In stark contrast to proprietary software, open source does not — cannot, even — die. Yes, it can be disused or rusty or fusty, but as long as anyone is interested in it at all, it lives and breathes. Even should the interest wane to nothing, open source software survives still: its life as machine may be suspended, but it becomes as literature, waiting to be discovered by a future generation.
http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2017/09/04/the-sudden-death-and-eternal-life-of-solaris/
#oracle #solaris #open-source #open_source #free_software
I think, that GPLv3 is a license for which there came historical necessity.
Some people do not want their code to be used to lock devices. These people need a corresponding license.
And, I think that there is a historical necessity for the license, which does not allow to use the software by/for dictatorships/authoritarian regimes.
Because there might be someone who do not want let’s say his software to be used in order to prepare lists of political prisoners. I would not want to help even a soft regime.
The question which comes, then, who/how to decide which regime is authoritarian, which is dictatorship. Should the license contain direct pointers to the number of countries, or to refer to other organization’s assessments.
#software #free_software #open_sourge #gpl #license #code #regime #dictatorship #freedom
It is often said that the government is not able to use money/resources efficiently. As efficient as private entrepreneurs can. Well, I agree.
However recently I’ve seen a couple of proprietary software projects, which were closed by the authors. You cannot download the mobile application. There is no website. It’s over.
And I have thought about community projects, collaborative projects. It looks like sometimes community projects can be even more efficient, because(if) they have no(limited) means to earn money. They decrease expenses as much as possible, and design software accordingly. And they can be more sustainable, though they have no income. Of course it depends on the community size. Number of speakers of the technology. (:
An example? Consider failed social network start-up. Now consider Diaspora. Social network start-up had to pay a lot for servers and infrastructure. Keep a space, and developers. Diaspora is hosted in different places, even on cheap one board computers. That’s about design and efficiency. Of course it has problems, and the development is not that fast as desirable. But the project is very efficient in some aspects.
#design #efficiency #free_software #software #diaspora #social_network #web #freedom #technology #sustainability
We all have seen those tables, which explain which free software can be a replacement for proprietary software.
When I was installing GNU/Linux to my friends, I was trying not to tell them - “this is replacement of that”, but show them some features that they did not even know about, something that exists only in GNU/Linux world.
I think, it’s not a very good sign, when we have many free software projects that tend to implement the same product as proprietary project.
In that case, it means that innovation first happens in proprietary world, then we try to copy and implement it, to not fall far behind. And very often our implementations are not good enough.
We need more “authentic” free projects, and let the proprietary software try to copy/implement it. In that case they will fall behind.
I think it’s not a coincidence that innovative ideas happen in proprietary thinking brains. This is because they think “what new thing can we do in order to earn?”. And we are too busy implementing free analogues of that proprietary software, often not good as original.
May be that’s because we are not used to think innovative enough. We ourselves tend to think more in terms of “repeating”, instead of “innovating”.
Sorry if I hurt your feelings. - may be I need to put it under every post I write.
#free_software #free-software #softwarelibre #proprietary_software #linux #gnu #software #innovation
let’s face it. diaspora is loosing in competition with corporate social networks. most of us don’t have our real-life friends here. i am cut from my society, from local political discussions, from cats who live with my friends, because i am not on facebook. that’s a loss. and that’s because diaspora, and other decentralized social networks loose.
we create our own interconnected world, but we lost connection with the other world, most people live in.
well, that’s not a big deal, may be. it’s just a diaspora. but this relates to other important technologies that loose. we failed to explain why it’s better to encrypt emails. why it’s better to use xmpp/tox. why it’s better to use free software. we failed.
and partly because we are doing “marketing” wrong.
who uses diaspora, and what kind of propaganda do we see here most of the times? leftist/anarchist points of view mostly. where is the other part of the society?
I believe, it’s perfectly right thing to have your own server.
If you think you should have a gun, then you also should want to have your own server and encrypt emails.
But we don’t market technologies with slogans like that. And this is partly why we loose. And when we loose, it’s not only about technologies, it’s about ideas. Our ideas fail. That’s why this is important.
P. S. sometimes we gain power. big part of software developers already want to not depend on corporations and prefer using free software for their projects. that’s why microsoft and apple had to open source their development tools. but these are developers. we need regular people to use free and decentralized technologies, and when facebook/google/twitter will change. facebook will adopt something like ostatus, or whatever it be, if he looses users in case he does not. google was using “don’t be evil” until it did not harm it’s commercial interests. so even company which did not want to be “evil” had to become in order to compete. Why? because of us. And because of our wrong marketing.
People don’t get us. They think we are a couple of religious fanatics. Because we behave like them. So they have a point.
#diaspora #free_software #xmpp #jabber #pgp #gpg #encryption #crypto #marketing #competition
apparently today software in order to be competitive, must be not only good, but also free and / or open.
software for software developers.
microsoft and apple probably got wind of that, and opening c# and swift compilers followed.
however, developers differ from the “regular user” and they let’s say developed and obtained more needs than they realized ten years ago.
will come a day, when this “regular user” will have a need to use free and/or open software, therefore software producers in order to be more competitive will have to free/open their software? i don’t know. i don’t know.
i don’t know.
#free-software #free_software #need #market #economy #competition #c_sharp #swift #microsoft #apple #freedom
https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v6/
I don’t know if it’s worth to buy a refubrished s2. gta04 phone on the other side is too unappealing for masses. jolla could manage to appear on the list, but even if/when they open sailfish, there are problems with drivers or firmware. sigh.
#fsf #gift #free_software #freedom #givefreely
i was reading fpc-3.0 release related discussions, and apparently there is a change in perception. not many reactions like “who ever needs it?”, “bury it”, “is it still alive?” any more. apparently more than 15 years was required to realize that it’s a normal project, not worse than many others, not some outdated technology, but keeps developing, there is a community, they do interesting things, have nice solutions, and project doesn’t look like it’s going to die. it’s alive and running. (:
#community #society #free_software #fpc #pascal #lazarus #comment #project #perception
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIlJ3YR6TYs
#rms #free-software #free_software #lawrence_lessig #lessig #freedom
in the wake of this post and comments.
i accept that free software is often far behind it’s proprietary analogues. we, the society must learn to not take it for granted.
we must pay to the creators to support their work. we must hire developers around us to contribute our desired patches. we must set up bounties for necessary features.
thus we will encourage development of free software.
because free doesn’t mean free-ware, it’s not as free beer but as free speech.
software requires investments like tree requires water.
#free_software #free-software #libresoftware #open-source #open_source #freeware #development #investment #bounty #software #freedom
i have an idea: almost any software will eventually become free, because otherwise there would appear an analogue of that software which is free, and the first won’t survive competition with the second.
because free has an important property/quality - it’s free. and market will choose free software, it would prefer to pay for the free alternative and/or it’s support.
btw, this is about development, about progress, thanks to entrepreneurship and fair competition.
i would also like to add - free software is a way to measure democracy: if it exists in country, if it develops, it means that laws about equal possibilities to make business indeed work. moreover, if authorities choose free software over proprietary, it means that they are less corrupted, less dependent on already existing corporations that sell proprietary software. again, this means it is more about equal opportunities and working law and court, about society where companies must compete by qualities of their production, not by using law, authorities, brute force.
of course this is not binary, but scalar. countries have some value of democracy, it’s not true or false, it’s more or less.
and once the free software idea appeared, it’ll inevitably win. #free-software #free_software #democracy #market #law #court #entrepreneurship #competition
