Just thought it’d be polite to introduce myself. I’m not a programmer, just a muggle who has been using Unix and Unix-like systems for a long time.
I’m very interested in both, machine learning and language, although my profession is entirely different. Due to a disability, my income however is very limited, so I’m milking old hardware for all its worth. Linux has been good to me.
Big issue for me is FLOSS and how it can survive. I’m not always optimistic about it. On the one hand, programs seem to evolve much faster the more eyes are looking at the code & the more brains are improving it (a good example is Stockfish, the current best chess engine in the planet for personal computers). On the other, a lot of the people interested in FLOSS are in my situation: struggling to make ends meet.
While not a programmer, I’ve coded at times due to need. In the sciences from time to time we have to connect a modern apparatus to an old computer, and that requires a re-write of some driver. Theoretical folks basically live from the beef agar, and worse when one’s mobility is impaired for good.
I’m getting old, I remember a time when you could get funding without having to sell your soul. Now you have to promise results. And I don’t mean it the nice way.
I think what you guys do is huge and has the potential to be to computer assistants what Stockfish is to chess engines. Of course, the more people using it, the faster it can improve. And that’s why I’m here, as just another user.
Thank you for all,
—m010
(from another user).