You know, after last night, I've thought about it. And I'm just not gonna even concern myself with Linux besides WSL anymore, probably until KDE is fully accessible. Why? Because Linux needs developers, and users with tons of time to put in, and then keep up with, and poke, issues on Git forges. And you know what? I have a full time job. I was not born with the Python docs or JavaScript handbook or Rustations' Guide to Living, in my hands. I wasn't made to code. Maybe I could have been if I'd kept to it when I was in high school. But not now. Too busy. Too tired. And you know, there are plenty of developers on Mastodon. If they need my help, they freaking know where to reach me. And yeah, I know there are people who are scared to death of asking the blind person something, in fear of offending or something. Tough. Ask and you'll get answers. You know, I went to the developers of System76's new desktop environment, and asked if I could help with any accessibility stuff, and they were like "Sure yeah when we get to the UI stuff." I signed up for their Mattermost instance. I took time out of my day to talk to them. And that's what I get. Not "Thanks for volunteering. Here's what our current accessibility stack works with, anything else we need?" Cause of course the UI is where you start with accessibility, not at the beginning when designing what the UI will do /s. Oh hey lookie, Easy-effects. Anyone use that? https://github.com/wwmm/easyeffects/issues/1168 They need help that I can't provide. Oh hey here's another one, Doom Emacs! https://github.com/doomemacs/doomemacs/issues/4256 Oh Manjaro Linux! https://github.com/manjaro/release-plan/issues/208. Point is, I tried all that. From a distro to Doom Emacs to apps, they need developers, not more blind users. But I've spent far more time on this post than I'd planned, and today is gonna be a great day of using Windows and iPhone, cause damn they work at least.
I've been reading some articles about mobile Linux and many of them state one must be an "advanced user" or that the software isn't secure. How true is this?
I already use Linux on my laptop, but I'm not a software developer or anything like that. Would I be able to slap a new OS onto an old Android phone and be on my way, or would I run into problems?
Thunderbird family, thank you for your unending patience. Some of you may have noticed this already, but we're happy to say that Thunderbird 115 is now available on Flathub!
Enjoy Supernova, enjoy your Friday, and thanks as always for supporting free and open-source software
GIMP is currently being ported over to GTK 3.0, which would probably also allow it to work natively on Wayland.
The release schedule for GIMP 3.0 is set to May of next year, but it's going to be tough. So, if there's anything you can do, please do consider helping out.
Too many folks in the #FOSS and #OpenSource communities fail to understand that the moral valence of a tool or product is not its primary feature to most users.
Lemme explain with tomatoes.
In the US, organic produce sales growth outperforms non-organic produce. It costs more, so why is this true? Two things are going on: first, the organic tomato still tomatoes as well as the non-organic tomato—it may even tomato better! Plus you have the added value of buying a thing you feel good about purchasing. We don't need to unpack "organic" right now, but I hope we can agree the term is designed to signal, among other things, a higher ethical echelon than the alternative.
So why don't people prefer "organic" software?
Because unlike the grocery store counterpart, organic software almost never performs the function at the level expected by the user, and often requires assembly. Even worse, it comes with bugs without support. Imagine buying a tomato that came with worms and you could not return it.
The thing needs to thing as well, if not better, than the alternative to be competitive. Taking the whole population into account, almost no one cares about "free software." Almost no one cares about freedom from advertising; we're all conditioned to accept it as part of internet life. And almost no one cares about privacy in a real sense. Those aren't your primary features, developers; those are bonuses.
I guess I'm trying to say the whinging about people moving to closed platforms is kinda telling on ourselves. If you sell a wormy tomato, you can't blame the buyer for picking from another shelf.
De um lado temos o #Mastodon que é incrível, grátis e #FOSS mas ninguém no twitter dá a mínima. Agora #bluesky e #threads, todo mundo tá louco por essa merda.
I am just a simple man trying to make my way in the fediverse. I am a big #StarWars fan. I converted to the #Linux side, currently using #GarudaLinux and #KDE. I am a proponent of #FOSS. I am a graphic & web designer in SoCal. I hail from the #GooglePlus system (where I was a Google+ Creator and the "Star Wars guy" there...) . I've been a social media nomad since after the Empire destroyed it back in 2018. RIP :(
Heya, folks! We want to start the new year off right, and what better way to do that than a new Solus release? That's right, Solus 4.5 Resilience is now available to everyone! A ton of work has gone into this release, including a new installer with #Calamares, and a new #XFCE Edition!
Looking through the @flathub apps that are passing the MetaInfo Quality Guidelines, it’s largely ones built for GNOME. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily, but KDE and cross-platform apps, let’s get you represented as well!
Devs: log into the Flathub Developer Portal then view your app listing to see where it’s passing or failing. And if you need any help or suggestions, just give me a shout; I’m happy to help!
Stop treating open source projects and foundations like consumer-facing businesses.
Unless you've got a paid support contract that's being neglected, or there's a grave concern, it's inappropriate to escalate issues to massively public forums.
Maintainers and the staffers and volunteers at foundations are already overworked.
Don't make it harder for them to address your issue by ALSO making them waste time firefighting in public.
The latest version of #Excalidraw looks like it is starting to become a true open alternative to #Miro for collaborative sketching and sticky notes sessions.
Plenty cool features, #FOSS, self-hostable, stores stuff locally / syncs encrypted, save & export, etc.
Today I'm attempting to exclusively use the Pinebook Pro (running Endless OS!) for work, and it has actually gone better than expected. At the same time, dang, we're still lacking in a few ways on ARM; notably, app availability! How is Firefox not available on Flathub for ARM64??
Sometimes in academia, people use the term "open source" to mean that the code is publicly available. To many in the #OSS community, "open source" means a lot more.
What should we call prototype research code that accompanies a paper that is made public?
What should research code include, at bare minimum, when shared publicly? (README, docstrings, requirements..)
What is the minimum to actually make something "open source", beyond just publicly posting?