Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

A pattern popularized by the #SiliconValley is taking innovative social ideas, and building structures where wealthiest portion of society gets to live them, leaving everyone else behind. #OpenSource is a great example of this. Kubernetes is a case in point: it is built collaboratively by a bunch of #BigTech competitors, they are enjoying the benefits of #UserFreedom and #FreeSoftware, but for their users, they stick them with #tracking and proprietary lock in.

It turns out that #Bitwarden is not yet included in @fdroidorg because of the difficulty of confirming that #Xamarin setups are fully #FreeSoftware. We welcome help here, to unlock lots of apps built with Xamarin. https://gitlab.com/fdroid/rfp/-/issues/114

Jean-Baptiste Kempf on earning a living with #FreeSoftware:

"Money can restrict you. Of course you need a decent income, but you’re programming, you’re a developer in one of the most active industries, where there is virtually no unemployment, you’re going to be earning enough no matter what city you’re based in. Sure, more money would be fun, but most of the people I know who have more money are annoying. And if it makes you a slave to your work, what good is that?" https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/kempf-interview-vlc-videolan

@gwagner it really should be that way, and for all traffic tickets. #Finland does it that way, there have been speeding tickets over $100,000 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/world/europe/speeding-in-finland-can-cost-a-fortune-if-you-already-have-one.html

So the #Bitwarden ad on this #FLOSSWeekly episode says: "Bitwarden doesn't track your data, only crash reporting, and even that is removed in the F-Droid installation." at around 16:30 https://twit.tv/shows/floss-weekly/episodes/720

Maybe not a big deal, but it seems like a new level for #FDroid: people paying money to promote based on F-Droid's principals, in this case, opt-out data collection is tracking.

@indyradio yeah, I think it is totally clear that happens in the Defense Dept, since that pattern happens in any organization I've worked in. Except that of course in the military's situation, "budget" also means destroying stuff and killing people.

@indyradio A classic example comes from SAGE during the Vietnam War: the US wired up all sorts of sensors along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Vietnamese figured out they had mics and urine sensors. So they'd play recordings of trucks next to the mics, and spray urine on the sensors, then run away and watch the US drop millions of dollars of bombs on places where they were not. The US chalked these up as kills, until they noticed they counted more kills than all the gear the Vietnamese had in total.

One of the things that has become clearer to me over my three decades of work with #software as a student, at big companies, universities, startups, and doing grant funded development: #FreeSoftware is about freedom for the user of the software, while #OpenSource is mainly about freedom to make money with software. This struck me when listening to how much #Amazon loves Open Source https://www.redhat.com/en/code-comments-podcast/amazon-web-services-open-principles

I sometimes have the feeling that there is certain kinds of essential #software that either requires developers to already be assholes to be able to build it effectively, or working on it turns the developers into assholes. This is stuff that we all need, that society is built upon. I appreciate the work, but personally want nothing to do with those communities. Yet it is also important that essential software is free software and open to contributions. It is a paradox I often think about.

For about two decades, it's been clear that #WiFi can easily and cheaply cover cities with good internet access. The hard part has been finding ways to make it sustainable. #Tokyo now says that they have 20 times as many WiFI routers as is needed to cover the whole city. They're trying a #cryptocurrency model to get more sharing happening. How about also considering just building out #CommunityWifi and #government networks? There are many proven examples of both all over https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/27/ntt_network_sharing_blockchain/

@sergii Even Russia is not able to provide enough ammo for itself to shoot as much as it wants. Limiting ammo exports to Russia means limiting their destructive abilities.

@sergii https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/06/russia-buying-millions-rockets-shells-north-korea-us-intelligence-ukraine but it could also be that that story is disinfo from the #US intelligence. There does seem to be other evidence that it could be true.

@gwagner One key factor is that Austria believes that the train experience should be better than other transport methods, and puts real money into trying. My experience in #NYC and #California is that the public generally views public transit as something for people without money or who feel guilty about the environmental impact of cars. So they don't spend what it takes to make it work well. So often in #Vienna, trains are the *most* convenient way to get somewhere.

@johnquiggin @gwagner Outside of the busy central areas of #Austria, even in #Vienna, it is still quite common here for people to thank the bus or tram driver as you leave. My family all does it, I'm a fan. But yes, grumpiness is a kind of default public persona in Austria.

I always wondered why the anti-#VietnamWar protests seemed ineffective at ending it, even though so many parts of society where involved: business, clergy, politicians, hippies, etc. Based on declassified docs, Nixon and Kissinger had a fully developed military plan to massively increase attacks on Vietnam, including using nukes. They just had to give the generals the go ahead. The protests actually convinced them they couldn't get away with it, so that plan was canceled. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/movement-and-madman/