Notices by Luis Villa (luis_in_brief@social.coop)

Or to put it a different way: open source maintainers are one of the most verifiably self-taught people in the history of the world, *when they want to be*. Happy to dig into tools, Google, books, mailing list archives, source code, stack traces, whatever. *If they’re motivated and have time for it.*

Saying “what they really need is… an online course” is… actually a tacit admission that what’s actually missing is time and motivation.

I’ve told LF (and others) repeatedly that “education” as the leading point is insulting. Many maintainers know exactly what they need to do, but they lack time and energy for it. Lecturing them, I mean “giving them skills”, is… rarely the need or solution.

But “education” allows LF (and friends like GH) to continue elephant-in-the-room-ing the actual solution, which is paying maintainers for the trillions of dollars of value they create.

https://fosstodon.org/@donmccurdy/113512775802077660

Cool to see a company whose annual revenue is $250B announce a $1.25M open source security fund (that’s about three *minutes* of revenue), in a press release that without blinking or apparent irony (1) says maintainers need more time and (2) requires maintainers to take a multi-week, many-hour training program.

https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/announcing-github-secure-open-source-fund/

This “does/should go viral” comparison is both obviously true and horribly depressing. Ponder: what would a social network designed to nudge towards the “should” look like?
https://mastodon.social/@wearenew_public/113510753761183369

@evan I love ya ev, but the idea that you can follow people on Bluesky “almost seamlessly” is not true. It’s hard for normal humans to follow people on different Masto instances seamlessly even!

@maj @evan other than that gaping canyon, it’s seamless

Lacking empathy for (or often even curiosity about) why people choose other options, is a key red flag for a failing open project. @mekkaokereke is 🎯here.

https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/113495572785443904

@jwz I don’t know if you’re a podcast person at all, but I do know you’re a nerd, so I wholeheartedly recommend the Revolutions podcast; doesn’t cover all five French Republics but does get into several of them. Maybe a good listen while you’re on a SOMA nature walk. https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/revolutions_podcast/

Someone here pointed me at a #Wordpress plugin that essentially shows you all your posts in a very spreadsheet-like interface, so that you can mass-delete, sort by stats, etc.

But now I can’t find it. Any pointers?

@ntnsndr love the intuition of the paper, especially in acknowledging the challenges of modern governance as an important factor (which I think is too often ignored/handwaved in left criticisms of tech).

cc @blakereid @paulohm

@ntnsndr wait when did First Monday do the subtlest revamp so that it looks basically the same yet no longer clearly c. 1999?

Pondering distracting movies to watch, instead of the news, early Tues. evening. American, maybe political, but not tooooo topical.

Independence Day? Hamilton? Mr. Smith Goes to Washington?

Genuinely not trying to start an argument here: is anyone tracking all the responses (pro and con!) to the OSI AI definition? Or is that going to have to be me? Eg

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2024/oct/31/open-source-ai-definition-osaid-erodes-foss/

I am increasingly convinced that elections officials are some of our most undersung government heroes. (cc @ben who has been saying this all along)
https://floss.social/@downey/113387281091862923

@evan nothing like what you went through. How is your recovery coming?

Took a fall while jogging; just some bruising but could easily have smacked my head hard.

🍎 Watch fall alarm did the right thing—endorse turning it on for you and the older folks around you.

I don’t think charity works well for funding FOSS at the scale we need, but I have to give it to the @opensourcepledge folks: advertising for shame in S.F. and NYC is bold as hell. Fight on, dudes.
https://fosstodon.org/@opensourcepledge/113317944830385330

@ntnsndr @ben isn’t automattic itself partially PE-owned?

@report_press sad that this is needed, but thank you for your service.

Is there any significance to the timing of the release, or just “when it was done it was done”?

“Opponents: Starchild” Ah, SF ballots.