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Why FOSS projects are using proprietary, privacy invasive infrastructure? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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As you can easily notice, today many open source projects are using some services, that are… sus.

For example, Github is the most popular place to store your project code and we all know, who owns it. And not to forget that sketchy AI training on every line of your code. Don't we have alternatives? Oh, yes we have. Gitlab, Codeberg, Notabug, etc. You can even host your own Gitea or Forgejo instance if you want.

Also, Crowdin is very popular in terms of software (and docs) translation. Even Privacy Guides and The New Oil use Crowdin, even though we have FLOSS Weblate, that you can easily self-host or use public instances.

So, my question is: if you are building a FLOSS / privacy related project, why using proprietary and privacy invasive tools?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Right next to the Discord link is my Mastodon link, and no one has ever reached out to me there asking for other platforms.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

That’s a shame. It’s rare, but I have been reached out to before by way of email, IRC, XMPP, & Matrix. Mastodon tho isn’t a messaging app, but a migroblog that doesn’t have a good messaging UX (or encryption)… I usually dig around for an email before I would reach out over Mastodon since it’s not often the right platform.

Do you follow the project & see post about it that aren’t specifically @-ing you? I did this about a small TUI app two weeks ago in a vent, & the dev reached out to me & I immediately joined the IRC where they helped me resolve my immediate issue.

This could also be a front-end focus thing… where the average user is on a Mac & uses Twitter than the audience for TUI mail.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I have my email available too. It’s certainly easy to get ahold of me outside of Discord and GitHub.

I feel like what you need to understand is that most people use closed source, commercial services and don’t care about avoiding non-privacy centric services. It’s not like a this kind of developer/that kind of developer thing. You and I are a rare kind of people, even in the developer community.

If I focused on only providing support through privacy focused venues, I would be excluding the people not willing to sign up for those things, which is a vastly larger group than you might think. Much larger than the group of people who wouldn’t sign up for Discord. Additionally, it’s harder to moderate spam on open, federated platforms. So I’d be adding more work for myself that will take up time I could be using to develop SMUI.

I understand why people want to advocate for privacy focused and federated services. I want to too. But my goal as an open source maintainer isn’t to cater to those people or advocate for something like Matrix, it’s to help my users.

And yes, I search around the web once in a while to see what people are saying about SMUI outside of the official channels.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I think there is a disconnect on what folks want to use, what they know they can, & what they actually use. I have talk to a lot of ‘normies’ that do value their privacy (else Apple would not try to turn it into a marketing point), but they don’t understand the alternative or how much data is truly getting leaked. Sure there are the I just use what’s convenient type but when you compare A to B, so long as B has most of the features they rely on or can work around will take the one with better privacy.

For me, I feel as a software maker, I have a duty to advocate for these freedom-focused platforms since I have a better understanding of how software & data collection works. I have friends that ask for suggestions around these thing since they know I can be a trusted authority on what might actually be best for their data, or even making compromises on something not ideal like Signal (or Matrix). Additionally, if I believe that if my projects are worthy of free or otherwise moral software, I want to practice what I preach & use/support those services--and the values they represent by making sure the freedom of users are respected too. I would even go so far as to hedge that the types of users that care about tech in this way are more likely to pitch in & be closer-knit than the fly-by, can’t-be-asked-to-use-anything-but-Discord type.

As for spam, I am in one PL IRC chatroom, & it gets flooded from spam from the Discord bridge. I would say popular platforms have a greater chance at spam than one that is less popular--in the way Linux has less viruses, not due to vastly superior architecture, but less users.

Ultimately, it’s not that I don’t see your point of meeting the users where they are instead of making the change you want to see in the world (or maybe you don’t care that strong for doing that sort of thing), but fundamentally I disagree with that sort of compromise. …Now to the point that if a project only offers Discord, I outright dismiss it as not having values that align with mine & will seek an alternative, even if it’s worse or has a smaller community.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You know, my code is open source. You’re welcome to fork my project and run your own version with a privacy centric support forum. Maybe you’ll be successful.

You’re partly right though. I care more about serving my community than proselytizing to them. Not that I won’t proselytize to them, but it’s far more important to me to make sure they can use my software library for their projects than to make sure they use only privacy centric services.

I’ve dealt with a lot of people like you, who want to shame me for the decisions I’ve made. I’m pretty thick skinned, so it’s not going to push me away from the open source or privacy centric communities. But it does push some people away, so you should change to a different tactic. It’s kind of like the difference between telling someone how bad they are for eating meat vs telling them how easy and tasty certain meat alternatives are. One of those methods is basically guaranteed to backfire.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I hear a lot of the folks in here not shaming you specifically but the general direction that a lot of projects are in. It’s nothing against you personally… especially with the “free” in “freedom” to do what you wish. They, & I, feel underserved--not just that but it feels ironic given the topic in question is free software. Occasionally I talk about sports still on Reddit despite it ’cause that sort of community I wouldn’t expect to understand why moving might benefit their community or understand the tools for migrating, but those in software I assume would.