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

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.

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/

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/

Even #Russia, one of the world's major weapons suppliers, is limited in what it can do because it is running out of ammo. They are trying to buy more from whoever will sell it. #Egypt was going to sell ammo to Russia, but when the deal became public, they canceled it because of sanctions. When looking at less powerful nations at war like #Sudan, #Congo and more, the impact of limiting weapons sales can be even greater. The hard part is reigning in domestic corporations that make big profits 2/2

When talking about why wars continue, the focus is so often about the reasons why people are fighting. That is valid, but there are many factors. One key one that is rarely reported on is the supply of weapons. If those who fight have only rifles, the scale of the damage will be drastically less than if they have artillery. The stories of #Ukraine and #Russia running out of ammo show a way to affect wars: do not supply them. This is #Austria and #Switzerland 's law and it can be effective 1/2

Vice has a good article on that demo: https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjvb4x/palantir-demos-ai-to-fight-wars-but-says-it-will-be-totally-ethical-dont-worry-about-it When viewing something like this, is important to consider what the #US considers legal. Apparently, mass bombing, death, and destruction by the military is fully legal there since there has been no prosecutions for running the #IraqWar #AfghanWar #VietnamWar etc.

#Palantir demos #LLM in #war, it is sadly ironic how often they say "safe and ethical": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEM5qz__HOU

Looks like the SAGE mentality is alive and well in the US military industrial context, and the #SiliconValley is still driving it. For example, that demo shows they still pretend to be able to get perfect info to feed their centralized, automated overview. This chapter from the book Closed World gives good insight into the mentality of this kind of project: https://web.archive.org/web/20011116023240/http://www.si.umich.edu/~pne/PDF/cw.ch3.pdf

Now I'm getting excited to go to #CriticalMass in #Bratislava https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei4tNRNge_Y