50 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2024
  2. Jan 2024
  3. Apr 2023
    1. Google allowed third parties to build their own Wave services (be it private or commercial) because it wanted the Wave protocol to replace the e-mail protocol.[2][16][17] Initially, Google was the only Wave service provider, but it was hoped that other service providers would launch their own Wave services, possibly designing their own unique web-based clients as is common with many email service providers.
  4. Oct 2022
  5. Sep 2022
  6. Jul 2022
    1. Free as in ...? Points out that freedoms afforded by foss software to the average computer user are effectively the same as proprietary software, because it's too difficult to even find the source and build it, let alone make any changes. Advocates the foss developers should not think only about the things that users are not legally prevented from doing, but about what things they are realistically empowered and supported in doing.
  7. May 2022
    1. as if the only option we had to eat was factory-farmed fast food, and we didn’t have any way to make home-cooked meals

      See also An app can be a home-cooked meal along with this comment containing RMS's remarks with his code-as-recipe metaphor in the HN thread about Sloan's post:

      some of you may not ever write computer programs, but perhaps you cook. And if you cook, unless you're really great, you probably use recipes. And, if you use recipes, you've probably had the experience of getting a copy of a recipe from a friend who's sharing it. And you've probably also had the experience — unless you're a total neophyte — of changing a recipe. You know, it says certain things, but you don't have to do exactly that. You can leave out some ingredients. Add some mushrooms, 'cause you like mushrooms. Put in less salt because your doctor said you should cut down on salt — whatever. You can even make bigger changes according to your skill. And if you've made changes in a recipe, and you cook it for your friends, and they like it, one of your friends might say, “Hey, could I have the recipe?” And then, what do you do? You could write down your modified version of the recipe and make a copy for your friend. These are the natural things to do with functionally useful recipes of any kind.

      Now a recipe is a lot like a computer program. A computer program's a lot like a recipe: a series of steps to be carried out to get some result that you want. So it's just as natural to do those same things with computer programs — hand a copy to your friend. Make changes in it because the job it was written to do isn't exactly what you want. It did a great job for somebody else, but your job is a different job. And after you've changed it, that's likely to be useful for other people. Maybe they have a job to do that's like the job you do. So they ask, “Hey, can I have a copy?” Of course, if you're a nice person, you're going to give a copy. That's the way to be a decent person.

  8. Apr 2022
    1. except its codebase is completely incomprehensible to anyone except the original maintainer. Or maybe no one can seem to get it to build, not for lack of trying but just due to sheer esotericism. It meets the definition of free software, but how useful is it to the user if it doesn't already do what they want it to, and they have no way to make it do so?

      Kartik made a similar remark in an older version of his mission page:

      Open source would more fully deliver on its promise; are the sources truly open if they take too long to grok, so nobody makes the effort?

      https://web.archive.org/web/20140903010656/http://akkartik.name/about

  9. Mar 2022
    1. Open source is the ideology that all software should be free.

      It's weird that in 2021 this canard associated with conflating libre and gratis is still showing up.

  10. Jan 2022
  11. Oct 2021
    1. Open source software is cited as the first domain where networked open sharing produced a tangible benefit

      The phrase should be:

      The Free Software and Open-source movements were the first domains where networked open sharing produced a tangible benefit.

      Why?

      Free Software movement started in 1983.

      Open-source movement started in 1998.

  12. Mar 2021
    1. Nothing about the Unix Philosophy explicitly relates to a culture of software sharing. However, it should be no mystery that it comes from the software community where we argue at length about the best way to make our programs properly Free. Software that is developed according to these principles is easier to share, reuse, repurpose, and maintain.
  13. Feb 2021
    1. A free cultural work (free content) is, according to the definition of Free Cultural Works, one that has no significant legal restriction on people's freedom to:
  14. Jan 2021
    1. If it is powerful and reliable, that means it serves them better.

      software is often oriented towards performance as primary (if not only) criterium, it is developed through a performance-centric lens.

      other cultural, social, ethical factors are ignored or not taken into account

  15. Nov 2020
    1. Express - 19 $ 🏃‍♀️ Skip the Review Queue 🕒 Published in 3 days 💌 Full Customer Support 💚 Support the team

      Wow, after seeing how this site works, I don't like much like it anymore.

      Esp. this below:

      Choose your preferred publish date - 9 $ Feature your project on top for 14 days and get an additional tweet - 19 $

      I hope there is/will be soon a more open/free alternative (like the "awesome" lists that use GitHub PRs instead of an opaque/proprietary submisison form).

  16. Oct 2020
  17. Aug 2020
    1. Stallman has also stated that considering the practical advantages of free software is like considering the practical advantages of not being handcuffed, in that it is not necessary for an individual to consider practical reasons in order to realize that being handcuffed is undesirable in itself.
    2. Free software thus differs from: proprietary software, such as Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides or iWork from Apple. Users cannot study, change, and share their source code. freeware, which is a category of proprietary software that does not require payment for basic use.
    1. GitLab is moving all development for both GitLab Community Edition and Enterprise Edition into a single codebase. The current gitlab-ce repository will become a read-only mirror, without any proprietary code. All development is moved to the current gitlab-ee repository, which we will rename to just gitlab in the coming weeks. As part of this migration, issues will be moved to the current gitlab-ee project.
    2. How does the licensing work in this new setup? Everything in the ee/ directory is proprietary. Everything else is free and open source software. If your merge request does not change anything in the ee/ directory, the process of contributing changes is the same as when using the gitlab-ce repository.
  18. Jun 2020
  19. May 2020
    1. RAND terms exclude intangible goods which the producer may decide to distribute at no cost and where third parties may make further copies. Take for example a software package that is distributed at no cost and to which the developer wants to add support for a video format which requires a patent licence. If there is a licence which requires a tiny per-copy fee, the software project will not be able to avail of the licence. The licence may be called "(F)RAND", but the modalities discriminate against a whole category of intangible goods such as free software[11] and freeware.[12]
    2. The Free Software Foundation suggests the term "uniform fee only" (UFO) to reflect that such "(F)RAND" licenses are inherently discriminatory.
  20. Mar 2020
    1. Skype is a clear example: when one person uses the non-free Skype client software, it requires another person to use that software too – thus surrendering their freedoms along with yours. (Google Hangouts have the same problem.) We should refuse to use such programs even briefly, even on someone else's computer.

      which should be an alternative solution?

    2. Both non-free software and SaaSS can spy on the user, shackle the user, and even attack the user.
    1. The free software movement is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedom to run the software, to study and change the software, and to redistribute copies with or without changes.
  21. Dec 2019
    1. There are thousands of to-do list apps out there, in part because no system works perfectly for everyone. I’m not going to say todo.txt is the exception, and that it will work for everyone, because that would be crazy. But todo.txt is the most flexible tool I’ve come across. In part, this is because of the sheer number of clients available, but also because the simplicity lends itself to improvisation.

      First time I've seen improvisation used like this.

  22. Aug 2019
  23. Jul 2016
    1. “the free software movement does this.” And again, I have to say: not quite. 

      True. But some of us are saying something slightly different. The free software movement shares some of those principles and those go back to a rather specific idea about personal/individual agency.

    2. Convivial tools should be accessible — free, even.

      Free as in (neoliberal) speech.

    3. The computer programming the child.”

      Stallman often uses a similar idea to condemn proprietary software. Rushkoff proposes a similar alternative. Should we choose the red pill or the blue pill?

  24. Jan 2016
    1. unlike Adobe DPS, Inkling, or some other would-be competitors…it’s free.

      And unlike Calibre, it’s “free with purchase” and not “free as in speech” or even, really, “free as in beer”.

  25. Dec 2015
    1. if the group should decide to fork Moodle together

      Contrary to Free Software, Open Source has special affordances for forking, even if the forks become commercial.

    2. alliance of Moodle service providers that currently collaborate on Moodle-related projects of mutual interest
  26. Nov 2015
    1. The four freedoms don’t limit us as creators — they open possibilities for us as creators and consumers. When you apply them to software, you get Linux, Webkit/Chrome, and WordPress. When you apply them to medicine, you get the Open Genomics Engine, which is accelerating cancer research and bringing us closer to personalized treatment. When you apply them to companies, you get radically geographically distributed, results-based organizations like Automattic. When you apply them to events you get TEDx, Barcamp, and WordCamp. When you apply them to knowledge, you get Wikipedia.
    2. as of December 2013, 21% of websites are powered by WordPress. One-fifth of the web is built with a tool that anyone can use, change, or improve, whenever and however they want (even more when you count other open source projects
    3. B2 was ultimately abandoned by its creator. If I’d been using it under a proprietary license, that would have been the end — for me, and all its other users. But because we had freedoms 2 and 3, Mike Little and I were able to use the software as a foundation
    4. I’ve spent a third of my life building software based on Stallman’s four freedoms, and I’ve been astonished by the results. WordPress wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for those freedoms, and it couldn’t have evolved the way it has. WordPress was based on a program called B2/cafelog that predated it by two years. I was using B2 because it had freedoms 0 and 1
    1. The Free Software Foundation's definition of free software, originally expressed by Richard Stallman. It is free as in free speech, not as in free beer. Software offered for a fee can still be free. A program is free software if the users have four essential freedoms:

      0. Run the program as you wish, for any purpose.<br> 1. Study the source code, and change it as you please.<br> 2. Copy and distribute the original program.<br> 3. Copy and distribute modified versions.

  27. Oct 2015
    1. It’s free. 

      Free as in “tracked”. Sure, Google signed the privacy pledged and they don’t use data to advertise directly to students. But there are many loopholes. As rms makes very clear, GAfE is the exact opposite of Free Software. It’s “not having to pay for your own enslavement”.

  28. Sep 2015