LINUX Unplugged - 438: Million-Dollar Predictions

Episode Date: December 29, 2021

We do our best to predict what will happen in 2022, and own up to what we thought might happen in 2021. Special Guests: Alan Pope, Drew DeVore, and Joe Ressington.

This is Linux Unplugged, episode 438, a special holiday edition. Hello, friends, and welcome into your weekly Linux talk show. My name is Chris. My name is Chris. My name is Wes. And my name is Brent. And because it is a special edition, we have a bunch of friends joining us today. Welcome back to the show, Joe. Hello.

Hello, sir, and Drew, how do you do? Hello. And of course, this is our annual predictions and review episode. So before we go any further, before we get into those, let's say hello to our virtual lug. Time-appropriate greetings, Mumble Room. Hello, Chris. Hello, you guys. I'm really glad to have you here today

because there's some of these that you're on the record for. So it'll be good to get your takes on it. Suckers. Yeah, you're going to have to own up just like we will. In fact, why don't we start with that? We're going to start with the review, then we'll do the actual predictions. With just a disclaimer off the top of the show here, I'm in a weird situation. This is the backup recording gear.

Yes, I do. I bring a backup podcasting backpack. And just in case something goes wrong and I get stranded somewhere, I can still do a show, go bag. And that's what's been deployed for today's episode, because everything that happens to me, it seems to be really my own fault when I think about it. I decided to go out into the woods for a white Christmas, went to one of my favorite spots, got a nice white Christmas, and then we got inundated with one of the biggest storms we've ever had in my lifetime here, especially where I'm at. You know, temperatures around five degrees Fahrenheit, snow every day. It's just been a wild, wild cup. Well, it's been about a week now that I've been here that I've been stuck. And now we're

almost out of gas. We're almost out of propane. We're almost out of water. But I wanted to get Linux Unplugged done. We wanted to get it recorded. And then I'm going to try to get out of here because it is cold and the RV is frozen. So if things sound a little weird, if there's something that doesn't seem quite right, that's what's going on right there. This is the backup backpack, and it's going to be a little hokey, but we've been testing stuff. We've been sorting things out, and I'm hoping that when we get done with the shows, the roads will have melted enough that we can safely make it out of here. Although I'm not actually sure we can get our slides in because our slide toppers are icebergs right now.

So we'll see. So I'm just going to focus on the show. Just going to focus on the show. Although this was the week I was right now. This was like, this is like work on projects in the studio time. And instead I'm stuck here in the woods. Thank goodness I brought the Starlink dish with me. Yeah, this is a really battle testing the old Starlink setup and so far so good, right?

It's battle testing everything. It's the opposite of Tucson. It's bizarro Tucson where I had a problem of things overheating. Now I have a problem of things getting too cold, like my batteries, they can't get lower than 25 degrees Fahrenheit or else they stop taking a charge. So like I got to continually stress the system and keep the inverter going to, so that way it vents heat into the battery bay. I've had to get up every two hours for the like last six nights because I got to make sure the temperatures are okay. So while the show's going, the temperatures drop. And then as soon as we get done doing the show, I have to like generate a big load, a big noisy load, so that way I can warm the batteries up. That's the game I've been playing.

Well, you're up all night. I'm sure you've been stewing over your predictions, huh? And perhaps lamenting what you said last year. I know I have. Yeah. Boy, oh boy. These aren't looking good for me, Wes. I like your predictions a lot better than mine.

We've all got some here. So I say we start owning it up. Now, just to remind folks that haven't listened before, we have some predictions we'll be getting to, but we have to be concise. We have to be very specific. And we have Joe along to play arbiter and judge to make sure that we comply with the rules.

You're going to keep us in line, right, Joe? Yeah, I'm the referee. You've got to be specific. It's got to be quantifiable. We've got to be able to measure it next year. That's right. And you have to, we're going to try to get everybody to state it in a nice, concise way. So that way it's something that's easily reviewable and provable, which is what we're going to do now. So what do you say, since Drew is our guest, we start with Drew this year. So get yourself ready, Drew, because I don't know how many of these came true, but each one of them had super sound reasoning, starting with your Chrome OS prediction from last year.

I predict in 2021 that Google will release an official ISO image for Chrome OS for x86 computers. Drew, I checked and this didn't actually happen, even though they bought that company that essentially did this. Yeah, no, I totally thought this was going to happen. And then it didn't. You can get Chromium OS. It's not technically official, but there is no Chrome OS. So, you know, it's like you think you see that you see all the tea leaves, like kind

of you're reading them and you see, gosh, they've been kind of having this kind of side x86 port that they've maintained. Oh, now they just bought this company when their entire focus is rebasing Chrome OS for x86 PCs. And then nothing. Nothing. Just nothing. Is this just to tell that x86 is really on the way out?

Maybe. Yeah, but why not use that same tech to make Raspberry Pi images of Chrome OS? Seriously. Be a good way to increase the user base. People want to try it out. All right, Drew, now this next one. Yeah, I feel like you were kind of recently into the new gig and looking at what was going on in the marketplace.

And this one seemed really solid. I predict in 2021 that Rancher ownership will change hands. Rancher OS would be sold and it didn't happen. Nope. Missed that one too. Now, what was your thinking on that one? Just that SUSE tends to kind of fluctuate a lot and it's hard to go wrong with Asus a bit. You know what I think happened is some new leadership came in and they recognized some of this stuff as their best product.

Yeah, absolutely. So leadership had a change of heart. And otherwise, I think you would have got it. Now, this one, this one you got right. I predict in 2021 that VMware will go independent. And that has happened. Dell has spun off VMware. Hey, oh, completed, done. Give me that point. You got it, sir. Nicely done. This may be our only win. I don't know. I don't know about that. All right. What do you say? Should we do popies?

How are you feeling, popie? You ready to do some of yours? Uh-oh. Yeah. Okay. All right. Now, this one, actually, I think you're going to start out with a win from last year. I predict in 2021, Canonical will neither IPO nor be bought by Microsoft.

Turned out you got that one. Did you have insider information? Yeah, I might have done at the time. Not anymore. But even though not anymore, I'd be happy to keep that one running for a couple more years. Yeah? Okay. All right.

The old double down. And you're including the IPO in that? Yep. Okay. All right. Well, one of our first M1 predictions was made by you. Here's how it went. M1 predictions was made by you. Here's how it went. In 2021, Hector Martin and collaborators will get 90% of the hardware in the first generation M1 Macs booting on Linux. Okay,

I feel like this is the first one where we got to kind of discuss it a little bit and then Joe's going to have to make the final call because what do you think the gpu accounts for in that setup poppy like is gpu 10 or is it more like 20 yeah i was thinking more you know 90 functionality i i know i said 90 of the hardware i felt like you know could you get it working the same way that like you put linux on a thinkpad it 90 works you could probably say 90 like the fingerprint reader doesn't work or you know some small part that you don't use doesn't work. I don't know. I've seen pictures of people running M1s with Debian and it looked pretty good. Yep, using GNOME with LLVM pipe or whatever it is to

do CPU accelerated graphics. So what do you think, Judge? I think until we get an installer, it doesn't count at all. It's 0%. No, that's unfair. installer, it doesn't count at all. It's 0%. Oh! That's unfair, that's unfair. If you set 90%, you know, ThinkPad fingerprint reader at 90%, well, it's not there, right? If you're using LLVM pipe. Yeah, exactly. I don't think that it's

there. I think the problem is the final 10% takes 90% of the time. Right, true. We did just see some more patches land like two days ago to enable more of the T1 and T2 hardware. That looks really good. So, I mean, you know, I would be surprised if we're sitting here at this time next year

and it's not correct. I got to feel like, I don't know about full GPU acceleration, but just about everything else does seem there. And, I mean, some people might be happy with just that. I personally just want headless Linux for server purposes. So, you know, that's all I need. All right, Popey, CentOS was on our mind and you have our first CentOS prediction from last year. Here's how it went.

In 2021, Red Hat will do something disliked by the community which intentionally makes life hard for the rocks linux developers hmm i'm thinking through and i can't think of an example of this yeah i'm not really in that community and i don't keep an eye on centos and uh rocky and all the others so i don't really know um i thought we would have heard about it if they had so i don't think so. Okay. All right. Well, keep thinking on that,

because maybe we can return to that in the prediction section of the show, because it seems like that's pretty ripe right there. There's got to be something going on. Why don't we stick with the Mumble Room? Byte, you had a prediction about RISC, and it went like this. I think 2021, there will be a credit card-sized computer with a full-fledged RISC, and it went like this. I think 2021, there will be a credit card-sized computer with a full-fledged RISC-V CPU.

A credit card-sized computer. So are you thinking like Raspberry Pi size? Is that what you meant? Yeah, around about. So yeah, with developer boards, they could be twice the size, but yeah, more like Raspberry Pi. Ref slash judge, whatever i keep calling you

what do you think i think that we have seen some that are getting towards that size not very powerful i can't remember what they're called though right now there has been a lot of progress towards that anyway people pour test one that's it oh all right So it's a win. Hang on. I have that board and it's prototype, but it's not out yet. Oh, wait. Does prototype count? Does that count? It was limited to 300 developers, I think. How do you get one then?

Because I pretended to be a developer. But they discontinued it and they've said there will be another one, but it's not this one. So that's not a publicly available device. Uh-oh. Do we have to retract the win? I think we might have to. Boy, that's tough.

I see a lot of flutter about it, you know, last January. So it was looking good throughout the year, but I guess not. What a shame. That was a close one. That was a close one. All right, Wes Payne, prepare yourself. We're going to do your predictions. And you started with one that I really, really hoped would materialize,

but I don't think it did. I predict that in 2021, Gnome finally fixes their plugin problem with a new API they've announced. That means a misbehaving plugin can no longer crash your whole dang shell. I don't think so, Wes. Nope, definitely not. I was hopeful. You know, there's been a lot of interesting Kinhome developments this past year, that's definitely for sure.

Plenty of drama and active community discussion as well, but not a lot of progress there. No, something like that would have been so great for end users and distro makers, but it seems we're still a bit out from something like that materializing. Now, this next one, I feel like you're going to get it right, just not necessarily yet. necessarily yet. I predict that in 2021, the first Rust-based kernel module will be widely distributed, either optionally in the main tree or shipped by Ubuntu, Fedora, or Arch. I don't think that happened. No, no, it didn't. Yeah, a lot of, you know, a lot of progress. Even just this December, the V2 of that big old patch set was set out. Seems like it's, you know, it's now using the stable Rust, so that's getting a lot closer to shipping. They've got support from people like ARM, Google, Microsoft, all are interested in seeing this happen. So it seems almost inevitable at this point, but yeah, maybe

next year. Yeah. And it seems like when it does happen, we're going to start probably with a device driver, right? And then it'll kind of grow from there. Yeah. You know, little bits, standalone, independent functionality that, you know, get the community comfortable with it. We'll keep our eyes out. We'll keep our eyes out. And then your last one was probably the spiciest of them all. And I think if I recall, my reaction was sort of like, what? I predict that Linus Torvalds will make an announcement sometime in 2021. And he's stepping back to some degree from his day-to-day involvement with the Linux kernel.

You know, the other thing is I don't even know if he would make a public announcement or if it was just something he would slowly ratchet down over time. Right, sort of slink away. That's a good question. There definitely was an announcement, though, which I think I'm glad of, right? I mean, we've got a lot of nice emails out on the mailing list and plenty of RC postings, et cetera, from Linus this year. Well, he'd be missed.

Yeah, he's been, actually this year, he's been really consistent with the releases, only a couple of delays for pretty reasonable reasons with the kernel releases. And he always kind of puts like a cute little note in there explaining what the reason was for the delay. And it's always just such a human reason, like, oh man, the airport was just packed

and traffic was just awful. So this one's making it out a human reason. Like, oh man, the airport was just packed and traffic was just awful. So this one's making it out a little late. It's just something to see that, you know, it's so human. All right. Time to own up to mine, I suppose. And then we'll get to the predicting here. We do have a couple of extra bonus ones I might slip into, but well, I am really kind of bummed to say that my first prediction, I feel like we are absolutely no closer to than when I made this prediction in 2020. And our manufacturer in 2021 will come out with an ARM SoC that matches or beats Apple's M1 on Geekbench. Jeez, that just didn't happen at all. Unless you count the M1 Pro and Max. Right.

No, damn it. I do not, damn it. I really was like, I thought Samsung would have an ace up their sleeve. Like they, you know, this is their business. They must have seen this coming. They just surely were just not totally caught off guard, right? Like they weren't just totally flat-footed.

No, they were. And they're still working on their damn response. And Qualicom as well. And so, yeah, I couldn't, I don't even know if I'd want to make that prediction this year. Who knows? It may not even happen this year. It's pretty pathetic, actually. Apple just lapped them.

Hey, at least Asahi's doing well, huh? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that is true. In fact, Apple just recently made a change to macOS, the latest point release that is going to make it easier for Asahi Linux long term. And Hector Martin thinks it's a change that was made implicitly for Asahi Linux. It's like one of those like sneaky little changes that makes life simpler. I have not played this next one. I wanted to save it for myself. But I do feel like there's going to be maybe some debate.

It depends on how specific I got. I predict that System76 will begin in 2021 to maintain their own GNOME shell packages. So I said begin to maintain. Does Cosmic count as their own Gnome Shell packages? I think so, yeah. You do? I'm surprised.

All right. It seems like they're headed in that direction at least. So begin. Yeah. Okay, so you're going to give this one to me. I am, yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Only because he qualified it with begin. Sneaky tactic there. Chris, can I interject for a moment? Sure. So if you look in the System76 PPA, which is where they build a lot of their stuff, there are GNOME Shell packages in there. Okay.

No, no, no, they are in there. So just to validate that they are maintaining, to some degree, some GNOME Shell packages. Man, I, no, they are in there. So just to validate that they are maintaining, to some degree, some GNOME shell packages. Man, I'm glad you showed up today. Here we go. Thanks. Thanks, Popey. Good. Popey with the science. Yeah.

I also just dropped a link in the chat above their GitHub repo for their GNOME shell with a few patches they add on top of it. I am elated just because I had resigned myself to not having a single win here. Because like this last one, I can't really verify. I have found out a rough estimate since the last time Microsoft released numbers,

but I made this prediction about WSL. I'm going to say that in 2021, it becomes public that a distribution has more users on WSL than physical installs in the wild. And this just didn't really seem to happen. From what I can tell, I saw an article quoting 3 million to 4 million active daily WSL users, but I don't actually know if that's true. And I don't know how current the numbers are. And I don't know if that, I mean, surely that's larger than some distros, but no distros come out and said, we're the largest WSL distro, et cetera, et cetera.

You know, it just doesn't seem like it happened. You were very specific about it, and I think that was your downfall here. You said that it would become public, first of all, so not just a leak or whatever. And also you said that there'd be more WSL for a particular distro than there would be physical installs. So, no, I'm afraid this is an absolute fail. I think it is. I agree. It's okay. I got one win, so I'm feeling pretty good. It's going by the odds now.

Our buddy Alex couldn't make it today. He had something come up, but he did make this prediction last year, and he wants to submit it again for this year. I predict slash hope that a Western Digital EasyStore 20TB hard drive The supply chain shortages just really messed up that prediction. It may have happened if things had just continued to tick along like we expected, but we had no idea what we were in store for for supply chain issues. No, we did not. But gosh, yeah, here's hoping that one comes true for all of us data hoarders. Yeah, right. I agree. I agree. We also, by the way, should mention we

made a few predictions in Linux Action News, and I have a Raspberry Pi prediction in Linux Action News for that episode. But Alex did make one regarding the Raspberry Pi. The next major release of the Raspberry Pi, maybe the Pi 5, will have an option for a proper storage system. So that's NVMe or M.2 SATA or just a genuine SATA port. Negative. Pi 4 was released in 2019 and it was not updated. Hence, maybe my prediction in LAN. Sorry, Alex. Maybe next year. Linode.com slash unplugged. Go there to get $100 in 60-day credit on a new account, and you go there to keep this here show going. Man, I tell you what, I am so glad that I synced the essentials like clips and ISO images up to Linode. It's like my go bag

digitally. I have stuff up there that is just easily accessible or even better, easy to spin up on Linode when I'm in a pinch. That's where we've built everything in the last couple of years. It's really the cloud for a Linux geek. They have 11 data centers worldwide and they've been hard at work for 18 years creating the best experience for running applications

on Linux. That's it. Nobody can just touch that kind of experience and passion. If you like to build something yourself or deploy one of the many one-click stacks, Linode has excellent options for you. And either way, you're going to get started. Fast, quick, and easy. That matters because if you get an inspiration for an idea,

you can get something up and running in just seconds on Linode. And they've been rolling out screaming fast NVMe storage. They have AMD EPYC processors in their CPU rigs, and they have the best customer support in the business. You add it all together, it makes a lot of sense. Customer support's great, super fast rigs, a Linux culture that runs deep, and it's a great way to support the show too.

There's a lot of reasons to choose Linode, but that $100 might be the biggest because you can really go try it for yourself and let me know what you think. Linode.com slash unplugged. Get $100 for 60 days on a new account and you support the show. Linode.com slash unplugged. Well, now that we've seen how we did last year, I suppose it's time to make some predictions about 2022.

Gosh, I feel a bit foolish even just saying we're going to try to do that, but do what we must. Yeah, especially after that go. That was rough. Well, perhaps I'll give it a start here. I'm going to predict that Canonical announces a Flutter-based desktop environment. You madman. A whole desk, like a Unity 3 kind of project that is flutter based

yeah like that mad lad ref you got any uh specifics you want out of this before we have them lock that one in it seems kind of straightforward to me announce not release announce not release yeah aha good catch yeah otherwise that's all good all right right. Let's lock it in, Wes. I predict that in 2022, Canonical will announce a Flutter-based desktop environment. I would be really, really excited to see that happen just because what a fun thing to follow. Don't know if it'd ever be for me, but yeah, it'd be interesting to see that.

Right? Yeah. I'm curious about Poppy's reactions to this, whether he's smiling or rolling his eyes or, I don't know, crossing his fingers. Well, when we did our predictions on the Ubuntu podcast, the last episode of the Ubuntu podcast a couple of months ago, we had a bonus prediction that all three of us gave, which was by the next LTS in 24.04,

Ubuntu desktop will no longer be GNOME shell-based. And then we discussed it a bit, and the outcome we decided was there'll be a new desktop, and it will probably be Flutter-based. The way to do it, right, would be you get the LTS out the door, and then you make the announcement, and you start iterating between this LTS and the next one. That's the only way they could do it.

Yeah, you kind of got that anchor-based LTS for folks that are a bit nervous, perhaps. Right, which also gives strength to your announce but not release. Fingers crossed. I think that's good. You want to try your second one? Yeah, all right. Well, so I went spelunking in some of our past years,

and I realized in the past I made a few you-specific predictions, Chris. I thought I'd rekindle that past tradition. I'm going to predict that after doubling down on Tumbleweed on the server, you're going to start using it on the desktop in 2022. That seems insane to me at this point. I don't know. I mean, so any desktop at all or my primary daily driver? So I'm thinking it's in the category when you're trying to get work done on Linux.

That's a Tumbleweed machine, whether that's like a laptop or your office workstation upstairs. I think you've got to be specific here. I think you've got to say either the laptop or the workstation upstairs with the funky screens. I think, yeah, I think that's good. I feel like I could give you a hint, but I don't want to.

Like, should I help you or should I stay competitive? I don't know. That's fair, That's fair. All right. Well, I'll go with the laptop. Okay. All right. Lock it in.

I predict that in 2022, Chris will be using OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on his laptop. Good call because that ThinkPad would be the first place I'd try it. Because, you know, it's such a guaranteed-to-work standardized hardware base. That's my go-to. So I think that was a good call. The desktop has been running Arch for a very long time, and it takes a big upset. Like, I haven't even put Fedora on that thing yet. Oh, boy, yeah, that tells you right there.

Okay, Brent, I'd love to hear your first prediction for 2022. Yeah, okay, here we go. I predict that in 2022 Ubuntu snap by default another major Linux desktop application. So either LibreOffice or Thunderbird to be more specific. So two possibilities there, Ref. You good with that? Yeah, I think if you're going to be specific about those two applications.

I didn't want it to be too broad. That's no fun, right? So having a little bit of some specifics. Plus, they're two fairly large applications, not just like a small tool or something. So that feels right to me. Okay. All right. Log it in.

In 2022, Ubuntu will snap by default another major Linux desktop application, either LibreOffice or Thunderbird. All right. It is locked, and I'm surprised I didn't think of that one, to tell you the truth. That seems likely. I'm thinking through that list, which one's probably the biggest pain in their butt, and which one could build off of a relationship you know, a relationship they've already established? It's Thunderbird there, right?

They've already done this with Firefox. It seems like Thunderbird would be the next step. I don't know. How many people use Thunderbird versus LibreOffice? Who will it affect? I was curious about this one because there's been a bit of backlash in the past, and yet it seems to still be the direction they're going.

So I don't know. I'm interested to see where this gets. I suppose it might get weighted by what's hardest to build, too, like with Chromium. Right. I mean, just from past insights to this, for something like this to happen, would it have to be initiated by LibreOffice

or Mozilla slash Thunderbird, or would it be initiated by Canonical, do you think? No, not at all. I mean, in the case of Firefox, as you know, it was initiated by Mozilla. But for others, it's initiated by Canonical, do you think? No, not at all. I mean, in the case of Firefox, as you know, it was initiated by Mozilla, but for others it's initiated by Canonical. I think this is understandable, especially given that both of them are already snapped. They're already available in the store. They're already maintained by Canonical employees. So I think it's a bit of a no-brainer that, yeah, this almost certainly would happen. And you get bonus points maybe if both of them are done.

Ooh, nice. I'll take that. Yeah, I think that's fair. Povey's here rooting for us today. I love it. Okay, great. So those are pretty solid. I like that.

I could see that happening. And I think you got one more for us. I do. And I think this one might have been on all of our minds, but I decided to make it a little bit specific. It has to do with Steam. I think the Linux monthly usage stats might go really high this year. So I predict that they might just double. Okay. So we'll see the Steam user base double. So like I said, it's going to be above 2%, just a little bit above 2%,

you think, by this time next year? Well, double, I kind of had to look into this to because I figured Joe would be on me to be more specific. So gaming on linux.com has the Steam tracker. And currently, at least November 2021, they have stats that it's at 1.16% of their platform. So doubling that 2.32%, I think, would be reasonable. That's something measurable, right, Joe? Does that work? Yeah, I think what you've got to say in your lock-in

is specifically that the Gaming on Linux Steam tracker will show that it is 2.32% or more. Okay. Just as an aside, I did a little math, and that brings it to almost 3 million users, which would be very interesting. All right, lock it in, Brent. Steam's Linux monthly usage stats from gaming on Linux will double to 2.32% at some point throughout 2022. I think if you just go even above 2.3%, that'd probably be a win.

Drew told me this was maybe one of his predictions, too. Drew, did I steal your thunder? Yeah, a little bit. I was going to aim for 3%. Oh, I like it. Three, bold. I actually, my initial thought was to triple, but then I did the math on the actual numbers, and I thought, no, that's not going to happen. But maybe you're splitting that.

Yeah, and I will say what's really going to make or break this is if Steam Deck users get tracked as Linux users. That's a very good point. That's a very good point. I would imagine they would. I don't see why they wouldn't, but perhaps... Hang on, that assumes that they don't install Windows on their Steam Deck immediately. That's a risk.

I can't see this happening. In fact, I would say I can't see the Linux Steam percentage going above 1.2, 1.3. Wow. Tell us more. Why? It's a percentage. And the other numbers are going to go up as well. And Linux isn't in a bubble.

And there are people who are buying windows machines as well and i just can't see that the steam deck has enough market penetration and enough staying power for people who keep the os that's already on there for it to sustain three all the way up to three percent that's a gigantic jump probably i think you should lock in a counter prediction to brent here okay in 2022, the Linux Steam numbers, as represented by Gaming on Linux, will not crest more than 1.2 or 1.3%. A brutal counterprediction. I love it. Drew, why don't we stick with your predictions now? What do you see in the works for 2022? I see more vulnerabilities being exploited.

Specifically, we're going to talk about Log4j. And I'm going to predict that a Log4j exploit attack will cause greater than $100 million in damages to a single business. Okay. So the way we would validate this is seeing a headline of like a hundred million damages or more due to vulnerability exploit. Hmm. How do you feel ref? Yeah, I think that's quantifiable. All right. Lock it in Drew. I predict that in 2022, an attack against the log 4j exploit will result in greater than $100 million in damages against a single business. I hope you're wrong on that one, you know? I do too, because, you know, I work for a business that could be affected by Log4j,

although we have done our due diligence and closed the gaps, but they're finding more and more stuff about it every day. So... It seems inevitable there's going to be something way down the stack that we're not even looking at today that they'll discover. In the chat room, the orange one says there was another blog for J vulnerability released just as we're live now. So there you go. Okay. All right. You got anything that's going to make me look forward to 2022? Yeah. I wanted to have a positive one going into 2022. And that's going to be, I think that System76 is going to release separate keycap sets in different colorways

and profiles for the launch keyboard. Shenanigans. Shenanigans? I call shenanigans. You're too close to them. You've got insider knowledge, Drew. I actually don't on this. I have not actually hang out with anybody at System76 in a couple of months now. Okay. All right. All right. I believe you. So you want to lock it in? You good with that disclaimer out of the way? Sure. Okay. All right, Drew, lock it in. I predict that in 2022, System76 will release keycap sets in different colorways and profiles for the launch keyboard. Dang it. I guess I'm going to have to finally buy a launch in 2022 then.

And hook it up to that framework you're going to get. Right. Ref, we could do a bonus round with your... You have one prediction from last year. Do you want to own up to it? Okay, I kind of remember what it was now. All right, here it is. I predict that in 2021,

you'll be able to use everything up to a browser in Fuchsia. I don't think that one played out unless there's some fork, right? Okay. No, the idea of my prediction is that it's totally silly and very unlikely to happen. So do you have one for 2022? I do. All right. It's ridiculous. Okay. I predict that Bitcoin is going to go over $1 million. Whoa. Whoa. I mean, since you're predicting, I'll play ref here and I have no problem with that. I think that's a pretty

easy one to measure. I think it's wild, but it's easy to measure. So you want to lock it in? Okay. I predict that at some point in 2022, Bitcoin will be worth more than $1 million. All right. So just has to touch it for a bit there. Yeah, even if it crashes totally afterwards. I don't think it's going to happen really,

but wouldn't it be amazing if it did? Yeah. It would be the number one story. Everybody would be talking about it. Every time Bitcoin's going to happen really, but wouldn't it be amazing if it did? Yeah. It would be the number one story. Everybody would be talking about it. Every time Bitcoin price starts to go up, it becomes like this fascination with the mainstream media. And then the price drops back down and they stop talking about it. Yeah, but if it gets over 100,000,

then there'll just be crazy mania, and then it'll get to 200, 250, then half a million, and then a million. Who knows? You know, just a million, and then a million. Who knows? You know, just a couple of quick interesting Bitcoin stats. In 2021, they reached 90% of all Bitcoins that will ever be mined have now been mined. So their last 10% to $21 million is going to be a long, hard slog for miners, which likely implies that their cost to mine will go up, which is probably going to mean the cost of a Bitcoin is going to go up

because the miners have got to recoup their investments there. So you, you know, there is some pressure there to bring that price up. You never know. Yeah. Or they'll just all give up and go home. Yeah. Everybody buys Ethereum and cashes out of Bitcoin. Yeah. Alright, I've got a couple of predictions that I'll lay down and see if you guys will accept. I'll start with one that I'd really like to see happen, because I think it'd be good long-term for them.

If they pull it off right, Flathub will begin a process of monetizing in some way in 2022. And I could see this being either via pay-what-you-want app sales, or I could see it being sponsored apps on Flathub. But it's a way for the Flathub resource to start to produce some revenue, and ideally some revenue that developers of applications could share in

and would be motivated to go publish their apps on Flathub. Any thoughts? I mean, I can narrow that down, but my general idea is Flathub monetizes in some way in 2022. So they have been working on this for years, and so it's definitely on the cards. I just wonder when they'll finally deliver it. Yeah, all these things feel like we predict them,

and then it takes another two, three years for it to actually happen. Like they happen. It's just we always kind of get the timing wrong. We think it's going to happen sooner than later, and we think things that are going to happen a long time down the road happen sooner than anyways. We mess up the timing. I suspect there may be intentional delays after they hear our predictions.

They're messing with us for sure. For sure, Wes. What do you think, Ref? Do I need to get more specific or can just FlatHub monetize this in 2022? I think that just monetizing is a bit too vague. I think we need some specifics somehow. Yeah, some amount of like,

is this like income received for the whatever foundation or nonprofit behind it? How do we quantize this? You know what I'm inclined to do? I'm inclined to say they, to just get specific then and say, they launch a pay-for-what-you-want model in 2022. I think the bigger thing to aim for, that you might want to go for, is that they will add a paid system that limits applications you can install until you've paid for them. Because pay-what-you-want means you can still install

anything you like, but if they add the guardrails so that it's impossible to install this thing until you've paid for it and once you've paid for it you have the entitlement to own it and install it again and again and again that's a big thing i think how do they pull this off technically right because they're now pre-installed in a lot of different distributions app stores and app centers. So I remember having a conversation at Academy maybe three years ago with the Flatpak people where they were saying, you know, would Snapcraft be interested in collaborating on this and having a common platform for buying software on Linux? And I didn't think that was likely, given that we'd already developed a paid model, which was then shut down and hasn't reared its head again. So I know they've been working on

for exactly that method for being able to pay for something and be entitled to use it and have some authentication server or something that says, yes, you own that thing or no, you don't. Isn't the problem here that people don't buy software anymore? They download the software for free and then sign into that software for their paid subscription. You know, what we need is like some sort of distributed ledger that has like a specific token that tracks who owns digital goods. You know, that would solve these kinds of problems. You're on to something. So let's see here.

This is really tricky because the more I think about it, technically, the longer they stay free, the more integrated they've become into just standard desktop workflows. And then to just throw a monetized strategy on there seems tricky. How about sponsored apps? They'll have sponsored featured apps on Flathub. How about that? Yeah, well, that's something they could do.

I think they'd get some pushback for it, but they could certainly do it. I'm going to lock that in. Then I'm going to say that in 2022, Flathub will feature sponsored applications. I hope. I mean, I hope they make some kind of revenue, for goodness sake. Yeah. All right. Now, if I didn't just give it away, here's my second prediction.

This one I think is probably one of the riskier predictions. But I think in 2022, an open source project will use some kind of NFT, not a silly JPEG, but some kind of NFT to raise funds. Not a silly JPEG, but some kind of NFT to raise funds. Now, I think this is risky because NFTs are already getting associated with scams and all kinds of silly stuff. You see pushback from the gaming community. And there will be people in the open source community who probably do something kind of scammy with it, you know, because that's a thing that happens. There's grifters out there. But if you zoom out a little bit and stop thinking about monkey JPEGs

and you think about it as a way to prove digital ownership of a good, you could start to see how a project could make an NFT out of a poll request. Maybe something got merged and you make an NFT out of a screenshot of that. I mean, there's all kinds of stupid ways you could sell something

that a free software developer is doing as an NFT, and they could make a few dollars here. Now, here's the other thing. Now, despite what you might like about cryptocurrencies or what you might think about it, if you look at the last year, there's been about 100% value gain for Bitcoin. And if you look at the year before that, it was 160%. So it's possible that developers could actually raise funds using an asset that goes up in value over time. So you buy this NFT pull request from the VLC project and you pay them $100 in Ethereum. And at the end of the year, that Ethereum is now worth $300. And they cash it out and they've just made a profit on that.

That could be something we start to see happen. In the podcast index, they're starting to do this lightning network monetization strategy for podcasts. We could see something like that with open source. But I think it's going to be something in the NFT space. There'll be some of us that think, ah, this is a horrible idea, and there'll be some that actually go for it. And there'll probably be enough people that they'll raise money. It might even bring people from outside the Linux community into this action because, I mean, NFTs are super popular right now.

So my specific prediction would be an open source project uses an NFT to raise funds. Yeah, well, that's easily quantifiable. We can easily test that. It's a terrible, terrible idea, but it's almost certainly going to happen. Right? I think so too. All right. So to lock it in almost certainly going to happen. Right? I think so too. All right. So to

lock it in, I'll say this. In 2022, an open source project will use NFTs or an NFT alone to raise funds. Will there be cute pictures involved? I mean, you know, just as a side prediction. I mean, I don't think so. I think the, I mean, I don't know. We need for this concept to work, you know, to show that you can raise funds for projects using digital scarcity. I feel like you're going to have to have a respectable project that does it in a respectable way. And the first few that do it are going to set the pace.

It's either going to blow up and be a grifter thing, or it's going to be a reasonable way to buy one-off unique things from open source projects that they can use to raise funds. And it may not work out great either way, but somebody's going to try it. Who? I would think for it to really work, it would need to be a project that is known just outside the Linux community,

but a project that Windows and Mac users are familiar with too, that maybe there's like a soft spot for, like some nostalgia, like VLC. OBS, OBS, come on. OBS would be a great one, even Audacity possibly, but that's not going to happen. But something that is recognized in the broader community, because what, from the little bit of following of all this NFT stuff that I've done,

what I've noticed is it's drawing in a lot of the normals, people who are not like high-end extreme geeks. It's definitely got that too. But normies are coming into this. It reaches outside the tech circle more so than I would have expected. There's a certain distro that I think might do it, but I'm not going to say it on air just in case.

I don't want to upset them. Oh. Uh-huh. Okay. Okay. I wonder. I wonder, but I think I know which one you're thinking of. You know, I got a couple of grab bag items in here

we could cover real quick. Alex said that he hopes we'll see a made-for-home assistant certification program launch. Oh, that'd be neat. Mm-hmm. And like I said, he's also predicting the 20-terabyte hard drive for under $250 again. He's slotting that one in. When we were going over this, I think the DEC was probably the biggest question mark. Like, what's the DEC impact going to be over 2022?

The deck was probably the biggest question mark. Like, what's the deck impact going to be over 2022? Will there be deck OS clones that are, you know, available as a desktop distro? Like, what's that going to be? Will it even ship? Will it even ship? Yeah, I suppose that's a question right there. Yeah, I hope so.

That'd be a blunder. I feel like it is. Like, that's probably what the delay was about a bit, was getting to something more doable. Like, they had to reassess. Hopefully now they've got themselves a realistic timeline. But, you know, valve time. Wes, did you throw the Ubuntu uses ButterFS by default in 2210 in the grab bag? Was that yours? No, that wasn't me.

That was me. I was thinking maybe there might be a ButterFS in stream or like some version of one of the clones that sneakily added ButterFS back in, maybe. Oh, man, wouldn't that be nice? Like a set of packages you could install on CentOS Stream to get ButterFS support? Yeah, yeah. Oh, a boy can dream. A boy can dream.

And I noticed none of us had a specific Asahi Linux prediction. I made one in LAN, I think, but we didn't have any in this show about Asahi Linux. I thought you'd be all over that, Chris, since you've been following it so closely, but seems you went a little further out. It's so hard to know, right? It's so hard to know. You don't want to tempt fate, right? Right. And like we were talking about earlier, that stuff is, that last 10% is really, really tricky. I thought about a stretch of saying maybe, you know, if enough of that stuff gets merged upstream, maybe Arch Linux ARM gets some support.

Hmm. Hmm. I didn't have anything specific for Starlink either, although, man, talk about a lifesaver right now. It really has been just so great to be able to be. I was out here in the woods, did not plan to broadcast, did not plan to stream from here. I just got stranded.

But I brought it with me and set it up, had to log in, change my service address, and then waited about 10, went for a walk and came back in about 15 minutes and it was all online. And you know, I'm getting a hundred megabits from the fricking woods. It's great. And you know, it's cold out, right? I mean, at night it's down to five degrees Fahrenheit. And that thing is actually what I've been doing. I wasn't sure how well it would do, but at night I've been turning it off to save power because we're in a pretty precarious situation and I just don't have any power to spare. So I turn it off at night using a smart plug and home assistant. And then in the morning I turn it on using the same system and it boots up in about three, five minutes. It's connected to the network and the system just switches over

from cellular to Starlink. And then when I turn it off, it switches back to cellular. So that's worked out pretty good. That's great. Did you get some hero shots of, you know, like... Of course. The Starlink shining in its rugged terrain? Actually, for our live stream tweet today,

if you check my Twitter profile, I have a shot of the Starlink out in the little dishy out in the snow. I have a Starlink prediction. You do? Well, I think Starlink might add data caps this year to their subscriptions. You shut your dirty mouth. I know. I have a Starlink prediction. You do? Well, I think Starlink might add data caps this year to their subscriptions. You shut your dirty mouth. I know. I'm not saying I want it. I'm not saying you want it. I'm just saying they got to do that at some point, right? Oh, no. I hope not. You know, it has been so great not worrying about that anymore because it's such a pain in the butt

on cellular. I'd pay. I'd pay more. You know, they could nickel and dime me. I think it would be relatively high, but like unlimited, unlimited just seems... Impossible? Yeah. Especially when you run out of bandwidth, your solution is like more ground stations and more satellites.

So it's not like... When that's what you got to do, that does take a lot of resources. You just got to think of it as funding Starship. That's what you got to do, that does take a lot of resources. You just got to think of it as funding Starship. That's what you're doing. Yeah. Funding Elon's personal Mars society is probably what we're doing. Okay.

All right. Well, I'm feeling pretty good about these, you guys. This is a good range. Does anybody have anything that we wanted to get in that we missed before we wrap it all up? It's a pretty good lineup here. I feel like most of these have a pretty good shot compared to last year's batch, which were pretty bad. So we've got the orange one in the chat room, and he has a prediction that I really hope happens. You want to read it for us, Brent?

Yeah, the prediction is in 2022, we see native Wayland support for Zoom. Yes. Yes. It's about damn time. It really would be. And Tubit has a prediction that due to supply chain issues, more electronic manufacturers will look to making their devices more repairable.

Another good year for right to repair would be nice to see. 2021 was, I feel like, the best year for right to repair we've seen in a decade. So it'd be great to see that trend continue.

Let's keep that momentum going. Yeah, here's hoping. Amen. From Wes's lips to the universe. Yeah, here's hoping. Amen. From Wes's lips to the universe's ears, I say. All right. Well, we got them all in here. I think we're going to start wrapping it up so that way I can hopefully escape the woods. But remember, Linux Unplugged now is moving to Sundays at, we're going to start around 12, 1230 Pacific at jblive.tv.

So join us over there. We usually get the stream started a little early and then, you know, the show gets going. Sometimes we're a little slow, but we aim for just, we're going to aim for every Sunday and we'd love to have you hang out in our mumble room. You can get information at that

at linuxunplugged.com slash mumble. We also really appreciate your feedback. It's a great resource for the show, for ideas and discussions. You can send that in at linuxunplugged.com contact. And if you're not going to be able to join us on Sundays anymore, if you've only been a Live Tuesday listener, thank you so much for joining us live when you could.

And for most of you downloading, which is the vast majority, what this is going to mean is you're probably just going to get the show a day earlier. You know? You're going to get one maybe even a little earlier than that. That's going to be the major change for the most people listening is the show will just come in a little bit earlier. You know? You're going to get one maybe even a little earlier than that. That's going to be the major change for the most people listening is the show

will just come in a little bit earlier. So, and hopefully on Sundays we'll be always having a hoot and hollering good time because it's the weekend and not the middle

of the work week. And the middle of one of the busiest work days for me is Tuesday for whatever reason. Less stress, more fun. Linux Unplugged 2022.

Lock that in, I say, Wes. Thank you everyone for joining us. Links to nothing really, because we didn't talk about much, but usually at linuxunplugged.com. And for one last time, thank you so much for joining us on a Tuesday, and we'll see you right back here next Sunday. Thank you.