How would you suggest I respond in the future?

We have a person, claiming that CUPS doesn’t work and they now uninstall it on every installation.

There is no context, no data, no information that suggests what the issue is, what they tried, when this occurred, on which platform, under which conditions.

In other words, the user was essentially saying “CUPS sux”.

Having used Linux as my main system for over 25 years, that sentiment did not match my own experience, does not help anyone, not me, not the user and not the OP who was trying to solve a problem, let alone anyone else reading along.

I responded accordingly.

This has not been my experience … at … all.

Perhaps it would be helpful to discover what exactly doesn’t work for you and fix that, rather than remove CUPS because one time it didn’t work for you seven years ago.

You could print to CUPS from the other devices and potentially bypass all those shenanigans.

Also, CUPS has a PDF printer which saves you from even heating up your printer at all … I haven’t had a printer in my life for over 25 years.

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish (Exterminate)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

It’s likely going to take down whole companies if not countries.

The point I was trying to make is that End Of Life is in the eye of the beholder. Just because it doesn’t get any updates from the manufacturer, doesn’t mean that the user has to throw it away.

Similarly, a user can give the device to a second hand store and the next user can use it … and so on.

As I said, it is not a fixed date or concept.

And we’re still stuck with its aftermath in that search engines require quotes rather than a + for requiring words, which they now ignore whenever the mood strikes.

Why?

Because some fuckwit at Google decided that the + was reserved for Google+ search results.

It essentially depends on what level of support you require.

End Of Life is a concept, not generally a fixed point in time … even though the likes of Microsoft are attempting to rewrite history and making everyone move off Windows 10 by a specific date.

And just like in that situation, you have options.

You can consider your relationship with Microsoft at an end and install a different OS, or you can continue the relationship and buy new hardware even though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with what you currently have.

The same is true for a router.

The decision around EOL is about what happens next.

Do you want to yell at the supplier if it breaks, or will you realise that yelling only happens if you spend money on lawyers, and in the meantime you can move on with your life and decide on an alternative path.

My car is worth $700 or so, even though I bought it new 15 years ago. Is it at the end of its life? It’s still getting me from here to there and back.

I’ve run my business for over 25 years, and I haven’t had a printer in over two decades. I have needed to print something less than half a dozen times since making the decision to not replace it. Instead I print to PDF and if I need actual physical paper, I’ve put a PDF on a USB flash drive and taken it to my local office supplies store to print on demand.

I have a scanner, it’s been used perhaps a dozen times in the same period.

In other words, have you considered not buying a printer?

But imagine the commit log.

First of all, congratulations.

Second, I have a question.

Based on the link you supplied, SPI is a USA based organisation. How do you expect to protect yourself against the legal lunacy that is currently overrunning the USA?

For example, what if as a member project you are suddenly compelled by a USA court to install a backdoor into your codebase?

It’s easy to ignore such concerns, but governments around the planet are reevaluating their relationship with companies like Microsoft for precisely such reasons, and they have much more money to spend on legal advice than you do.

Keep your existing phone and OS.

Use it differently. Decide what information you store on it, which applications you install or disable, what permissions you grant and what services you use.

Just installing an OS to “debloat and degoogle” is not ever going to change anything unless you change your habits and you don’t need to change OS to do that.

This is drivel of the highest order.

The solution proposed by the author is to host your own fediverse instance on a … wait for it … corporate VPS.

There’s no discussion about terms and conditions that apply to hosted content, no discussion about legal liability, no discussion about credit card company censorship and what happens if you host something objectionable.

The author proudly proclaims that they’ve been booted off multiple platforms.

Here’s a thought:

“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.” - Elmore Leonard