Hey all, anyone know of a short piece that lays out why small non-profit groups or cooperatives should move to #opensource, and ideally commons/co-op, platforms? For preaching to the non-converted?
@ntnsndr @aral @FreeScholar @datatitian @Framasoft @tierra_comun @mayfirst@social.mayfirst.org

@Matt_Noyes @ntnsndr @aral @FreeScholar @Framasoft @tierra_comun
Not really, but it often aligns with their values. There's principal 6 if it's a co-op and there's a co-op option. For us also Disco Principle 3: Active creators of commons.

@datatitian @ntnsndr @aral @FreeScholar @Framasoft @tierra_comun

That's the problem: in many cases it doesn't matter to them that it aligns with their values. So how to provoke the desire for alignment in this sphere?

This is the best I have found so far: https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/#enjeux

@Matt_Noyes
I think we will need to write something.

Part of the problem is that most of the cooperatives I have known have a necessarily limited "mission" aka goals, and they think that broadening their efforts could detract from the mission.

If they saw themselves as part of the organization of a larger cooperative economy, and we created open source software to help them do that, and wrote about that, it might help.

@datatitian @ntnsndr @aral @FreeScholar @Framasoft @tierra_comun

@bhaugen @Matt_Noyes @ntnsndr @aral @FreeScholar @Framasoft @tierra_comun
There are certainly arguments to make that supporting open source also aligns with concern for community (makes it available for other orgs) and education & training (the source serves as training material for other devs), but I'm kind of flabbergasted by Matt's comment that they dgaf about their values. I'd expect that from nonprofit industrial complex, but cooperators should be firing those boards

@datatitian
It's been mixed in my experience. Some people in some cooperatives are committed to and promote some or all cooperative values, and some cooperatives do likewise, but it's spotty and so are cooperative values in general. Like one consumer cooperative helps and trades with other cooperatives but got help from UNI consultants to defeat a worker union organizing campaign. I know of another co-op that did the same.

@Matt_Noyes @ntnsndr @aral @FreeScholar @Framasoft @tierra_comun

@bhaugen @datatitian @Matt_Noyes @ntnsndr @aral @FreeScholar @Framasoft @tierra_comun

With all due respect, it's not a matter of not sharing the values, in my experience, but rather because of practical considerations that they see as being vital to fulfilling their mission. With things like FB and it's the question of reach and discoverability. But with a lot of OS/libre projects, the problems are mainly technical - bad UX and lack of functionality being the biggest culprits. 1/

@bhaugen @datatitian @Matt_Noyes @ntnsndr @aral @FreeScholar @Framasoft @tierra_comun

When the open source alternative is well designed and easy to use, (like Framadate) I haven't had problems getting people to use it. But trying to switch from Gdocs to NextCloud was a disaster because of the unintuitive interface and design choices that left even the more tech savvy among us confused and we gave up on it. 2/

@bhaugen @datatitian @Matt_Noyes @ntnsndr @aral @FreeScholar @Framasoft @tierra_comun

We tried using meet.coop instead of zoom for one project but the lack of a US dail-in number made us revert to zoom for concerns of equability and accessability.

Also, there's the issue that not everyone is super tech savvy and switching to something different is a real difficulty for some people. So the new thing needs to look & act a whole lot like the old thing & *ongoing support needs to be offered* 3/

@bhaugen @datatitian @Matt_Noyes @ntnsndr @aral @FreeScholar @Framasoft @tierra_comun

Without that last part, it doesn't matter whether it's OSS or not, adoption of the new thing will fail. People use what they use because that's what they already know how to use. We can't just tell people to learn how to use something new without offering support in the learning process. Picking this stuff up isn't as easy for everyone else as it is for ppl on this thread, you know? My two scents...

@GuerillaOntologist @bhaugen @datatitian @ntnsndr @aral @FreeScholar @Framasoft @tierra_comun

Josh is raising the key issues -- people with strong co-op and solidarity values resist OS/Liibre/Coop bc of practical considerations that they see as being vital to fulfilling their mission, including reach (existing network effects), UX, and functionality, lack of learning support. And I want to call BS on all of them. ;-) 1/

@GuerillaOntologist @bhaugen @datatitian @ntnsndr @aral @FreeScholar @Framasoft @tierra_comun

Mission: Isn't the cultivation, nurturing, and mutual support of alternative tools, networks, institutions our mission? FB, e.g., is not only impractical, it is hostile to that part of our mission. The critique of surveillance capitalism needs to be taken seriously. What Josh is saying about mission makes sense if the mission does not include transforming tech and all that implies.