Ubuntu. They’ve managed the worst of both worlds: like Debian, everything is old (though admittedly not as old), but unlike Debian, everything is broken/buggy/flakey. It’s the old-and-busted distro that I’m routinely told is “the only Linux we support”.
Given that domain seizure is becoming such a common tool for this sort of thing, maybe we need a work around for DNS?
For example, we could distribute z-library name/IP pairs in the form of a hosts file via torrents and then write little wrapper programs for each OS that would just crawl the DHT for the latest version to update your local hosts file.
A more extreme option would be to build a pirate browser that has a bunch of name/IP pairs baked into it. People could just launch the browser and visit websites as usual without DNS being an issue.
I’m aware that using Tor is also an option, but there’s a bunch of problems there with usability like installation and setup (for non-technical people). Onion URLs aren’t easily discoverable either, and much of what you find in there just kids cosplaying as digital freedom fighters posting links that load really slowly… at least that was my experience the last time I tried out a TOR browser.
JetBrains ran aground of this years ago when they introduced a subscription model for their (excellent) software. People (rightly) lost their fricking minds when they heard that if they cancelled their subscription, they’d lose the ability to continue using the software they’d already paid for.
So JetBrains went back and reworked their system so that a cancelled subscription would continue to have the rights to install all the software that existed up to the day of cancellation. Effectively meaning that if v3 came out the day before you cancelled, you can still install and use v3 10 years later.
It’s an interesting idea, but the differences between copyright and contract law present quite a hurdle.
Either you release something publicly, licensing it under certain conditions (you can use it this way, but not that), or you cut a contract with a 3rd party for them to use it a certain way – something that only makes sense in a context where the wider public doesn’t already have those rights, otherwise a contract would be unnecessary.
You see it in some Free software projects: they’re licensed under something aggressive like the AGPL, but for a few you can buy a proprietary license. This of course limits community participation though, as to contribute, you must agree to these terms. I think React does something like this, forcing you to sign a contract to submit a patch.
He points out a number of problems that I’d like to see solved, so I’d love to hear his ideas, so long as they’re similar in spirit to the goals of the FSF.
Honestly, because I didn’t know (a) that ff2mpv even existed, or that (b) mpv could play YouTube URLs directly. So thanks! I learnt two things today :-)
It was still a fun project though 'cause I learnt how to write a Firefox extension and get the browser to launch programs on-click, so not a waste of time!