Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 13-Dec-2024 22:27:36 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

   I've been pondering why current FOSS ideals don't really resonate with me and I think I finally have a succinct way to put it.

   to me, software freedom means complete unwavering and unconditional support for the user's freedom of choice, with a focus on actual tangible freedoms that result in real-world benefits, rather than abstract ideals and notions of purity. this means putting the user first, even if they choose to use non-free software. interoperate. make stuff work *for* the user.

   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 13-Dec-2024 22:27:56 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     and I think that's largely been lost. everything's kinda turned into a one-dimensional question of whether something meets abstract purity requirements, to the point where this frequently runs counter to what is best for the average user who just wants to get things done without annoyances and friction. and that just rubs me the wrong way. I don't like it at all.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Phil Dennis-Jordan 😷 (pmdj@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 13-Dec-2024 22:28:11 JST Phil Dennis-Jordan 😷

     in reply to

     @gsuberland I feel like in today’s state of computing and the world at large, I care more about data autonomy and sovereignty than licenses on specific bits of code. (And yes that implies interoperability.)

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 13-Dec-2024 22:31:28 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @gsuberland The most depressing part of it is how much FOSS is extremely anti-user *by design*. Basically everything designed for web dev. Tracking (session cookies even if you don't want a session) as first class functionality you can't turn off. Adtech & other malicious 3p integration. Etc.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 13-Dec-2024 22:40:37 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     all that said, it is heartening to see a lot of folks coming around to this viewpoint and rejecting the old-hat FSF/GNU weirdos and their gatekeeping. maybe we're at the start of a renaissance in that regard.

   • Embed this notice
     Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 13-Dec-2024 22:40:38 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     I also think embracing impurity and imperfection, and saying yes to stuff more often, is a much more fun way to do computer stuff.

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Friday, 13-Dec-2024 22:52:17 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to

     • Phil Dennis-Jordan 😷
     @pmdj @gsuberland Which interestingly I sometimes find pretty old echoes to this idea.
     
     Like Benjamin Bayart in 2004 expressed it with https://edgard.fdn.fr/liberateur/ (in french).
     With taking the example of how OpenOffice.Org would effectively not interoperate with other software. It's a bit better nowadays but, let's face it, if you get an odt file, you're going to use LibreOffice or might have to ask for a PDF. Because KOffice or AbiWord won't properly render the document.
     
     And kind of wonder since when Cory Doctorow spoke about interoperability.
   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.jp)'s status on Saturday, 14-Dec-2024 00:32:22 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to
     let's take this notion of user sovereignty that you speak of and that I espouse a little further than the immediate-term thinking, shall we?
     
     say, the severeign user chooses to rely on a piece of software that claims control over part of the user's life.
     
     next thing you know, the user finds that the program is not exactly what was hoped for, but now the freedom is no longer there to change it as the user sees fit.
     
     the user is no longer sovereign, because of allowing software to take freedom and choice away.
     
     as such unfortunate choices pile up, the user is more and more limited WRT the available possibilities
     
     this is exactly the old philosophical conundrum of freedom to enslave oneself, piecemeal
     
     the only way for the sovereign user to retain freedom is to choose wisely so as to not curtail future freedom, so as to remain sovereign
     
     if you don't stand for that, you're not for user sovereignty, you're for user recklessness
     翠星石, yoasif and Michael Richardson like this.
   • Embed this notice
     翠星石 (suiseiseki@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Saturday, 14-Dec-2024 11:12:25 JST 翠星石

     in reply to
     @gsuberland There are no "FOSS" ideals - "FOSS" is a wishy-washy attempt to be neutral between the freedom of free software and the ruinous compromise of "open source", while failing to be neutral as people assume it means; gratis, source-available software.
     
     >means complete unwavering and unconditional support for the user's freedom of choice
     Only 100% free software gives unwavering and unconditional support for the users of freedom, as that gives them the freedom to make any choice in how they use the software and to personally make any change they want - while proprietary software says no to many usages and denies many, or all modifications via refusal to provide the source code and digital handcuffs.
     
     >tangible freedoms that result in real-world benefits, rather than abstract ideals and notions of purity
     100% free software is a tangible result that gives real-world benefits and happens to be 100% pure as well.
     
     >this means putting the user first
     Putting the user first would mean never attacking them with proprietary software.
     
     If you ever subject a user to proprietary software, you are putting the user 4th, behind the proprietary master's agenda and other parties.
     
     >even if they choose to use non-free software.
     With free software, the user is free to choose to personally run whatever software they like, as it's not like the .elf loader will refuse to load a nonfree elf that the user executes.
     
     Only nonfree software does things like refuse to load an .elf because it doesn't pass the handcuffing signature check.
     
     >interoperate. make stuff work *for* the user.
     Free software is written with interoperation in mind, often with stdin/stdout interoperation and with documented file formats and protocols.
     
     As soon as you introduce proprietary software, you make stuff work *against* the user, as that is what proprietary software does.
     Alexandre Oliva likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     crazyeddie (crazyeddie@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 14-Dec-2024 11:30:54 JST crazyeddie

     in reply to

     • Erik Bosman

     @brainsmoke @gsuberland Because if it's not a goal it will never be a means. It it never would have been either. It was really hard work to steer the corporate world into accepting open source. It's a constant battle still, even after it's proven itself countless times.

     Someone has to be out there fighting the tendency to lock it all up or it will be. Your work will be stolen and locked up in broken ass shit you can't fix. This is even a VC strategy right now that would only get way worse.

   • Embed this notice
     Erik Bosman (brainsmoke@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 14-Dec-2024 11:30:56 JST Erik Bosman

     in reply to

     @gsuberland What annoys me about the gnu/fsf view is that 'software freedom' is seen as a goal, when it should be seen as a means.

     Life is Tetris repeated this.