Notices by Tirifto (tirifto@jam.xwx.moe)

@SuperDicq @lunareclipse @tiredbun There’s also the question of how easy it is to exercise the provided freedoms. If you get a massive codebase of spaghetti code that requires a set of esoteric tools to work with, exercising some of the freedoms might be very inconvenient. :gutkato_flucerba:

Similarly, if said software is tailored to serve a megacorporation’s interests and they’re making changes to it a hundred times a day, then even if you manage to change the software in a significant way, it will be difficult to make an impact with your changes if the ecosystem is still tied to the megacorporation’s original version (which has released two new versions in the meantime). :gutkato_kapturniĝas:

These kinds of software might meet the formal definition of free software, since exercising the four elementary freedoms is allowed and possible, but it might still go against the spirit of free software, should doing so be infeasible. :gutkato_fantomo:

Some people feel like free software is ‘not enough’ because it doesn’t guarantee software to truly remain in its users’ hands and not be free in name only. Problem is, you can’t really fix that with a better definition. Being allowed to use, modify and distirbute software is a binary question; you either legally can do it or you can’t. However, the ease of doing so is not binary and has no objective measure. :gutkato_malprofito:

People have tried coming up with additional restrictions, but I don’t think that’s a good direction to begin with. Instead of keeping the binary mentality of ‘free or non-free’ and trying to stretch it over a variety of vastly different concepts, maybe we should keep exactly the same concept – the four essential freedoms – and change our mentality from only looking at the licence to looking at how different projects and communities around them empower their users in the spirit of free software. :gutkato_renversa:

I don’t think we can shoehorn that approach into another binary distinction (like, say, ‘person-friendly or person-unfriendly’), but maybe we can settle on a more nuanced set of distinctions that will help people orient themselves between software which empowers them to exercise their freedoms and software which doesn’t (like free software licensing has to inform them about what they can or can’t do with (parts of) the code). :gutkato_kontenta:

@SuperDicq @Suiseiseki @BunnyInAHat @lolitechengineer @Pi_rat There’s always GNUstep and ObjFW! :gutkato_3c:

(So yeah, good call, probably.) :gutkato_post_muro:

@oblomov I think @tusooa was working on such feature for #Pleroma (see merge request); not sure how that works or how far it got and if it’s working on her instance nowadays. (I hope she won’t mind the mention, either.) :gutkato_pensas:

Unfortunately, Pleroma doesn’t even support language tagging yet, so there’s a long way to go. But at least it supports Unicode in custom emoji names, unlike #Mastodon and some others! :gutkato_manĝas_fragon:

I think #Fediverse as a whole has a long way to go toward proper language support. Not just on a technical level, but mentally, too. People first need to recognise that different languages exist and deserve equal support, that people often speak more than just one, that ASCII really isn’t enough for many of them, and so on… these first need be regarded as basic requirements, not as extra fancy features. :gutkato_flucerba:

@liaizon @tusooa @oblomov Yeah. :gutkato_hihias:

It needs to be said that adding support for this in Mastodon is a massive undertaking (requiring the overhaul of no less than one entire line of code) with potentially far-reaching consequences (like displaying previously broken emoji from other instances). So it’s understandable why the devs are hesitant to allow this. :gutkato_averto:

@Jain @critical Don’t worry… :gutkato_3c:

… they’re in my muscle memory. :gutkato_fingropafas:

@davidrevoy @lgm Why? I understand you’re not a fan, but this seems quite harsh. :gutkato_scivola:

@icedquinn I can binary search. :gutkato_fiera:

I either find it or I don't. :gutkato_fiervanta:

Do you love blobcats? Are you a fan of free culture? Then you’ll be happy to know there’s been a brand new blobcat pack made specially (but not exclusively) for the Fediverse! Now also available in English! :gutkato_hura: :flago_britujo:

Designed from scratch for a neater look, these new blobcats try their best to preserve and emphasise the original’s fuzzy feel. Bold, yet lean. Refined, yet silly. Blob, yet cat. :gutkato_kimegesto:

And best of all? They’re all free! Not just free of cost, but free to use, share, and change in whatever way you see fit! Possibly the first truly original blobcat pack released under a free culture licence. What’s a blob if not malleable? Make them yours today! (Or tomorrow. No pressure.) :gutkato_oscedas:

More info on the website, link above. Come in for a visit! :gutkato_trinkas_kakaon:

#lang_en #art #blobcat #blobcats #emoji #emojos #English #Fedi #FediArt #Fediverse #free_art #free_culture #stickers

@BeAware Wait until you see this! :gutkato_naŭza: :gutkato_post_muro:

@susie @Jain Yes, the problem is with Unicode, sadly. Some Fedi software expects emoji names to be composed of ASCII characters only, at times (which of course is utterly ridiculous). :gutkato_ploras_riveron_cede:

The correct solution is for any affected software to fix the bug and support Unicode more properly. Issues have been filed for Pleroma, Mastodon, Misskey, Glitch-SOC, Hometown and Iceshrimp. I guess a separate one should be made for Akkoma? :gutkato_pensas:

Barring that, the blobcat pack should eventually be translated to English (and other languages). In the meantime, should you wish to ASCII-ify the names, I can recommend the following substitution, which is the ‘canonical’ way to do it in Esperanto:

• ĉ → ch
• ĝ → gh
• ĥ → hh
• ĵ → jh
• ŝ → sh
• ŭ → u

… or maybe if more instances stick with the accented ones, it’ll help some maintainers realise that people speak other languages, too. :gutkato_hihias:

@lanodan @cell Language tagging and filtering really should be more of a given for a universal social network. There are people from all over the world on the Fediverse, posting in all sorts of languages, so it makes perfect sense to have some way of handling different languages differently.

Since I’ve personally never used Mastodon, I’m not familiar with their particular way of handling it, but it’s perplexing how long they’ve gone without having a similar feature, and even more so how Pleroma now seems to be falling behind in this regard. :gutkato_flucerba:

@tk It goes back to two columns when your window shrinks. :blobcat: