Post AZBsAFTQcm4ef55ON6 by ghisvail@framapiaf.org
(DIR) More posts by ghisvail@framapiaf.org
(DIR) Post #AZBahrWcNAE53cSMPw by tante@tldr.nettime.org
2023-08-28T09:58:39Z
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We all know the "free software" vs. the corporate "open source" split. But if the last years showed something it is that only using "freedom" as a fundamental principle isn't doing enough, it's just too limited. If we want our communities to build software for a "common good" we might need to start thinking about other fundamental values and reframe "FLOSS" into something more goal oriented.We need to integrate ideas of inclusion and environmentalism, about harm reduction and overcoming internalized colonialism that have shaped so many projects and communities (including to a degree the fediverse)."Freedom" always sounds good and useful but it's just not enough, it's not tangible enough, to open for being captured by right wing narratives.
(DIR) Post #AZBasOysq5pxiNhedM by droidboy@social.cologne
2023-08-28T10:01:10Z
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@tante This is great food for thought. Thank you!
(DIR) Post #AZBb1vmaFkA03NUg0u by chrisg@fosstodon.org
2023-08-28T10:02:53Z
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@tante Exactly that. I think about half of this is licensing, at least that's what i'm saying on my post about it https://radiki.dev/posts/a-small-dbms/The other half is workplace organization. Common good software must be built by coops, otherwise it's ripe for appropriation
(DIR) Post #AZBbID3TnmCoFy9uvw by orkoden@mastodon.cloud
2023-08-28T10:05:50Z
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@tante Some licenses restrict the use for military applications. The JSON license makes it even simpler. „The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.“
(DIR) Post #AZBcYue1bZSG2BmUls by riotnrrd@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T10:20:01Z
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@tante The (a) problem is that any departure from fully-free licensing is met with rejection from the FLOSS community. See e.g. the brouhaha around "source-available" licenses like SSPL, that insert conditions about not hosting the software in the cloud for profit, but are in all other respects open. Sure, in that case it's a commercial criterion rather than an ideological one, but the principle is the same.
(DIR) Post #AZBdQd7ayHjhKDE8BM by brrbrr@mastodon.world
2023-08-28T10:29:44Z
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@tante word of warning: by associating a generic X - which many people can agree on and work towards - with your specific set of political and cultural values, you turn it into X.63bdj7. You split. You divide. You paralyse. People who otherwise have different viewpoints and are made to communicate because of X, no longer seek consensus. This is true in so many fields, particularly climate change. It's the wrong way.
(DIR) Post #AZBlD06FXbsMAbbqiW by flameeyes@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T11:56:55Z
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@tante https://flameeyes.blog/2021/02/23/kind-software/
(DIR) Post #AZBn4DbQAW3VLm86V6 by E_Nonymouse@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T12:17:46Z
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@tante Open Source is sometimes a victim of its own making. Devs who do good work do need to be paid for their time and effort, there's just not enough cash flow in 'free' for them to get that. Result of that is some projects get abandoned.Code forks are another issue as well, so many distros and forks it can be detrimental to the user base. People already privately suffer from choice-paralysis (too many choices)..#opensource
(DIR) Post #AZBrCoFsBAfV9vP28W by ghisvail@framapiaf.org
2023-08-28T10:55:43Z
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@riotnrrd @tante The FLOSS community set a precise definition for what free software is.Now, some projects want to essentially control software usage and profit by predatory cloud actors (fair enough), but they don't want to face the bad press of being banded as proprietary (which they became).So they try to spin it as free-ish, source available, or "open-source in spirit", to keep a positive spin from just closing their previously open codebase.The problem is not with the FLOSS community.
(DIR) Post #AZBrCpBeiKtC38RBCa by riotnrrd@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T10:59:25Z
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@ghisvail @tante Well, that’s the part that I disagree about: I think it’s perfectly legitimate to have such a clause. The software remains free to use, including for large companies; they just can’t directly host it for money. Redistribution is still okay, which means the classic OSS business model of selling support, consulting, and perhaps add-ons remains valid.Should it be the only choice? No.Should it be *a* valid choice? I would argue yes.
(DIR) Post #AZBrCq2TXx8kgx9MX2 by ghisvail@framapiaf.org
2023-08-28T11:11:09Z
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@riotnrrd @tanteAgain, I don't disagree with adding the usage restriction clause. But if this clause restricts usage of the software, it breaks one the core freedoms. In this case, the project just stops referring itself as free software anymore, and everyone moves on.This is totally fine.Spinning it as still free "in spirit" is just a smoke screen for becoming proprietary. That's a waste of time and energy, and a lack of respect to the project's contributors who did not agree to this.
(DIR) Post #AZBrCqvQFf5nRMrFB2 by riotnrrd@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T12:41:34Z
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@ghisvail @tante To me, this is one of those situations where scale meaningfully changes the nature of what is being discussed. Hosting something at the scale of one company is a question of the freedom to use the software. Hosting it at the scale of AWS is a question of the viability of, and control over, the entire project. Maybe this should be a fifth freedom, along the lines of the Zeroth Law of robotics?
(DIR) Post #AZBrCrfrT0EtlOaKYq by ghisvail@framapiaf.org
2023-08-28T13:01:41Z
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@riotnrrd @tante It's an interesting thought, but I fail to see how this can be defined as a freedom without being contradictory to "The freedom to use the program for *any* purpose" (freedom 0, emphasis is mine).
(DIR) Post #AZBrCsNopZOvxj9R4q by tante@tldr.nettime.org
2023-08-28T13:04:05Z
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@ghisvail @riotnrrd Who says that Freedom 0 needs to stay untouched?
(DIR) Post #AZBrXYpSjBFtOhwc9Q by specked@social.right.wtf
2023-08-28T13:07:54Z
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@tante I believe that discussions around values like inclusion, environmentalism, and colonialism are important, but I don't find them to be directly relevant to the field of science and technology. Focusing on the core principles of free and open source software keeps the focus on the fundamental aspects of software development without getting into unrelated areas. In my view, introducing these ideas might come across as virtue signaling and could distract from the technical goals of our projects.
(DIR) Post #AZBsAFTQcm4ef55ON6 by ghisvail@framapiaf.org
2023-08-28T13:14:50Z
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@tante @riotnrrd What are you proposing?
(DIR) Post #AZBsNc0MAKOeIyrNeS by tante@tldr.nettime.org
2023-08-28T13:17:17Z
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@ghisvail @riotnrrd I don't have a ready-made suggestion. I don't even think it's my place to create one. I just see what we got not working for what it needs to do
(DIR) Post #AZBt2lhT1VdmFPeKW0 by mxrn@social.tchncs.de
2023-08-28T13:24:24Z
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@tante Reminds me of a thing David Graeber said in his talk at the c3 in 2019. He paired freedom with care – we take care of other people so they can be free, positively and negatively, and we need to be free to truly care for each other. Maybe that's what copyleft got right: Insisting on the commons makes for a more caring, less exploitative approach, albeit not perfect.(The original context was that care/freedom could replace production/consumption as a more sensible economic paradigm.)
(DIR) Post #AZBw6ibeldgDfoVU12 by katzenberger@social.tchncs.de
2023-08-28T13:59:00Z
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@tante I'm not sure "our communities" are so aligned that they could agree on a "common good".What form of an integration of such ideas are you thinking of? I suppose it's more than just pinning down corresponding software licenses?
(DIR) Post #AZBzIrpaazMBcYVZom by jplebreton@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T14:34:46Z
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@tante basically, i think the original free software movement focused exclusively on licenses as the point of leverage, when licenses are a fairly weak and indirect instrument of ideology, given that the legal system is merely just another weapon that under capitalism can be wielded by the rich against everyone else. that narrowness of focus set the stage for every one of the movement's failures (cultural, technical, political, etc) to date.
(DIR) Post #AZBzONS0Shhf8S6ZXc by clayton@social.coop
2023-08-28T14:35:47Z
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@tante 💯 this is why I've been drawn more and more to the framing of community tech. It combines the value of freedom with that of care. I've got a half-baked blog post I need to finish about its difference from open-source but here are some good resources on the concepthttps://detroitcommunitytech.org/https://www.communitytech.network/
(DIR) Post #AZC10JXZY3i5xyMVRA by ramonita@todon.eu
2023-08-28T14:53:47Z
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@tante also "free software" as an ideology suffers from a severe lack of class consciousness."if the user doesn't control the software, the software becomes an unjust means of control"—this is absolutely correct. but that's just because software is one instance of means of production. in general, it is unethical that means of production are controlled by a small class of owners. proprietary lands, proprietary buildings, proprietary factories, proprietary art, proprietary medicine and housing and natural resources—are all bad for the same reason that proprietary software is, only even more so, because much more far-reaching.free software advocates often show a glaring lack of social perspective. you are not able to software anything at all if there weren't people making the microchips, the buildings you live in, the clothes you wear the food you eat; what about *their* tools and IP being all proprietary and used for unjust control? and how does that relate to "freedom 0" empowering said owners to coop the labour of free software hobbyists to tighten up social control even more?see also:https://ethicalsource.dev/licenses/
(DIR) Post #AZC1CUnHXBssLKWDFA by CodexArcanum@hachyderm.io
2023-08-28T14:55:58Z
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@tanteIt's taken me a long time to understand that most people with power use "freedom" as a way to really mean alienation and isolation. What most people want from "freedom,", having an open future full of good possibilities, comes from living in a society, a community, that offers support in what you want to do!As you say, we need to look at software freedom holistically:What does it run on?Dependencies? Source code? Community access?Maintenance?Resource needs?
(DIR) Post #AZC1HlC1zRNueUba52 by PaulDavisTheFirst@fosstodon.org
2023-08-28T14:56:52Z
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@tante I've spent the last 26+ yrs writing & making a living from libre software and thus have an actual financial indebtedness to a user community.In general, libre s/w devs do not work for/on behalf of anyone/any community. Their work being useful for someone is fortunate but frequently incidental.If there are communities that want s/w developed under a broader manifesto, they need to organize the resources required.As a developer, I am not here to meet somebody else's agenda.
(DIR) Post #AZC21sPhTc5QMnzMoa by miah@hachyderm.io
2023-08-28T15:05:20Z
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@tante We need ethics too!
(DIR) Post #AZC405drWSXGittALA by 0@bark.lgbt
2023-08-28T15:27:26Z
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@tante we could tokenize it, make a core def and then give it social upgrade modules
(DIR) Post #AZC6ZIlytTCnUYbWvw by thegreatape@thechimp.zone
2023-08-28T15:56:26.408214Z
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@tante This is absolutely bullshit. It should be about freedom.... but at the same time it should fit my worldview of what is good vs what is not good.How the fuck do you combat colonialism with github lmao what are you smoking?
(DIR) Post #AZC75vfXoX5VOQ9SGO by Ammienoot@social.ds106.us
2023-08-28T16:02:07Z
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@tante I agree with you entirely, but I think this comes down to how we use FLOSS, rather than how it’s licensed (not sure if you were advocating for that or not). My own view is that FLOSS is the obvious route to achieving those aims you outline because it can be owned and developed by communities that care about those things (myself included). A license won’t stop a right wing asshole - they’ll just find another way (see Twitter etc). But I agree fundamentally.
(DIR) Post #AZCBZcoirxTBQdrOO8 by Purple_Sky@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T16:52:19Z
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@tante Like the use of the word "humanity"
(DIR) Post #AZCCkLoyV3q9r9elHs by anonpleb@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T17:05:21Z
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@tante Inclusion is a corporate value...
(DIR) Post #AZCCtdWo2FYXNbaNw8 by adrianmorales@ieji.de
2023-08-28T17:06:58Z
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@tante It seems like something that would piss off a lot of people. I'm in! 😅👍
(DIR) Post #AZCEL7BLzSv97gDakq by kadin@mastodon.sdf.org
2023-08-28T17:23:14Z
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@tante The issue you'll likely run into is that there aren't a lot of goals that the FLOSS dev community has in common *besides* "software freedom".There are developers from across the political spectrum, from Libertarians to no-shit tankie Communists. You've got Anarchist cypherpunks, diehard Free Speech advocates, Secular Humanist progressives, religious fundamentalists, Zionists, nationalists, anticolonialists, intelligence agencies…It's a very big tent.#software #politics #freedom
(DIR) Post #AZCHyAu8NuMxp7TsDQ by chrisjrn@social.coop
2023-08-28T18:02:18Z
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@tante The "Declaration of Digital Autonomy" (due to @karen and @mollydb) from 2020 addresses a good number of these things:https://techautonomy.org/ (@bitprophet)
(DIR) Post #AZCIhLKsRpTLCtWldY by glyph@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T18:12:11Z
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@tante Predictably, everybody in the replies here is immediately arguing about license terms. I really wish we could move past that, acknowledge that the "four freedoms" framework from GNU is pretty good *in the narrow, specific context of licensing*, but a disastrously incomplete vision of a social movement. You can't hack your user's brains into being better people by using license terms and I wish we'd stop trying.
(DIR) Post #AZCPYYTavBsX2DMTpI by hamishcampbell@mastodon.social
2023-08-28T19:28:57Z
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@tante we use the #4opens as a tool to do this https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/4opens/wikiIt's a social test for #foss and #opensource that we do need as you say.
(DIR) Post #AZE3szCxQyED3dpwky by astrojuanlu@social.juanlu.space
2023-08-29T14:35:37Z
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@tante FLOSS will be FLOSS forever. We don't need to repurpose the name.What we need is to move on from FLOSS.Call it "ethical source", "coopyleft" (double "o" for "cooperatives"), or whatever.People need to understand that FrEeDoM (whether is a copyleft approach or a permissive approach) does not necessarily lead to social good.And yes, alternatives are difficult to enforce, but it's a conversation we need to have as well.
(DIR) Post #AZFurflDk7EFBL585Y by natacha@ps.s10y.eu
2023-08-30T12:03:55Z
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@tante well freedom is not limited, plus it is a collective endeavor that encompasses all you cited previously: My freedom begins where others freedom starts. Society needs to be a mean to respect and grow all our collective knowledges, this is freedom.
(DIR) Post #AZaoh6CAMpDciGLdhY by fairkom@chaos.social
2023-09-09T14:03:43Z
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@tante fully agree that the terms FLOSS or Open Source do not really describe what we try to deliver: An ethical approach to software production, distribution, deployments and hosting. Maybe we should just summarise those attributes and call it "Ethical Software / IT / Hosting". A good example how that could be measured and (self-)evuated is the economy for the common good movement https://www.ecogood.org/.