“If they do that, I predict it’ll be the biggest shot in the arm ever for Linux, and it’ll be a cold day in the realm of double hockey sticks before I let Billy Gates grab me by my data.”
You, and everyone else. Given the recent disclosures, US corporations have ALREADY taken a hit because of worldwide distrust of our technology, and it certainly has put a hurt on US cloud-based systems. And to think six months ago we were bitching about the Chinese...I have yet to see direct evidence of ANY backdoors in their hardware, computers, equipment, etc.
The good news, is that many versions of Linux look and feel a lot like Windows XP, which a lot of people, including me, still like.
Linux won’t provide you any shelter from the cloud.
Hate to break it to people but linux has been pushing it’s way to the cloud for some time now. There is many linux appliances that you can “launch to the cloud” with a single push of a button.
Linux is actually better designed for cloud based operation because it was designed as a server side software from it’s inception.
The only option is sticking to the old software and stubbornly refusing to move. If a sizable portion of the population does it, then they will take notice.