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0 pointsthejohnconway2y ago0 comments

It absolutely is a failure of FOSS. It was supposed to be viral, leading to greater software freedom for all. The strategy has been countered and subverted by running FOSS on servers people don’t control.

Half the world’s communication being under the control of one company with a dictator is hardly a success.

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rglullis2y ago· 2 in thread

Are we arguing over "freedom from" and "freedom to"?

I don't like that so many people preferred to go for a closed solution and I certainly don't like virtual monopolies, but people are there out of their own volition.

30 years ago, there was no real alternative for Windows on the desktop. All productivity tools were closed. Today, people buy iPhones and sign up to Instagram/TikTok because they want to.

What would you propose, to have Stallman pointing a gun to everyone who didn't attend a install fest?

Dylan168072y ago

> 30 years ago

But they were comparing to "10 years ago. Or 20."

> What would you propose, to have Stallman pointing a gun to everyone who didn't attend a install fest?

If I can propose wild things, then I'll propose that something forces big hosting companies to share their code.

And data freedom is an important issue that has a huge overlap with software freedom. I like the EU's movement toward forcing export and interoperability for big entities.

rglullis2y ago

> But they were comparing to "10 years ago. Or 20."

Linux only became a viable desktop around 2010.

Blender was open sourced in the early 2000.

StarOffice was a viable alternative to MS Office 2003.

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