routine along with it? There's no reason for that.
We always want people to comment without snark, and I've replied to that commenter reminding them of that.
Your comments in the subthread are quite inflammatory, starting with:
> Windows and Mac OS are already functionally spyware posing as operating systems, as Microsoft and Apple are functionally intelligence agency partners posing as private corporations.
I totally understand that it's a valid fear given what we know about the NSA, which has been heavily discussed here over the years. But when you blithely assert this kind of conspiracy theory as an accepted fact, it is inevitable that it will set off the kind of flamewar that has developed here.
The guidelines ask us all to eschew flamebait and generic tangents.
These days however, the negligence of the current custodian, Red Hat, does seem to border on malicious, especially when forks like XLibre are continuing to patch vulnerabilities while Red Hat refuses to merge patches into the "official" X11, as part of a coercive strategy of trying to force all users onto Wayland by allowing X11 to become even worse through active refusal and neglect to merge good PR's with security patches, despite being the official project owner and custodian.
As a final note, I did not say that Windows and Mac OS were spyware, I said they were functionally spyware. There's a meaningful and nuanced difference between those two claims that I'm not sure you are discerning in accordance with my intent.