Notices by Stuart Langridge (sil@mastodon.social), page 2

@mjg59 I think if you know how to produce the model (or something equivalent to the model) then this is all fine, right? At that point, "make the word processor of my dreams" is perfectly adequate source code for a programme because you know how to make the compiler that can compile it; nobody can take that compiler away from you, so all is good. That's my intuition anyway!

@mjg59 assuming that either you also publish the instructions you gave for that binary so I can see them, or that "make a thing which does exactly what Matt Garrett's thing does" is an instruction I can give the model and get back software which is a clone of yours, then yes. Having the source code isn't the point; being able to make the changes I want and nobody being able to stop me from doing so is the point. If I have a magic wand, I don't need source code.

@mjg59 that is: the idea behind having the source is that if I want to change the program ten years from now, even if the compiler is not easily available, I can in theory also build that compiler from source, or write my own, and therefore I can still run the program. If the compiler (in this case, the model) isn't available and I also cannot create it because I don't know how it worked, then having the source code for the program isn't very helpful.

@mjg59 (this assumes that the model itself can't be taken away, of course. If it can be taken away or restricted in use in future, then I'm in two minds about whether this meets the goals of free software, because a year from now if I want to make changes to my or your software, I can't if I can no longer use the model.)

@simon yup. This is why I am loath to buy domains for small projects; I killed soonsnap, and put farmbound on kryogenix.org because (among other things) I don't want to be on the hook to pay for domains for them every year for all eternity.
On the other hand, what are the chances that some company reliant on VC money won't get bought or bored in the next ten years? Low.
So neither situation is good.

@simon My new-internet-thing rules are, I think, these:
1. if you have a personal domain already then you're likely to keep it. Host things there, not on their own domain.
2. if you don't, then you have no pre-existing inclination toward internet permanence. Decide whether you or VC-funded companies are likely to have more staying power
2a. if you think it's you, buy a domain and host your thing on it
2b. if it's not you, pick a company with a good record (github, wordpress &c) and put it there

Nice to see that real places recognise that the web is best and “install an app” is not something that actual people really want to do for something they’ll do once.

People who dig the #SteamDeck: here's @bkardell and @Meyerweb from @igalia, who I did not know were doing lots of work on the Deck, talking to other Igalia people who are doing lots of work to make the Steam Deck better. Interesting podcast!

https://www.igalia.com/chats/steam-powered-open-source

@avlcharlie Firefox is based on Mozilla's engine, Gecko. Safari and Epiphany are based on WebKit, and every browser on iOS is required to be a Safari webview. Most other browsers (except on iOS) these days are based on Blink, Chrome's engine, which started as a fork of WebKit but has evolved differently. (As you note, Opera was based on Presto, Opera's engine, a long time ago, but is now Chromium.)

seen people post an image about how many browsers are Chromium under the covers these days, except Firefox, which is true (and why I use Firefox). Here's an addition to that bit of knowledge, because of the #AppleBrowserBan .