I’ve seen many threads suggesting products but they often don’t mention FOSS projects, which should always be preferred to corporate software. With FOSS you are already boycotting capitalism, on either side. Free and Open Source ignores borders and shouldn’t be categorized in nationalist terms, no matter where some of the maintainers happen to live.
I’ve tried to extol the virtues of FOSS for a long time. Not many people even care about it or their privacy, always parroting the adage “If i do nothing wrong what do I need to worry about” without a further thought.
Free software is the antithesis of capitalism. It doesn’t make sense to boycott them.
I have been following some of these movements in the last few weeks and, at least the ones I know of, include FOSS in the alternatives to American products and services. So while I support what you say 100%, in my experience so far, it looks like most people are aware of this.
I always like to say the fruits of FOSS labour are the common heritage of mankind. It belongs to all of us as a public good, created and maintained by selfless workers. (Nevermind the fact that most FOSS projects are based out of Europe anyways).
I think there is a different problem. Many of the best FOSS products are unknown to the general public ;/
Lol, first time I hear that, as European😆 what a stupid movement…
I’m the most anti-American user on here and I agree.
I’d rather use USA-linked free software than Spotify.
Wasn’t Spotify Swedish tho? But yeah
I think that’s the point, he’s saying he’d rather use USA-linked FOSS than non-USA proprietary software.
deleted by creator
Didn’t microsoft buy them?
No, they’re still independent with majority of shares owned by their founders.
Ah ok, maybe that’s why they arent enshittified that much then!
Spotify donated to trumps inauguration
https://www.avclub.com/spotify-donald-trump-brunch is just one of the many reasons not to support spotify.
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Spotify for lots more
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Is someone doing that? If it’s FOSS it’s from the internet.
Seeing people look for corporate social media alternatives is painful.
> “Hey guys, I want to leave X, should I go to Bluesky or Threads? What? Mastodon? Never heard of that. Looks very complicated, I’ll pass”
> – CEO, founder, IT wizz on LinkedInEvery time!
Or the classic “guys I am leaving WhatsApp, moved my whole family to Signal, another centralized US-based silo that requires phone numbers and runs on AWS, CloudFlare, etc.”
Signal: over a decade of leaking nothing and providing a great service for free, with some weird hiccups along the way like cryptocurrency.
Privacy “advocates”: fuck signal
- if they leaked something you wouldn’t know because US government law doesn’t allow them to disclose if they requested data.
- uses AWS servers that also the gov could ask for access to Amazon directly without even talking to Signal, being centralized and depending on AWS infra is also a weakness.
- needing phone numbers to register, often tied to passport and it is super easy to get your whole network when compromising 1 device
- all centralized services start nice, attracting users, once they have you, and money starts being a problem… meet: enshitification
-
If they were leaking there would be prosecutors using the evidence in court, on the public record.
-
It doesn’t matter what infrastructure that they use because the service provides end to end encryption. This remains secure even if a third party is able to record all of the traffic between the two devices.
-
Has there ever been a single instance where a Signal client had a RCE exploit? Of all of the software on your phone likely to be exploited, signal is low on the list (your browser is where they get you).
-
Enshittification is a reason to leave, speculation about maybe possible enshittification in the future is not.
Finally, common sense. Thank you.
-
we’re not classic, we’re advanced nerds engineers : signal is one church without any interoperability, so we’ve moved to both SIP and XMPP variants using differents provider in the family : everything is decentralized, exactly like email (we dont use gafam ones). It’s not that hard to enjoy xmpp, and really decentralized tools, a bit like for SIP (we have several Voip providers here).
I like SIP and XMPP, but in practice I don’t have any contacts to use it and the apps are lacking a bit compared to ArcaneChat/DeltaChat, besides the problem of losing groups because the XMPP server went down etc. there are some downsides but yes, if I was not satisfied with ArcaneChat I would use XMPP and SIP, or anything that is open source, decentralized and doesn’t require a phone number
i mean… it is massively better, but yes it still sucks. but what do you move friends and family to? last i looked into element it was not an option for several reasons, and i don’t think anyone would switch to basically noname apps like simplex or similar, even if they might be decent solutions. i really want the last few contacts i have on whatsapp to move, but i’m not gonna push hard to get them to use signal just to get it enshittified in the near future. also a few switched to telegram, which while not facebook, is not really better mainly because it doesn’t even e2ee by default.
I moved my whole family since years to Delta Chat, eventually started contributing to the project and even created my own fork that is what my family is using, see: https://lemmy.ml/post/26007254
i huge recommend both SIP + XMPP software :)
ArcaneChat is dope. I’m testing it out with my partner right now. The built-in Jitsi button is super helpful. My extended family (about 30 people) switched over to signal a few years ago, so there is some inertia there, but for any new chats, DeltaChat (and ArcaneChat for Android users) is what I’m going to push for.
Nice! 🤩
What’s the reasons against Element :)? Currently testing it with some friends of mine, before trying to lure my family on it instead of iMessage. So would be interested in why you don’t think it’s feasible.
tons of reasons against element :
-huge/heavy interface on both web/software client
-2 passwords, 1 for session, 1 for encryption keys
-takes huge storage on server
-it’s the whatsapp of OSS
here it is :
https://lukesmith.xyz/articles/matrix-vs-xmpp/
@EySkibidiBabBab Element? That’s just one of the apps, and frankly, not the best one. You are looking for Matrix. For android I’d recommend FluffyChat, for desktop/web Cinny. For iOS I’d recommend throwing it to a lake.
Element?
Element! :D
I’m fully aware of the relationship between Matrix and Element as well as alternative clients existing. I actually find it kinda hard to communicate about. Whenever i say something like “i sent you a link on Matrix” the few people i use Matrix with get confused. People are used to referring to app/client-names: fb messenger, outlook, iMessage (even if i’m sending an sms) and not the underlying technology.
I’ve tried explaining it like email - you can register an email somewhere and access it through several email clients. But i mean, people who’s not as much into software as i (and i suspect you as well due to your fine recommendations) – and still refers to their email as “outlook” – they can have a hard time wrapping their head around that relationship. An app is just an app… Right?
The reason i referred to it as “element” in my comment, was because the comment i replied to referred to it as Element tho.
Thanks for sticking it to the Signal shills, I use Telegram and I understand how bad it is but I’d never use signal in a million years
“Hey guys, I want to leave WhatsApp, should I go to Telegram or Signal?"
-- you guys are NOT helping, that’s still exactly the same problem. Just stay away from anything that isn’t open source, decentralized, self-hostable, e2e encrypted (without rolling their own crypto). That basically leaves only Matrix or XMPP.
and the thing is: Telegram having a proprietary server feels more opensource and open to 3rd party clients and developers (ex. bots, mini-apps etc) than Signal, Signal’s issue tracker has a bot auto-closing stale issues and several people are completely ignored, never receive a reply
I highly recommend you to give a try to https://arcanechat.me/ (I am the developer) it is heavily inspired by Telegram, if you want to test it you can join this community group: https://i.delta.chat/#6CBFF8FFD505C0FDEA20A66674F2916EA8FBEE99=&a=invitebot%40nine.testrun.org&g=ArcaneChat+Community&x=3KvvQZfzU4t-9u5s0PF3USGp&i=AQKH9_8x0R0&s=dbGW9xOhRQX
I agree, but am happy that X is losing users to Bluesky, so I don’t try to convert friends and family from Bluesky to Masrodon. I’d rather they start changing other stuff instead that is easier.
Oh definitely, Bluesky is far better than twitter. Honestly, seeing the fediverse piss itself over bluesky is annoying, because the alternative is people still on twitter.
lol who is suggesting boycotting foss projects?
nobody. op is insane.
I think OP means that one shouldn’t boycott FOSS projects just because they are from USA. That said, I don’t like to be told what I have to do and don’t agree to “FOSS projects, which should always be preferred to corporate software”. My pc, my LAN, my rules.
you seem to hold your individual freedoms high, there is a kind of software i think you’ll really like
You seem to wanting to school me about what my preference should be. I’ll happily block you. Bye.
What a childish response.
I don’t like to be told what I have to do and don’t agree to “FOSS projects, which should always be preferred to corporate software”. My pc, my LAN, my rules.
…he said, without a hint of irony.
Meanwhile, “my PC, my LAN, my rules” is precisely the reason I do agree with always preferring FOSS to corporate software.
Almost all the lists shared in the communities exclude FOSS projects.
Which lists?
There are quite a few in !buyeuropean@feddit.uk
Well, if it’s buy European how can open source fit in?
FOSS is definitely not boycotting capitalism, but its still an objectively good thing. I see FOSS work as a way for relatively rich imperial core citizens to give back to the world.
Definitely do not boycott FOSS projects.
I don’t understand why you say FOSS isn’t boycotting capitalism. I don’t disagree, but I also don’t know enough to agree yet.
Look at the success of Linux. It’s not in opposition to capitalism, it’s ba kernel widely used by capitalists. If Linux was truly a threat to capitalism, google wouldn’t use it in their phones.
I still think that Linux and open source are great. They’re just not neccesarily anticapitalist. They definitely can be in certain circumstances, and definitely make some rent seeking impossible
To be fair, what Google is doing is a perversion of the original intent of Linux. It used to be a direct competitor to commercial OSs. Google turned it into one.
The original intent was a hobby project, not a competitor to orher kernels
From a purely “vote with your wallet” standpoint it doesn’t make sense, because there’s no money paid. However, one might worry about data/information getting in the hands of a fascist/compromised government. So I think people should judge this themselves case by case.
There is a lot you can do with your wallet to contribute to FOSS.
Companies, Governments they all can be enshitified but freedom lives on!
I think the important part is about who is running the server, rather than who made the software
The fediverse is interesting in that context because each instance can decide where they set up the infrastructure or how they process data / requests. The same applies to self hosting
I saw an article that outlined which country each fediverse platform “originated” from, such as Canada for Pixelfed and Germany for Mastodon. That’s fun to know about, but otherwise not important to users compared to the instances themselves
At most it might speak to which laws will govern the project itself, but even then someone can fork a project that goes astray
People should pay for foss. Donations are oftentimes welcome
I mean, any FOSS project from anywhere could be being used by a fascist government or corporation, to be fair. That’s literally one of the very serious and real downsides of FOSS. It’s able to be used for good or ill.
I mean, it can easily be argued that the US corporate technology class has benefited far more from FOSS than end-users worldwide.
Initially, EC2 used Xen virtualization exclusively. However, on November 6, 2017, Amazon announced the new C5 family of instances that were based on a custom architecture around the KVM hypervisor, called Nitro.
Amazon leveraged FOSS to create their own successful closed-source offshoot. AWS pretty much runs the web. Amazon… is not a good company.
That being said, the US has chosen to be isolationist, whether all of its citizens agree with it or not. Having less of a presence on the international stage, including in the FOSS world, is simply a consequence of isolationism. So boycotting US FOSS is likely to happen in some ways on purpose, and in some ways just from diminished international respect and involvement.
I get it as an European that it means more to me to consume “locally” and to prioritize services that are European-based. But due to the nature of computers and FOSS, borders are redefined and it is more about ideas and politics rather than physical location. However, computers and servers are also physical and submitted to legislations of countries, we cannot ignore laws such as the Patriot act and the power that the American state can have even on FOSS projects.
For me the priority is to use software that match my needs; if I have the choice between an American and an European solution, I’ll tend to choose the latter one.
I canceled ongoing donations to several projects based in the US and stated that my reasons for doing so was US policy against my country. It doesn’t matter if the dev or project lead supports those policies or not, I refuse to contribute to the US economy if I can at all help it.
By donating to contributors to free and open information and software you support the movement against tyranny inside the us and also everywhere.
compared to that foss devs buying groceries is negligible to the us economy.
I understand, but I am also thinking about the dev of those projects, as an individual who (probably) really despises the current US Gov, and even though they have to engage in the US economy, as they need to eat, pay bills, etc. It is a very tricky problem for those individuals and how to emancipate from. It is like with Russia where such individuals do not endorse at all the ongoing war but still live in that system 🤔
If you are worried about US laws affecting FOSS projects, it can always be forked, perhaps even be rewritten.
Of course, but what about the individual behind it, if it is someone who is also against their current government, while having to live in that country? It is tricky to ask how to reconcile the need for EU solutions while encouraging American citizens to fight against their system!
FOSS devs can do FOSS work only because of the relative luxury conditions of their imperial core countries, which comes at the expense of global south countries.
In other words, they can do that because their countries imperialist relations with the global south, this is the reason that most FOSS projects come from the US and Europe.
In some way FOSS work is a way for these people to give back to the world, i think its fine to donate to these projects regardless of their location.
There are some pretty corporate “open core” software companies tho, that’s a more grey area
Are they open or free? That’s the point here.
It’s hard to say. “Open core” means that most of the software is open source (licenses vary) but some features are locked behind a paywall. Gitlab takes this approach for example, also maybe onlyoffice.
Counterpoint: Fedora is a testing bed for Red Hat. One of Red Hat’s notable customers is the US military. I’d prefer to stay off that path if I can help it. It’s a matter of trust, and it’s a matter of indirectly contributing. I’ve seen people say the same things about Deepin and everyone nods in agreement, but why the hell should I trust a US project, for the same reasons?
Honestly this should be a wake call to the FOSS community that we are way too reliant on the US.
Every default we have is US centric and if FOSS is really meant for everyone we should move away from that.
why the hell should I trust a US project
Bekuz Amerika fridom wurld polis, best kontri in da world!
But on a more serious note, did you know Linus banned those Russian contributors like a month after redhat and DoD signed a new deal. Can you guess who owns RH stocks?
Same with NixOS treating with Anduril, I jump to Guix-SD and never looked back
