> These requests seem like they are all for background tasks to keep data up to date when the user goes to use it.

Where did you get this information? Is it just a guess based on what Apple declared about these domains?

In the article, there is no info about the content sent to these Apple owned domains. For all we know, MacOS could send detailed reports on the user's activity.

> BSDs are [...] much better documented

This is an opinion that I've often read, but that does not match my limited experience. The difference in quality between BSDs and Linux is not clear. I've found outdated documentation on both sides, though BSDs mitigate this by being more stable (i.e. less innovative, if you prefer looking at the dark side).

For instance, a blog post was recently describing struggles with the NetBSD installer. It complained that the documentation chapter about installation was 7 years old, and about obsolete releases of the OS and its installer. https://eerielinux.wordpress.com/2025/05/31/installing-bsd-i...

Another example, this time with FreeBSD. The documentation still has a section about floppy disks, and the chapter about "Linux Binary Compatibility" is for Linux 3, about 10 years ago. Hard to tell if these pages are still valid.

Plastic recycling is a drop of water in an ocean of plastic.

> In New Zealand, soft plastics are mostly recycled into fence posts

The latest (2025-01) official report[^1] I could found states that the recycling of plastics in NZ is poorly known. On page 135, it mentions the report "OPMCSA plastics research (2019)" as the reference in the domain.

According to that 2019 study[^2], the plastics used each year weight more than 700k t. Much more, because this ignores packaged imports, construction and agriculture. 31% of plastics imported are LDPE (so around 170k t), which is mainly used for producing soft plastics.

Out of those 600+k t/year, 380k t go to landfill waste, and 45k t are collected for recycling. Assuming generously that 50% of those intended for recycling are actually recycled, I'd estimate that 1.7 to 3% of the yearly NZ plastics are recycled.

Here's a quote about soft plastics:

    In 2017, 365 tonnes of soft plastics were recycled – but a lack of recycling market for these plastics meant that in the following year, plastic was stockpiled whilst new onshore markets were developed and a percentage of non-conforming plastic was landfilled.

[^1]: https://environment.govt.nz/assets/publications/New-Zealand-...

[^2]: https://www.pmcsa.ac.nz/topics/rethinking-plastics/quantifyi...

Just a side note about the historical anecdote at the bottom of the post, which is related to Notre-Dame de Paris:

> 28 statues that portrayed the biblical Kings of Judah. [...] They didn’t portray French kings

That's wrong. Several texts from the revolution and before still exist that prove that these kings were identified as both Judea kings and France kings. For instance, David was Pépin le bref. On one of the gates of the cathedral, the List of the French kings was engraved, starting with Clovis. That glorification of the monarchy, with parallels to the bible, was common at the time: other French medieval cathedrals show the same analogies.

> it's undeniable that we are making progress.

Yes, I agree that some public organizations in France are making progress with Open Source. For instance, free software is now common in universities (with local variations). And overall I think there's a central influence of the DiNum ("Direction Numérique", the Digital Department of the French State) in this direction. But I don't see how this UN charter makes any difference.

There's progress, though not related to this charter. And so slow that I would bet against "Open Source" becoming widespread in French schools within the next decade.

> Facts (and code) are following.

I'm sorry, but the current situation and the past experience makes it really hard to believe that facts will follow from this charter. At least facts matching the claim that the French government will be "Open by default: Making Open Source the standard approach for projects" (quote from the first point of the charter).

If "France endorses UN Open Source principles", it shouldn't just mean that it will publish some code. It should means that it intends to respect these principles, and that proprietary software becomes the exception within the French administration.

I can't believe this post is more than symbolic, because the French law already promotes Open Source and forbids non-UE proprietary software in many public contexts. But these laws are usually not applied. Why would a non-prescriptive charter do any better?