Flux is an independent online news source that covers politics, religion, philosophy, and technology, and the way that they intersect. I sat down with its founder, and talked about the state of the operating system world in 1997 when I started OSNews, and what has changed since then, both in the computing realm and in the political milieu that pervades our lives. We talked about Microsoft and Apple, UNIX and Linux, the rise and fall of general purpose computing, and how the rise of platforms based on hardware/software/marketplace ecosystems has changed the landscape for what makes an OS platform viable and relevant. On that topic, he and I are laying the groundwork to collaborate on a regular podcast, a partnership between OSNews and Flux. I’d love to hear your advice and feedback on topics that you’d be interested in having us cover, people that you’d like to have us interview, or if you’d be interested in participating in some way, let me know.