Heute ist der Tag, an dem wir unsere Liebe zu Freier Software teilen ❤️ #floss #opensource
Danke für deinen Beitrag zur Software-Freiheit!
#ilovefs
floss
While #Adobe is doing an absolute stupid with their new licensing terms, and (now Canva-owned) #Affinity slashes prices by half in a "flash sale", I am once again asking people to consider supporting #FLOSS tools instead.
Yes, they are far from perfect.
But with a small fraction of what these closed source vendors are raking in, these tools could be made immeasurably better.
And they won't end up bought up and enshittified, as experience with past attempts at doing that to FLOSS tools shows.
Your attention please:
Maybe you've never heard about it but since 2020, the Next Generation Internet programs, a sub-branch of the European Commission’s Horizon Europe program, have been cascading funding (via @nlnet calls) open source software in Europe. The massive fundings have enabled a great deal of free software development in recent years, and all without too many constraints (with too few transparency and monitoring, though… which urgently needs to be improved). Unfortunately, these NGI programs seem to have been withdrawn from the next round of Horizon Europe fundings to give priority to AI bullshit.
As a result, we’ve been invited to contact the National Contact Points, Horizon Europe’s national representatives, to express our concern and the importance of maintaining public funding for free software. With this in mind, we wrote an open letter at Petites Singularités and thought it would make sense to fork it out with Hackstub and ARN in Strasbourg for the French NCP to get other French-speaking free software orgas to sign. I’m thinking in particular of the software that has benefited from this funding, such as Yunohost, but also of the Kittens that use this same software.
We can also announce that this topic will be part of the central theme of the next #OFFDEM in Brussels, on the first weekend of February 2025. There's not yet an exact title, but we’ll be discussing financing and community structuring for free software over the next few years.
If you want to sign the french-speaking version of this letter, there's a pad for it: https://pad.public.cat/lettre-NCP-NGI
Hello, I'm an open source software engineer in my late 30s living in #Seoul, #Korea, and an avid advocate of #FLOSS and the #fediverse.
I'm the creator of @fedify, an #ActivityPub server framework in #TypeScript, and @hollo, a fediverse microblog for single users.
I'm also very interested in East Asian languages (so-called #CJK) and #Unicode. Feel free to talk to me in #English, #Korean (#한국어), or #Japanese (#日本語), or even in Literary Chinese (#文言文/#漢文)!
Thank you for delivering MULTIPLE talks here in #bloomingtonIN and for signing our books!
As you signed @pluralistic , "Disenshittify or die!"
So, a story about how I #disenshittify ... by force!
This story starts when I was working at #IndianaUniversity for #UITS in IT Client Services. My job was "Special Projects". I worked for a director and basically made magic happen.
Early November 2014, someone from a human interface robotics lab handed me a new piece of #hardware called the #ThalmicMyo . It was an upper armband with 8 myoelectric sensors that could measure electrical muscle function, and do stuff on a computer with that data! The base idea was that you could do the following: hand wave outward, inward, spread out, fist, and thumbs up.
So, being CrankyLinuxUser, I wanted a #FLOSS toolchain to get and do my own thing with it. Whoops, only worked for #MSWindows .
Forum requests were met with silence. "Sorry you cant get the data", was the refrain. Lies.
So I used my #IU account and requested academic access. They IMMEDIATELY chimed up and said that access could easily be granted at $5000/year . UH huh.
So, I made them a target.
Took a few weeks. BUT I eventually got a shitty BUT working toolchain on Linux to use really basic machine learning. This is just a linear regression k-nearest-neighbors. No LLM fuckery. Theirs could do 5 gestures. Mine could do 10.
I initially released it on #HackerNews or YCombinator, not realizing that Thalmic Myo was VC funded by YC. And holy shit that was a #MartinHench moment where I fell into a WHOLE LOT OF SHIT. My article was auto-killed. My account on HN was shadowbanned. Ruh roh.
I had some contacts at @hackaday and I sent them my findings, my responses from HN, and my repo... and a really hostile Youtube video (one of my gestures was a middle finger to Thalmic).
On Nov 18, 2014, at 730am eastern, my phone blew up, figuratively speaking. Ping. Ping ping. PIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGG until 12pm.
The page is still up on HaD, by the way. https://hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmic-labs-shuts-down-free-developer-access/
At 12pm or thereabouts, Thalmic Myo announced that they made an official decision to "allow raw data access"! I was not only successful for my hardware, but hardware freedom for EVERYONE with this platform.
Normally, the story would stop. I handed back the borrowed hardware to the lab that loaned it to me. I know they were able to do some cool prosthetic automation with it. But that's not my specialty. I made it so they could. My director permitted me to buy a few for our office to continue and loan them out as well.
...... 3 months later
I get a call on my office phone doing a customer survey. Told them that the hardware was great. "What about our API?" I told them that I made my own, and I was the one that forced your company to open source 3 months back. Ive never heard silence so LOUD. She asked me to stand by.
She transferred me to the CTO. We had a spirited conversation. I basically told him that I think ignoring the FLOSS and hacker community was your first and fatal mistake. You were a hardware business. You can do the VC thing and gatekeep, but that just angers people. And what you were in was a MASSIVE awesome piece of unique hardware nobody else had. He told me that their original idea was a powerpoint slide advance. I gave him perhaps 6 different major ideas to jump off on.
Nothing else happened, for a while.
3 more months later.......
I get a reddit DM out of the blue. Saw my name, and connected the dots. (S)He was an engineer at Thalmic during the time I released my Linux FLOSS code. They told me that I basically flip-turned the whole company upside down. I broke their business model of #Extraction and #enshittification and forced #FLOSS on them without a choice. They thanked me for my contribution.
Later n, the company got acquired or died. I'm not sure. I moved on and no longer had any of the hardware. Although, the basic idea is actually pretty cheap to construct these days. The only hard part is the AgCl electrode plating.
So when people ask what they can do, there's a LOT we can do. And a SINGLE PERSON can change the course of history. Sure, sometimes being in the right place at the right time is a big part, but there's so many of these moments.
Just wanted to contribute back @pluralistic to the movement you've founded.
Edited 93d ago
On the two year anniversary of joining #Mastodon I'm super proud to share:
🚀 The Future is Federated - issue no.13 👩🚀
"The #Fediverse has empowered me to take back control from Big Tech. Now I want to help others do the same."
with mentions of @forgeandcraft (who made this awesome Fediverse t-shirt) @phanpy @ivory @Tusky @nimi @Roneyb @davidoclubb
#FOSS #FLOSS #Matrix #TheFutureIsFederated #blog #tech #activism #BigTech #socialmedia #education
#inkscape and #blender at 5:14AM
Two more days till the deadline.
All work no play...
Third edition of our film festival done exclusively using free software.
Edited 259d ago
Hello, I'm an open source software engineer in my late 30s living in #Seoul, #Korea, and an avid advocate of #FLOSS and the #fediverse.
I'm the creator of @fedify, an #ActivityPub server framework in #TypeScript, and @hollo, an ActivityPub-enabled microblogging software for single users.
I'm also very interested in East Asian languages (so-called #CJK) and #Unicode. Feel free to talk to me in #English, #Korean (#한국어), or #Japanese (#日本語), or even in Literary Chinese (#文言文, #漢文)!
🚀 New on #TheFutureIsFederated 👩🚀
"Sharkey: a Fediverse project that is beautiful inside & out"
https://blog.elenarossini.com/sharkey-a-fediverse-project-that-is-beautiful-inside-out/
special thanks to @pancakes for his awesome post on Misskey forks 🙏
#blog #Fediverse #Misskey #Sharkey #Firefish #MFM #FOSS #FLOSS #SocialMedia #tech
Esse site é mto legalzinho. Na época da faculdade eu ficava horas viajando nos textos deles. E tem algumas coisas bem interessantes, tipo um texto ensinando elementos da Bauhaus usando softwares livres de design.
After 9 months of work, we're happy to announce that Veloren 0.17 is almost ready!
Join us in-game at 18:00 GMT on December 28th, when we will hold a release party on the official game server 🎉
More information at: https://veloren.net/release-0-17
🙀🚂🐧As you're probably aware, the #English adjective "free" applied to software can be a bit ambiguous. It could either mean software respecting your freedoms ("#FreeSoftware"), or one that is available free of charge ("#freeware"). (Don't get me started on the assholes advertising demo or trial versions as "free software".) So, to disambiguate we sometimes use the term "libre", possibly as #FLOSS (free/libre open-source software).
Fortunately, we don't have this problem in #Polish. The "free of charge" meaning is translated into "darmowe" or "bezpłatne", while the other meaning goes as "wolne".
Well, except that "wolne" can also mean "slow". Which is fine, because I'm so tired of how fast things are moving. Let's make more "slow software".
🚀 New on #TheFutureIsFederated 👩🚀
#GoToSocial empowers you to have your own home on the Fediverse - with unique controls
mentioning @shollyethan @ilja @gotosocial @gytisrepecka @Tusky @pinafore @phanpy @MonaApp @elk
and my GtS instance @elena
#tech #Fediverse #activism #BigTech #SocialMedia #FOSS #FLOSS #YunoHost #blog #TechEmpowerment #TechResistance
Edited 107d ago
Nueva lista importable de cuentas en el #Fediverso añadida al recopilatorio ordenado por temáticas e inspirado por @vamonosjuntas
En esta ocasión sumamos:
Hardware abierto o compatible con Linux + Software de diseño de HW ....
#OpenHardware + #Makers + #3D + #Devices -> #VamosJuntasHW (25)
La lista empieza con las siguientes cuentas:
@slimbook @tuxdevices @frameworkcomputer @WeAreFairphone @arduino @mntmn @kicad @Obijuan @phoronix @PINE64 @e_mydata
@murena @LineageOS @pipewire @gpuopen
@calyxos @oshwassociation @salvari @collabora @fsi @vantpc @samuelig
@openandroidinstaller @n0p @edu
https://marzal.gitlab.io/mundolibre/blog/2025/01/27/el-fediverso-es-divertido/
Y las que ya teníamos:
· #Podcasting y #Podcasters en Español -> #VamosJuntasDePodcasting (98)
· #Accesibilidad -> #VamosJuntasA11y (23 cuentas)
· #MedioAmbiente + #Activismos -> #VamosJuntasSostenibilidad (42)
· #Veganismo + #AntiEspecismo + #Animalismo -> #VamosJuntasPorLosAnimales (50)
· #SoftwareLibre + #CulturaLibre / #FLOSS -> #VamosJuntasFLOSS (125)
· #MediosDeComunicacion + #Periodismo -> #VamosJuntasMedios (14)
· #RegiónDeMurcia + #Murcia + #FediFiestaMurcia + #GULRM -> #VamosJuntasRM (55)
· #UniónEuropea #EuropeanUnion -> #VamosJuntasUE (19)
· El listado original que no va con listas -> #VamonosJuntas #Juntas (308)
+ Otros listados 4 de #KDE / #AkademyES
Disfrutad de las redes libres y de nuestros espacios seguros.
PD: Se agradecen recomendaciones y recordatorio de que se pueden re-importar las listas para seguir a las cuentas que se van incorporando o ver los cambios via los enlaces de la web.
🚀 New on #TheFutureIsFederated 👩🚀
"My Year of Fediverse explorations"
https://blog.elenarossini.com/my-year-of-fediverse-explorations/
with shout-outs to @pixelfed @dansup @pfefferle @gotosocial @yunohost @phanpy
#tech #Fediverse #BigTech #socialmedia #FOSS #FLOSS #blog #Friendica #Pixelfed #Lemmy #GoToSocial #YunoHost #Mastodon #ActivityPub #Wordpress
Let's continue building a #FreeInternetOfTheFuture
> In our 7th issue, we talk to @interhop, a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting and developing free and open-source software for health research.
- Read the full interview: https://www.apc.org/en/news/interhop-digital-freedoms-and-open-source-software-healthcare
cc @EC_NGI
#GDPR #eHealth #FLOSS #NGI0
Explore all interviews: https://www.apc.org/en/tags/ngi0-talks
🚀 New on #TheFutureIsFederated 👩🚀
"Supporting the Fediverse, one small act at a time"
https://blog.elenarossini.com/supporting-the-fediverse-one-small-act-at-a-time/
with shout-outs to: @elduvelle @nacly @nclm @thek3nger @docpop @angie_marie2 @frank @dansup
#tech #Fediverse #activism #BigTech #SocialMedia #FOSS #FLOSS #blog
Edited 107d ago
If you enjoy videos about Linux and free open source software, you might want to follow the Linux Experiment:
There are already over 300 videos uploaded, if these haven't federated to your server yet you can browse them all at https://tilvids.com/a/thelinuxexperiment/videos
You can also follow the Linux Experiment's general social media account at @thelinuxEXP
#FeaturedPeerTube #Linux #FOSS #FLOSS #Libre #GNULinux #GNU #Computing #PeerTube #PeerTubers
🏆 
Congratulations to the @Blender project for its role in the film "Flow", which just won the Best Animated Feature award at #Oscars2025.
Open Source has won, indeed!
https://www.blender.org/user-stories/making-flow-an-interview-with-director-gints-zilbalodis/
#Oscars #Flow #Blender #FOSS #FLOSS #OpenSource #FreeSoftware
Edited 126d ago
Actualizado el tutorial y listado importable de cuentas en el #Fediverso, ordenado por temáticas e inspirado por @vamonosjuntas
https://marzal.gitlab.io/mundolibre/blog/2025/01/27/el-fediverso-es-divertido/
Actualmente ya tenemos listados de:
· #Podcasting y #Podcasters en Español -> #VamosJuntasDePodcasting (98)
· #Accesibilidad -> #VamosJuntasA11y (22 cuentas)
· #MedioAmbiente + #Activismos -> #VamosJuntasSostenibilidad (33)
· #Veganismo + #AntiEspecismo + #Animalismo -> #VamosJuntasPorLosAnimales (28)
· #SoftwareLibre + #CulturaLibre / #FLOSS -> #VamosJuntasFLOSS (76)
· #MediosDeComunicacion + #Periodismo -> #VamosJuntasMedios (13)
· #RegiónDeMurcia + #Murcia + #FediFiestaMurcia + #GULRM -> #VamosJuntasRM (46)
· #UniónEuropea #EuropeanUnion -> #VamosJuntasUE (16)
· El listado original que no va con listas -> #VamonosJuntas #Juntas
+ Otros listados de #KDE que detallará en breve @kde_espana
Disfrutad de las redes libres y de nuestros espacios seguros.
PD: Se agradecen recomendaciones.
Just to share with the #fediverse that brings us here that I'm now coming back to High-School (as a Teacher ;-) in the mornings
( hackengineer in the afternoon)
Thumbs up to
@martin and the #Moodle LMS team.
Schools look more human... when instead of BigTech 'Classrooms' we can use #FLOSS made with love , inviting the students to jump in !
Edited 152d ago
I rarely use this account to promote things that are not directly related to the Interpeer Project, but this #FluConf article by @librecast's @dentangle is so much aligned with our own Values, I should have written it.
https://www.librecast.net/fluconf-2025/
It's also why our projects are in close contact, and we're working on ways to collaborate as much as possible.
1/2
#FluConf2025 #HumanRights #FLOSS #DigitalCommons #DigitalCitizenSovereignty
Forget ghost!
NodeBB is not only FLOSS, it's also a great federated forum software!
Just look up julian@community.nodebb.org
This is a profile on NodeBB but you can watch so many posts and if you select
"Open original page"
it will take you to the forum and make Mastodon and the fedi look nice!
I feel like NodeBB could be the next Mastodon!
It's amazing!
https://x.com/esrtweet/status/1886894357451866309
“One of my regrets about my years of being Mr. Famous Guy, when I had maximum leadership leverage, is that I didn't foresee the political threat to open source.
I thought it was enough to be apolitical, invite everybody to be part of our development community, and that everybody would continue to keep politics out of the coding. Including even my own libertarian politics.
If I had known what was coming, I would have made a big deal about insisting that the open source community had to have one positive political value: free speech and opposition to censorship. That would have been justified on the object level, because we can't function when those political conditions are violated.” — @esrtweet (x.com) @esrtweet
#freesoftware #freeculture #foss #floss #opensource #OSI #freesoftwarefoundation #freelibre #freespeech #censorship #anticensorship #freethought #antiwoke
TIL: The European Union Public License.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Public_Licence
Looks pretty decent actually!
• OSI and FSF approved
• copyleft
• SaaS clause (like the AGPL)
• explicitly compatible with several copyleft licenses to allow EUPL code to be integrated into GPL, AGPL, LGPL, OSL, MPL etc. projects
• based on European law
• available in 23 languages, all with the same validity
#EUPL #EuropeanUnion #software #license #FLOSS #OpenSource #licensing