Thank you Lori. I like to comment on your thoughts here: * Lori Nagel via libreplanet-discuss <libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org> [2021-04-13 18:29]: > I want to clarify some things that make it hard for software users > to advocate for freedom respecting software. If we do not know what > all these programs are and why people use them, it makes it much > harder to do anything about them.
That is right. We have to raise awareness. Promoting information on GNU.org and FSF.org is good to raise awareness. Information may be copied freely, often modified and replicated on social networks, it may be given to people, published on own websites. When people ask me to join Whatsapp, Facebook, etc. I clearly give them reasons why and reference to pages where they can understand it. I am not to dictate to them not to use it, but I will not use it and they get the option to talk to me by using Mumble, Jitsi, XMPP, Tox, Jami, Retroshare or some other decentralized communicaton network. > Facebook = cloud service running non-free software why people use it > = friends are on it and no good replacement for the "groups" feature > in federated social media. There are few other impportant unmentioned factors, that is that people withing Facebook can only talk to people on the same network. Some time ago, before they got the crucial number of users Facebook did allow Facebook useds to receive email from outside, from anybody, including the fact that any Facebook used could comunicate with any XMPP or Jabber user. That was all closed, so that people are locked into one single network. Facebook emotionally threatens useds to lose their friends if they leave Facebook. It is probably same with other centralized social networks. Such situation is akin to free software though not the same, however it is so much akin that even FSF promotes decentralization. That is why no FSF endorsed distribution shall contain any software that solely connects to centralized social networks. By the way, I do not consider them social, they are private membership networks. In general every circle of people is "social". But social activity is not what Facebook represents. It is private activity. Social network may be such created by multiple various people such as Retroshare, such as XMPP network, such as Fediverse; and where those people in their own groups have their own set of rules or lack of rules. There is no centralization in true social networks. And I can download whatever information I want without any threats. Copyrighted, not copyrighted, worse or best information is there. > (else I could definitely move some groups to it, especially in a > "crisis" moment.) > Discord = cloud service running non-free software > why people use it = people like the persistent chat feature, that they > don't have to leave their computer at home idling > and wasting electricity 24/7 just to keep the chat logs going on a > room. built in voice chat is a bonus, but in my experience doesn't > necessarily get used a lot. (as people in different time zones aren't > necessarily all on at the same time) People started to use private centralized networks for the fundamental reason of advertising them enough that it gains kind of mouth to mouth advertising so that people "hear about it" from their friends, as soon as it appears that friends are hooked on, that is how it grows. People do not browse social networks to find the best features there. They are marketed to, and their friends start talking to the next used, and that one gets hooked on. Networks can be featureless as long as they do good advertising. When Twitter arrived with short messages, it looked WTF! Who would use that shitty forum. But with advertising look where Twitter is now. They shorten messages and people don't complain, I am very surprised how easy it is to form people's opinions. > Discourse = freedom respecting software under a free software license. > It runs on someone else's server. (as it is for communities) It uses > javascript in your browser. > why people use it = People like Discourse communities because the > software has made it easy to find new posts, get rid of spam before it > starts, and keep the spirit of the community going. You have not analysed it well. Discourse is full free software that everybody may run on their own: https://github.com/discourse/discourse If everybody is free, than if you do not run the software, of course you may stumble upon servers run by somebody else. That does not diminish your freedom to run your own copy of software. That it runs on someone else's server is thus not a factor here, you may run it on your own server if you wish. That is uses Javascript is irrelevant, it is free software. IMHO people choose such free software exactly for the reason to build their own communities in freedom. When there are multiple software, and there are, administrators will look into features to choose what seem best for them. I do not find anything special in discourse and would not make it so. Before years I was making my own forum software with success. It is very simple to design a database, provide some kind of authentication, and replies to answer to other replies. Nothing new under the sun. My recommendation is that those who wish to build their own online communities learn to program and create their own software. Jean Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns Sign an open letter in support of Richard M. Stallman https://stallmansupport.org/ https://rms-support-letter.github.io/ _______________________________________________ libreplanet-discuss mailing list libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss