Damn, thanks for letting me know. I’ve been using the Simple suite for years and even bought some of them because I wanted to reward the developer. I’m saddened by the news of the acquisition. I’ll swap them with the new fork.
Yeah, you are doing it wrong. As I am guessing you already know, even if you haven't fully admitted it to yourself yet. All telemetry should be opt-in.
As i understand google and Microsoft don’t really fit here
Probably the definition should look something like: companies that proactively did actions towards harming open source culture/community/movement. Don’t respect foss licensing, etc
I nominate Gitea for this one, for hijacking the project, and making it for profit organization
Also, Ultimate Guitar with their kido musescore, for basically trying to do the same thing that manga company is trying to do right now
And my favorite… Facebook for their oculus privacy and for threatening to sue everyone who tries to jailbreak or modify their devices
Simple tools is probably not considered open source anymore
P.S. oh! Really also think about Proton, Brave, and Telegram
Three companies that are famous for saying they are foss, but in really it’s often not exactly that
Proton’s and telegram’s servers are not foss
Telegram and brave had many instances of delaying publishing the source, even though they already updated the apps
Also, not sure how about now, but telegram is famous for having not reproducible builds, brave probably too
Proton’s server code is not Open Source because it contains filter and anti spam detection which if released, would severely hamper their ability to detect spam and keep their users safe + detect abuse for their service.
Proton has had extensive security audits done and their claims have been backed up by independent third parties.
The definition should be further modified to include legitimate reasons for not open sourcing some code + having audits to back up claims.
Facebook has their reasons to keep stuff as closed as possible, and they don’t claim to be opensource
But proton does, and it’s not about privacy or security, but about using banner of foss just for their own benefit, and don’t contribute what they claim to the foss community
They open source all of their clients (when not in beta). They maintain multiple open source cryptographic libraries, in multiple languages, which a lot of developers and companies go on to use. They have a yearly fundraiser for open source and digital rights groups, which they contribute a $100,000 to each year.
Just because their server code is not open source, doesn’t mean they don’t support open source. It’s not an all or nothing situation. Binary thinking and classification is a very dangerous and naïve way to look at things.
I’m not sure. The benefit of open source is that you can just take it and use it. And even incorporate it into your own projects. And it’s super easy, all you have to do is make the source available if it’s copyleft.
Now people want to add money to the mix, define valid use-cases, have me file paperwork to become a non-profit etc… Especially adding money to the mix could turn out bad in my eyes. Currently people are incentivised by other things. Software development and usage is a level playing field and you get gifted awesome programs. I’m really not sure if more capitalism helps. (But yes, I also think it’s annoying that companies like IBM, Amazon and Google make big money and often don’t contribute. And maybe handling money is unavoidable, for example since nowadays many projects need to pay for infrastructure, or do automated builds / tests / CI and that also costs money unless Github helps you out.)
I already dislike the growing amount of Source-Available software, and software that contains the commons clause. Can I now share this with my friends? Can they invite some more people to the instance? Do I need a lawyer and do proper accounting if they contribute paying for the server? What if the software relies on other software (libraries/databases) that aren’t free anymore?
That’s a fair point that I had not considered – it’s a shortcoming in the premise of my inquiry. I wonder if it’s possible, if at all, to create any recommendation service that doesn’t compromise on user privacy. It may not be, as it would require a user’s history, which, given enough entries, can be used to identify them.
Its possible with anonymous data. But you do need other user’s data. So it would need to somehow be not just self-hostee but also federated. With lots of dsts from other servers
The issue, I think, is that having access to a user’s entire listening history could very well be used to identify that user – one’s full listening history is likely to be rather unique.
Don’t kid yourselves, regardless of all your ideals open source only works because it’s free from a monetary perspective.
Companies work on patches to Linux or other software because it primarily benefits themselves, and they only use Linux because it’s free. Companies create hardware on Linux because it’s free. They can manufacturer cheap devices and people will buy them because they were low cost primarily because of the use of FOSS software.
Nearly all of FOSS is funded by corporations whether you like it or not, for the reasons you want to hear or not. The only thing that drives people is money.
The FOSS contributions from companies mentioned is only at the kernel level. And a lot that use the kernel, but with proprietary blobs for their hardware. I suspect that is because kernel/embedded development is hard and costly.
Most of the dominate OSes people use, with the exception of Windows, is based on an FOSS kernel, with then the layers above and applications being proprietary.
These software systems are being used to lock people in to the specific platforms and perform user hostile behavior. So while having the kernel be FOSS, it doesn’t result in user freedoms imagined by FOSS, it just companies reducing their costs.
they only use Linux because it’s free. Companies create hardware on Linux because it’s free
Companies use open source software because it’s the cheapest option. It’s all about margins.
Nearly all of FOSS is funded by corporations whether you like it or not
Yes, and FOSS can get a lot more funding if they charged companies even a little bit.
So as long as it’s cheaper to pay a fee to continue to use an open-source software than it is to hire a group of developers to produce and maintain the same thing, the idea is viable.
Hundreds of thousand of unpaid open source contributors would have a word about that. In fact, millions of voluntary workers in other fields, too.
You’re right that companies contribute to open source as well, and that their motivations are probably self serving. Your conclusion doesn’t hold water, though.
IMHO, money is something that exists in the world and that I need to live. It’s a necessary evil, not a universal human driving force. And believe me, I’m neither rich or even financially afloat.
Important note: app developers don’t publish their apps on the official F-Droid repository. Other people (maintainers) download source code and compiling these apps. Therefore, updates are delayed by a week. You cannot update the app from other source because F-Droid version signed by a different key, so you must reinstall the app, deleting all the data.
I started using Obtainium to get updates directly from GitHub. It also has support for F-Droid and many other sources. I use F-Droid website mostly to discover apps.
Depends on whether you’re going to install apps from the official F-Droid repository or not. Third party F-droid repos (like IzzyOnDroid) are not affected by this.
Suppose you have some app (a hypothetical Lemmy app) installed from the official F-Droid repo. You logged in an account, changed some settings. Then the developer announces an update: new features, bug and security fixes. It is published on GitHub and Google Play. F-Droid version will come after a few days, when the maintainer builds the app from source and publishes that update.
You may don’t want to wait till update comes to F-droid. But you can’t install it from GitHub or Google Play, because it is signed by a different key. You’ll have to reinstall the app, which will erase your settings and require logging in again.
This is the hassle you probably may encounter in the future. If you want to avoid it, install official packages from the developers (from GitHub or Google Play). Obtainium can check for updates on GitHub, official and third-party F-Droid repos, and more.
For some it’s a trust issue since they F-droid is a middleman however with reproducible builds I don’t have that worry. Feels like a good thing to have the code verified twice. I have obtainium as well but had issues with some beta apps I wanted to use like organic maps. Obtainium only works if it is the way it’s setup. Organic maps did not follow obtainiums way
Also to use obtainium you actually need to know the app exist, I have a lot of stuff from F-droid I would not have found without it
Your right, now I did remove FFUpdater, I’ve got Mull updated adding DivestOS Official repo to Droidify (included, but you need to enable), and Cromite from GitHub.
Because Mull from default repo is 1 version and 2 weeks behind.
I feel very dumb but I just installed it and I don’t get the logic: do I have to enter every app into Obtainium to make it happen or is there some kind of auto discovery / import that I can use?
Thanks for your answer that’s what I was afraid of, that’s too much of a chore to hunt for every source and put it in the app, I’ll pass for now and keep getting (more or less) delayed updates as usual
That specific repository has no releases so it won’t work AFAIK. You need a repository with releases, that have apk attached. (Typically the developer would set up a CI workflow to build and attach apk for every release)
Edit: For example AuroraStore has releases with apks. So you can just enter gitlab repo for AuroraStore into Obtainium and it will install it and keep it updated.
Any benefit over just downloading the APK directly without managing it through Obtanium? I ask cause I’m guessing that for Mull, since there are no releases on its GitLab repo, it’ll just have to be downloaded directly.
These are my main core apps. Not fully divested from closed ecosystems (YouTube & Google Maps are in there with alternative private frontends). But close enough for me.
Mull - Private Firefox
OrganicMaps & GMaps WV - Maps
Eternity - Lemmy
Meglodon - Mastadon
ProtonVPN - VPN
AntennaPod - Podcasts
Bitwarden - Passwords
Joplin - Notes
NewPipe Sponsorblock - YouTube w/o ads or in-video promotions
opensource
Top
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.