I'm an advocate of AI - both small and large language models. I'm also an advocate of dev.to, which I consider the best site of its kind. But as a Linux user, I have to skip this latest challenge - due solely to the fact that GitHub CoPilot is a Microsoft product.
It's hard to separate a product from its parent company’s broader philosophy. Microsoft's recent moves — the release of the telemetry-ridden Windows 11 OS and the forced obsolescence of perfectly functional hardware by ending Windows 10 support — these are practices I can't support.
This extends to GitHub CoPilot - it's not the agentic nature that bothers me - that the application can view my files and directories and execute commands. It's that all of this isn't being processed locally - it is a verifiable fact that it is bundled and piped to Microsoft’s Azure servers.
As Linux users, we move to distros like Debian or Arch to escape these "call-home" binaries and we reject any kind of forced ecosystem lock-in. I'm simply not installing a cloud-tethered agent that reports my terminal activity to a central server at Microsoft.
Again, this isn't a reflection on dev.to - like many others, I enjoy these high-profile challenges. I'd just prefer that the agentic instrument was different. There is incredible work being done in the local AI space. We don't need a cloud connection to have a smart CLI agent on our PC. Open-source tools like Ollama, Llama.cpp, and local MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers prove that we can have "agentic" help while keeping 100% of our data on our own silicon.
Zero Exfiltration: 100% of the probing stays on your NVMe.
No Telemetry: No Microsoft account or HTTPS requests to Azure.
Good Luck to those taking on this challenge - I'll be sitting this one out.
Ben S.
Top comments (10)
Thanks for posting this, Ben. As someone hoping to step fully away from Big Tech this year, I really appreciate you taking the time to discuss the Co-Pilot challenge.
I’m not an active supporter of the BDS movement against Microsoft, but I’ve chosen to follow their guidance in practice. I’m no longer a Game Pass subscriber, I’m moving from Xbox to PlayStation, and I won’t be purchasing games from Microsoft Studios or using any Microsoft products or services in the future.
This has been a personal decision, and I completely understand that it’s not something everyone is interested in or able to do themselves.
Richard - agreed. The BDS movement is something different - my reasons for boycotting them include policies like planned obsolescence driving e-waste and invasive telemetry.
Indeed, Ben, I agree that the BDS movement is a different animal. That said, I’m on the same page as you when it comes to e-waste and telemetry - Windows 11 didn’t need things like the TDM requirement, for example. On my sole remaining Windows 11 machine, I’ve turned off every piece of tracking and telemetry I could, and I won’t be using Visual Studio Code either.
And that's while Microsoft is arguably already "less terrible" than in the heyday of Steve Ballmer, and their thug-like anti-competitive extortion practices versus OEMs (hardware companies) who had the temerity to consider offering Linux on their PCs - they would be threatened "no more Windows for you" !
Luckily they've been reigned in, and had to stop those practices ("under duress", not of their own volition) - and yes, Satya Nadella is a far more benign character than Steve or even Bill, but completely innocent they are not - they're still trying to pull tricks, and they still have an iron grip on the enterprise software/IT market ...
P.S. well, I loathe Windows and will avoid it like the plague, let me put it like that :-)
they've still got an iron grip on the enterprise software/IT market ...
And an iron grip on PC manufacturers. Roughly 90-95% of (non-Mac ) desktops ship with Windows pre-installed, dominating new PC sales in the global marked, despite ChromeOS and Linux niches. Most non-technical PC users simply accept that the Windows OS is the only way to run a PC.
Yes - it's still way too HARD to get Linux on your PC, because, yes, PCs come with Windows preinstalled by default, and you have to jump through hoops to run anything else ... the amount of $$$ that MS has squeezed/extorted from both the consumer and the business market over the years is mind-boggling!
I’m glad I finally took the plunge and installed Manjaro Linux on an old laptop. Believe it or not, my 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 was my daily driver for quite a while!
But you’re spot on, leob - the reason Windows 11 is still on my new laptop is simply that it came pre-installed, and I haven’t gotten around to changing it… yet!
Very well said, Leob! We must remember that even Bill Gates wasn’t above lying either - but that’s a story for another time and place.
With regard to Nadell - who has become increasingly worried about the AI bubble bursting of late - I still shake my head over his self-motivated statement that we need to move "beyond the arguments of [AI] slop vs sophistication."
Again, my decision to move away from Microsoft specifically, and Big Tech more generally, is very much a personal choice that I understand not everyone can or will follow - but I appreciate that you feel the same way about Windows in particular!
Windows is just terrible, on that we simply agree ...
Indeed, Sir, we do!