I'm starting to hatch a plan where a group of tech savvy #LibreSoftware adherents stage an intervention at #LGNZ (the Local Gov't Agency) & require all council digital tech procurement staff to do a course on how the digital world/business really works (which we will develop) & then they have to reapply for their roles before they can waste another cent of taxpayer $. Because the current crop give absolutely no indication of being competent. We haven't got time for more of this shit.
@mttaggart thanks for the explanation - fwiw, I'm a data point demonstrating a developer can make a good living as a purely #LibreSoftware dev (#Copyleft is my preference)... my whole career thus far (~30 years)... I don't think proprietary software is really inevitable... nor (in any way) desirable.
In other words: it does not follow that 'paid software developers' depends on proprietary software.
And, aside from the odd bit of firmware/BIOS, my entire computing toolset is Libre.
@mez yeah, fyi.org.nz is a very cool (and #LibreSoftware) service! I wish I knew more about the person who wrote it (and, presumably, maintains it)... will need to investigate again (I did years back, but can't remember the details)
You usually hear when people citing speed of development when they advocate for open-source software.
Yet reality tells a different story. I was surprised to learn that #Hypothesis, an open source project, after all these years, still doesn't have an official plugin for #Firefox, an open-source browser and a major counterbalance to big tech browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Safari. What gives?
@david_megginson@nhan you're right that many ancillary services surrounding software are under represented in #LibreSoftware... but I think that's a lot to do with the sorts of people who tend to develop software & take on those other roles. Software is fun for its own sake, like tinkering. Some of those other skills less so. And yes, FOSS can go much faster, because it's got different motivations. And a small FOSS team can often out develop a 100 person proprietary dev shop.
@Jgmeadows heh heh. Well, keep in mind that the motivations for people writing #LibreSoftware are many and varied. I've seen abysmal documentation for FOSS projects, as well as peerless quality. I've found the same is true for proprietary software. Few people enjoy writing documentation, especially if they're just writing the software for their own use (most FOSS projects). People usually require payment for drudgery, which many consider writing documentation to be @david_megginson@nhan
@Jgmeadows but, like I said, many #LibreSoftware projects have superb documentation, because the developers genuinely want their software to be useful to anyone. In fact tools like DOxygen, Sphinx, and a bunch of others I can't remember the names of were developed by FOSS devs to make framing up documentation much easier, and far less trouble to maintain! The proprietary software world adopted it real quick, like they did 'git'. Because it was better than what they had. @david_megginson@nhan
Proprietary SaaS is pretty much always a bad idea. Consider the educational institution that employs me: instead of picking a (locally developed, market-leading) #LibreSoftware portfolio management system, they chose a proprietary one. It was recently 'end-of-lifed' by its owner. Every student/staff portfolio, built in good faith, is now obsolete and cannot usefully be imported into any other system. They all have to start from scratch, which, in some cases, is a very daunting task. 1/2
Just upgraded my two Matrix servers (Synapse) along with 'Synapse-admin' which provides the admin interface. Was reasonably smooth. Nice. Also trying out an alternative interface to Element, namely Schildichat, on both the Linux desktop and Android. So far so good. Gonna shout myself a beer shortly. Love me some #libresoftware
If any of you are involved in running a library, and you're not already aware of #Koha, I strongly suggest you look into it: https://koha-community.org/ It's the world leading #ILMS, and it's also #LibreSoftware. It has a great back story & was started by (& subsequently led) by NZers.
Wow, just got asked to take part in an academic research project on privacy policies in the #Fediverse. In order to do so - and waive my privacy - I'm asked to fill in a Google Form. 🤦
There's something painfully naïve about this. I've responded offering to help them find a more appropriate replacement technology (I have a few #LibreSoftware options I can offer).
I wonder at the level of latent desire for a full transition to Linux and #FOSS / #LibreSoftware within the technically savvy part of the business world (i.e. those running corporate/institutional networks who currently have to suffer with MS Windows). I suspect it's far higher than most people think.
If your educational institution is still using #Zoom, especially in light of their policy change to use/sell your content to train #LargeLanguageModels (#LLMs), it's doing the wrong thing. Digitally literate institutions (a rare & precious thing) already use #BigBlueButton (#BBB) which is #LibreSoftware & substantially better for educational applications. If you want to trial it, talk to us - we've been making our instances available for institutions to use since Covid: https://oer4covid.oeru.org
Bram Moolenaar, creator of #Vim, passed away on August 3rd. The announcement comes from his family on Google Groups and it's from a few hours ago. He will be missed by the huge community of Vim users.
Been using #grapheneos for about a week now and I just have to say WOW! I don't think I've ever had an experience on my phone that feels like I'm using my #Linux desktop/laptop. The amount of control this OS gives back to me that google and apple took away is staggering. I know no piece of tech is 100% #private or #secure . But damn is this close!
@z3rOR0ne I too have been using #GrapheneOS full time for a little over a week. The old iPhone is in a drawer. It's as though a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.
There is nothing I miss. I broke down and installed the sandboxed Play Store for just two apps: Waze for summer road trips and Zoom for work meetings from the field.
I've adjusted to living without dictation.
We could complain all day long about our Android vs. iOS UX/UI pet peeves. They're both sometimes agony.
But using (almost) all #LibreSoftware makes for a much more standards compliant, composable, interoperable, in a word, a very #Linux-y experience.
i feel like the Hollywood strikes are giving me renewed desire to teach the youth to torrent. the streaming platforms are bad for everybody, we need the same kind of pressure on the IP holders as we had a decade ago, and this time we don't give it up for convenience, but for mediums with fair revenue splits
@nielsa@jonny Quite literally none if you use Linux ISOs (most of the GNU distros as well as distros like Debian & Arch Linux provide them) for your examples.
Your audience does need to understand on their own that any dataset being shareable really does mean any.
This does have the dual benefit of being able to introduce them to #FreeSoftware (or #LibreSoftware) at the same time if you want.
@fsf Where can I read about the legal licensing and copyleft issues surrounding generative AI algorithms like LLMs (Large Language Models) like Chat-GPT or Copilot, trained on GPL'd source code?
I wonder if there is a need for a new license that explicitly makes training generative AI on open source code requires the AI model to be open sourced?
Does the FSF have any written opinions or educational materials related to this topic of the relationship between copyleft and generative AI trained on copyleft source code?
Reminder: our duty as folks who understand that #LibreSoftware is better for all of us is to adopt the following practice when we interact with the digital world: open (decentralised, non-profit, community-run) first, close (proprietary, surveillance capitalist, centralised) second, if at all. 1/2
A buddy of mine suggested that I look into #jitsi so I did, and so should you.
If you value #FOSS and you have a need for video calling / conferencing, and if you also are elated when you find such competitors to the leading software in the field but which actually functions better (by several metrics) on top of being FOSS, then yeah.. this is for you.
@jq good call - Jitsi's great! And if you really want to be blown away, have a look at BigBlueButton - https://bigbluebutton.org (also fully #LibreSoftware) - it supports very large groups, has breakout rooms, and lots of additional functionality. Try the demo.