4dpuzzle

You’re right. The ‘open source’ android phones are the perfect example. But FOSS needs to stop relying on these fascist hardware stack and opt for better open modular platforms. We have examples for such things - like the framework laptops or fairphones. It’s somewhat tolerable for laptops. But we are still too far behind in terms of mobiles and desk boxes needed for these sorts of projects.

Of course you wouldn’t. I’m talking about the mob that would. A mob with no more than a few neurons collectively is a danger to everyone else.

I’m part of that group. If OSI and FSF want to control the definition of something, they should make new and unique terms, not just attempt to take over a concept that predates both of them.

Call it OSI-Approved Zero-Restriction Licensing or something.

Whether that term existed before it or not, that’s what people understand now. When talking about FOSS software, those definitions are what people expect - by a humongous wide margin. Calling those terms ‘generic’ is the weakest argument I have heard to dismiss the rigorous meaning people attach to it. Standards are centralized for a reason - so that everyone is on the same page. There’s nothing wrong with it. Claiming otherwise isn’t anarchy - it’s an intent to cause confusion*.

Trying to subvert those definitions and trying to pass of non-commercial as either Free software or Open source software are in my opinion, rather malevolent distortion of an existing paradigm meant to help only the companies that I mentioned before - those that want to exploit the FOSS ecosystem, but without making the necessary compromises. It’s an attempt to exploit a widely-held belief based on a rather vague and frankly misguided technicality.

Non-commercial sources already have an appropriate term - ‘source available’. It’s another generic term with a well-defined meaning. Hijacking the meaning of ‘open source’ and ‘free software’, instead of using this one is the perfect indication of the misleading nature of the hijack. And looking at the prevalence of this, I’m starting to suspect a widespread astroturfing/misinformation campaign.

Funny, that’s how I feel about OSI stepping in to claim control of that term.

Funny, they just used a generic term to mean something, while the exploiters use the term that means something to hide their true intentions and profiteer.

You could have the same privileges if you just work hard enough! /s

There are still people around who believe that he’s the tech messiah sent to deliver them to Mars.

I felt like I was going crazy sometimes with how often people in the FOSS community insist that nothing is wrong when large companies are massively profiting off of unpaid labor that is meant to help people

Starting a project as just source-available or with noncommercial clause is just fine. But the definition of free software and open source are pretty unambiguous - software with noncommercial clause can’t be either. The problem really happens when certain companies/projects want the advantages of the FOSS label, but don’t want to make the compromises associated. Any FOSS project has certain advantages that comes with the label - promotion by individuals and industries, widespread training and external contributions. Some companies/projects start off as FOSS (almost always with CLA) and take advantage of all those. Then when they’re popular, they switch to non-commercial, citing competition. Hashicorp and Redis are examples of these. When they cite unfair competition, they’re outright denying the contributions of external players like contributors and industry that popularized it. It’s basically a rug pull.

Another form of this is a recent trend of people claiming that non-commercial clauses count as FOSS. I’ve heard weird claims like the FSF and OSI don’t a monopoly on the definition of what’s FS or OSS. Yet others simply ignore these definitions. Any project that wants to be source-available should compete on their own merit, rather than riding and exploiting the world’s preference for FOSS.

I think that non-commercial-use clauses are a good way forward for certain projects, and commercial licenses for others.

Just want to reiterate - it’s ok as long as it starts as such, instead of doing a bait and switch. But another method is to use AGPL or similar license for all your code. The corporations that exploit FOSS code hate this license. And that’s why they widely promote the idea that copyleft licenses are less-free compared to permissive licenses (less free for them to exploit, perhaps). Unfortunately, many FOSS developers have bought this BS.

by turning it into part of their closed-source product

Corporations convert a lot of FOSS code into part of their closed source products. Using copyleft instead of permissive license is a good way to prevent that. But that aside, there is one class of software whose exploitation can’t be solved with copyleft licenses - cloud software. Many companies that switched licenses were offering cloud services. And then AWS of GCP comes and offers their cloud version, forcing the smaller companies to go source-available. The main problem I see is, why are they cloud software? The main goal of free software is freedom - especially the freedom to privacy, to own the data and to decide on the computation. That’s much better served on local machines than on the ‘cloud’. That’s much easier today with machines that are magnitudes of order more advanced than a decade old ones in terms of computational power and storage. Yet, we see companies wanting to turn all that computing power and storage into mere thin clients with everything from note-taking tool to entire operating systems offered as SaaS. This entire problem happened because the ‘freedom’ part of ‘FOSS’ got de-emphasized in-lieu of profiteering.

It feels like news agencies run these stories just to rub it in his face.

A lot of stupid techno wannabes will think that this is cool and ruin it for everyone else. We need that laughing man tech from Ghost in a Shell.

The police use it more like an excuse to harass people of color.

Slightly brighter and shinier. The enamel gives it a slightly darker matte finish. More importantly though, the peeled/burned enamel looks different from copper.

To add, enameled wires are also used in motor windings and old CRT monitors (deflector windings). The easiest way to identify it is to scratch with a knife or burn a small portion of the wire to see if the enamel separates.

You could lend a hand or donate some money, you know! I mean, they do provide it to you for free after putting up with all the shit that Google throws at them. You don’t have to be grateful. But the least you could do is not insult someone’s charity they pay with their personal time.

Either the Americans have very weird ideas about transportation or they’re completely controlled by auto companies. I don’t understand how they think that cars or this stupidloop is better than high speed rail. Traveling by train is far more relaxing, way less infuriating and leaves time for you to do something else meaningful. US is probably the only country that went back on rail transport. Every other country is taking it as far as they possibly can.

The biggest reason why I admire SpaceX so much is that they manage to do so much with this hypermoron at the helm. Two other examples besides the hyperloop are the Vegas loop and his vision for neuralink. Apparently, SpaceX has special tactics to stoke his grandiose ego and trick him into giving them the freedom they need.

It’s true that most people won’t know or care. But the only ones who can make a difference are the ones who understand the situation. We shouldn’t assume that nobody will listen to us. If we tell a hundred people, perhaps 5 will listen - and even that’s a pessimistic assumption. Even such small changes add up in the long run. The last nail on the coffin of our freedom will be the silence of those with the wisdom to recognize its erosion.

Google has also started delaying the approval of revisions of privacy-related addons. This is an all out war against user privacy. Everyone, please stop using or promoting this Trojan malware called chrome or anything based on it.

Exactly! Look at how well XMPP/Jabber is doing after FB and Google embraced it.

A lot of clueless users will get on Threads and attract attention to it. Then governments, public institutions and other organizations will join it too due to the attention. Open fediverse users will protest against their choice of Threads, but will be pushed back, citing the federated nature of threads. Finally without any recourse, open fediverse users will start following these Threads accounts for important updates. And then fine morning, meta will announce that they’re cutting the federation due to ‘spam from the open fediverse’. And the open fediverse users will be left high and dry without updates from these important accounts. Many will resist it and stay on the fediverse. But a huge population without such strong moral stances, will abandon the fediverse and move to Threads to retain their access to the important updates. And the fediverse will become a shadow of its former self. The end!

I don’t think such blanket waivers are valid under many jurisdictions. The companies are putting such clauses to get an upper hand, just in case some courts are willing to consider it. Honestly though, such clauses should be considered grossly exploitative and made outright illegal.

The lack of “smart” feed is a feature.

Absolutely! The feed isn’t a random mishmash. The natural order in which people post gives the Mastodon feed a very organic feeling. And there is no doom scrolling. You eventually hit the point where you left it last time and there’s nothing more to see. Contrary to how it sounds, it gives you a feeling of satisfaction and closure. Honestly, the algorithmic feeds have done great psychological harm.