No.678
Tox does much of what Discord does.
Gimp does enough for anyone non-professional or high-tier hobbyist.
WoW is kept proprietary due to legacy monetizing schemes. It could have paid-access servers and a FOSS client.
Also, in a lot of countries directly reverse-engineering the WoW client would run afoul of some laws, while in others it would be a legal debate on interop vs copyright-breach. So while Russian and Chinese users may be able to do it at will, not everyone can.
No.681
>>678>Tox does much of what Discord does.But not all.
>>678>Gimp does enough for anyone non-professional or high-tier hobbyist.But some people are.
>WoW is kept proprietary due to legacy monetizing schemes. It could have paid-access servers and a FOSS client. But it doesn't.
You have to face reality.
>>680The point of OP is not to abandon these goals. The point of OP is to be pragmatic about achieving them.
If the objective is to abolish "the unequal power relation between the developer and the user," the best strategy for developers to actually realize that is to build open source alternatives that have all of the features users want or more.
The current pompous strategy demanding users to give up something tangible for something intangible doesn't seem to be working.
If you just want to yell at them and tell them they're wrong, you are part of the problem not the solution.
OP says "stop bitching and start coding." Maybe you don't have to do both. But at least pick one or the other.
No.685
>>681>>684Not really, OP makes it clear that their problem is that they believe software freedom to be about the freedom of choice to hurt others:
> But policing what people do with their computers is the absolute antithesis of what the "free software" movement should stand for.Proprietary software should not exist.
No.687
Thats often not how it works in the slightest.
People use what they hear about first/what everyone else uses, and then don't want to change. They're driven by marketing and network effects. Free software will never, ever beat large corporations at marketing.
Morover, you are wrong seventy times over if you want discord. Thats unrelated to free vs proprietary software, but you can fellate a cactus for propping up yet another overblown clusterfuck just to send characters from one computer to another by using it. Nothing it in particular does is worthwhile and you are wrong for wanting it.
Really, common peoples ""needs"" are a significant part of the problem.
of course, this isnt applicable to photoshop or video games, but people dont usually get like this over those things, sometimes photoshop vs gimp because gimp is perfec tly fine for ninety percent of the people bitching about it not being photoshop, but not as often as other things.
This thread doesnt really belong on programming, does it. Moreso on /tech/.
No.694
>>692That's not what free software means:
> “Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer”. We sometimes call it “libre software,” borrowing the French or Spanish word for “free” as in freedom, to show we do not mean the software is gratis. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html No.695
>>694You just don't get it do you?
No.696
>>694You can prefer free and open source software and try to use it when available, but still use non-free or closed source software as desired or necessary.
It's not a black-and-white issue. Using something doesn't necessarily imply that you are completely ignorant about it.
You can use Adobe Photoshop, but eagerly await the day that there is a suitable replacement. You can use Discord for insensitive communications, but use XMPP/OTR for anything you want to remain private. You can use Windows for work, but use Linux for everything else.
Also I have a hard time believing that the people that trash those of us that use Creative Suite, Discord, or Steam don't have a single piece of proprietary software on their computer and have never visited a website or used a service that doesn't respect their privacy. You are all hypocrites.
When did cyberpunk become evaluating the purity of one anthers computers? We're getting so lost in attacking one another that we lose sight of the megacorporations taking over our lives.
I hate to break it to you, but deleting your Facebook account or uninstalling Discord does not stop the march towards dystopia.
Sure you're not part of the problem, but you're not part of the solution either.
No.697
>>681>you have to face realityyou have to go back to /g/
No.699
I bet 90% of those that jump on the Discord-hate train (because they think it makes them sound smart?) don't block trackers in their hosts file and don't use a VPN with a kill switch. In other words, they're effectively sharing much more of their personal data than some of those that use Discord. How ironic.
No.700
>>699Now that. That is just retarded.
No.701
tfw everyone starts making excuses because they can't argue with this:
Every line of disparagement against a piece of closed source software could have been a line of code building an open source alternative.
Stop bitching and start coding.
No.702
>>689
> if you waste your time by actually reading his bullsoykaf he is basically against any form of intellectual property. Obviously only a communist society can function where companies cant own intellectual property.
China has a mostly free market and they have never really respected intellectual property. The fashion industry also manages to make money while not being able to protect clothing designs under intellectual property laws(they can protect their brand).
No.704
>>703>But using Facebook or installing Discord actively accelerates "the march towards dystopia." You are not getting attacked for "purity" reasons, but for aiding the enemy. You are part of the problem.And deleting (or not having) those services and calling it a day doesn't make you part of the solution either.
People obviously want what those services are offering so you are going to have a much easier time convincing them to delete their Facebook accounts and uninstall Discord if you could offer them a FOSS alternative.
Until these alternatives exist (and are actually comparable), your criticism will fall on mostly deaf ears.
No.705
>>704The alternatives exist and they are sometimes even technologically superior. In most cases the only feature they lack is the masses of users, the "network effect."
Not using proprietary services is a step in the right direction, and it's pretty stupid to suggest that actively aiding the enemy is somehow better than it.
No.707
>>705>it's pretty stupid to suggest that actively aiding the enemy is somehow better than [not using proprietary services]a) Whose "better" are you referring to? Better for my job? Better for the world? Better for your conscience?
b) What is what you said even in reply to, specifically?
No.708
>>707a) Better for the project of "stopping the march towards dystopia," see post No. 696.
b) Post No. 704, I even linked to it.
Do you think a quick guide on how to use the site would help you better understand what's going on? Maybe the admins could include something in the ɪɴꜰᴏ page.
No.709
>>705the masses are an instrumental part to what they offer. We already know technological superiority is irrelevant to the masses, and so is privacy and so on.
Attracting the masses is the most important part, do it and you win by default. This kind of discussion has been happening for ages and in the meantime discord, instagram, whatsapp, snapchat… came out of nowhere and gathered millions of users. If you're going to claim it's all luck, well, let's pray foss also gets lucky.
Not using proprietary services doesn't attract masses, hence is of little relevance in the grand scheme of things. A step towards nothing. Little more than a placebo.
No.711
>>709I don't understand the defeatism present in the FOSS community. Things can and do change. Just look at the success of Firefox in the 2000s.
If someone built an beautiful, end-to-end encrypted, open source, (optionally) self-hosted Discord replacement, there is a very real chance that it could succeed. The only way to to have a non-zero chance of succeeding is to actually try. That is the entire point of OP.
No.712
>>711just bitter vet soykaf… but I do agree about doing rather than bitching. Thing is, this isn't just a technical battle, that we could have won long ago, and that's precisely my point we don't need more Wozniak, we need more Jobs. And that, that is something most of us can't really do.
No.713
>When people install any piece of software, proprietary or otherwise, they are doing so because they expect some utility from it. It adds something of value to their life. When you tell people to uninstall that same software, you are asking them to voluntarily remove that value from their life, often without an adequate replacement, whether you think so or not.
>I have no ability to learn how to use other software for the purpose of freedom
You're literally saying you won't learn a piece of software because it different, even though it respects your freedom. There's alternatives to most proprietary programs today. Sublime? Atom. Photoshop? Gimp. Discord? Mumble. All of these examples fulfill their utility. Atom edits text. Gimp edits images. Mumble transmits voice and text. The only small differences are a few features.
>There is no open source Adobe Photoshop. There is no open source Discord. There is no open source World of Warcraft.
Yeah, cause their owned by companies with big software monopolies that want all of your money. "But discord doesn't charge anything!" We don't know what they do with that data. For all we know they could be selling it to the highest bidder.
>When someone resists your overtures to remove or replace the software you vehemently dislike, it is happening for a reason. Maybe they need it for their job. Maybe they want to talk to their friends. Maybe they just want to enjoy life.
No, usually it's because they can't learn how to use a new piece of software because they're stubborn, even though they would have stuck with FOSS software if they used it first. This was the main reason I didn't use firefox for a long time, I just didn't want to learn how to use it. Now, I don't want to learn how to use chrome because I know every in and out of firefox.
>Telling people they are wrong for wanting these things leaves a bad impression of the FOSS community at large and alienates people that might have otherwise been persuaded. Instead of chastising someone, try educating them instead.
This I agree with.
>But policing what people do with their computers is the absolute antithesis of what the "free software" movement should stand for.
Not really. If I tell someone they shouldn't use that software because it restricts their freedom and they should use a FOSS alternative instead, who really is restricting their freedom over their computer, me, or the software?
>Every line of disparagement against a piece of closed source software could have been a line of code building an open source alternative.
>Stop bitching and start coding.
This I agree with.
No.832
>>677>When people install any piece of software, proprietary or otherwise, they are doing so because they expect some utility from itNo soykaf, do you go to the store and buy clothes and tools and not expect to get any use out of them? Humans love to create and use tools, it's what we do.
>When you tell people to uninstall that same software, you are asking them to voluntarily remove that value from their life,Or, and a big "what if" here, people uninstall software because it becomes a burden in some way or another (it gets in their way, they don't use it and it takes up hard drive space, etc.) and actually lowers the value of life?
>There is no open source Adobe Photoshop. There is no open source DiscordIf you exclude GIMP and Matrix or generally any other alternative, then yeah, but that'd be a retarded thing to do, but wait you just did. Also games aren't important, although there's plenty for Linux and some of which are "open source".
You're coming off as extremely hostile towards the free software community and then you tell me to "educate" more people (by doing what, exactly? making bad threads?) and write code I don't have the time to write or maintain?
How about this: All those finger movements you spent typing all those paragraphs could've been spent on creating a libre alternative to some piece of proprietary software.
No.833
Do not care about fee-fees corporations try to stuff down your throat.
No free alternative to Photoshop? Pirate that soykaf and run in VM or airgapped. You have all freedom to do anything you want in this world, not what some bearded old glitterboy or bald man in black sweater are trying to tell you to do.
No.835
>>833>Pirate this
I don't want to use Gimp and you glitterbois are just getting annoying.
No.841
>>832
>If you exclude GIMP and Matrix or generally any other alternative, then yeah, but that'd be a retarded thing to do, but wait you just did.Gimp is in NO WAY a replacement for Photoshop for people who do more than the basics. No adjustment layers, terrible 16 big channel support, almost no nondestructive editing tools, no hardware acceleration, and that's just scratching the surface.
I love FOSS. But I also love photographer. Please pay attention to these next two sentences: Gimp is not a Photoshop competitor.
Gimp is barely a Paint.net competitor. Talking down to those of us who genuinely need these capabilities as if we're just "retarded" FOSS-haters is not helping the FOSS cause. It's just making more and more of us say "fuck it, I'm going back to Windows for
everything".
I'm not hostile to open source. I've been using Slackware since 1997. My main desktop machine is straight Debian. My phone is LineageOS
without Opengapps, because fuck Google. But my photo editing laptop? Windows 10 with Aftershot Pro 3 and Affinity Photo (a genuine Photoshop competitor), because there is no way on Linux to have anywhere close to the same photo editing capabilities.
No.842
>>841you seemed reasonable till
>Gimp is barely a Paint.net competitor No.844
>>842True, that was perhaps a little too far. I'll be charitable and amend what I said. Gimp is really more of a competitor to older versions of Paintshop Pro.
But I stand by the rest of what I said. Gimp's pace of development has been absolutely glacial. GEGL has been promised by Gimp's devs to solve its bitdepth issues for almost fifteen years now. Normally in FOSS projects, that means that more programmers need to pitch in and help speed development, but Gimp's dev team has been notorious for their insular attitudes and hostility to outsiders offering patches.
Krita's much better on the bit depth and adjustment layer fronts, and it has a truly excellent welcoming attitude towards newcomers offering patches. Krita's a poster child for how collaborative FOSS development can do great things. But their tools are far better suited to illustration work. They're really not suited to photography.
No.889
My two cents as to why I still use non-free software like Discord. Simply put, the community is there. Sure, if my favourite non-tech savy communities were using FOSS alternatives, I'd be right there with them, but most aren't. They use Discord because it's easy to install on your standard Windows PC, and has an extremely user friendly interface. I can get down with GIMP and the like because my experience doesn't hinge as much on a community of other users. Online communities do.
On Discord, there's not a lot of clutter or excessive features. Firefox also shows how simple and streamlined is often more attractive. Out of the box, Firefox is fairly plain, and works how the normal end user wants it to. Yet it does offer a lot of customisation and more advanced features for those who are looking for it.
The one thing most people want in their software is accessibility and user-friendliness. Making them so much as touch the command line is a recipe for disaster. The status quo of Windows makes it such that no-one is going to go out of their way to install Linux.
If you're serious about moving the world towards completely FOSS software, then it needs to get a lot more simple, and I mean A LOT (with the OPTION of advanced features). Only then will you actually see a lot of conversion.
No.891
>>677>"Yeah, but [insert software here]." If that software were what someone wanted, they would have probably installed it already. It isn'tthat's not true, most people just use what people they know use or what came pre-installed in their devices, even if the program is a piece of soykaf
>Every line of disparagement against a piece of closed source software could have been a line of code building an open source alternative.SpywareOS 10, NSAkype, and iClosedGarden are not popular because of their quality, but because of marketing. Software is not promoted by writing code.
No.892
Just use plan9 and discard real-life needs
Distribute your soul across the cpu servers
No.909
>>>889
FOSS is almost pointless if users are illiterate children who panick if presented with anything with less than a few hundred thousand lines of code making it nice and """simple"""
