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GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

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Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#51

Post by js8 »

shmerl wrote: post #39
js8 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not familiar with either, but I am curious why does "anti-capitalist message" matter so much? I thought the purpose is to build a messaging network that everybody can use. And even GNU founder can be considered anti-capitalist. I am asking because to me, to decide to join some (not political) community based on your own political opinion, is a good way to live in your own bubble. The real strength of the Interne…

> And even GNU founder can be considered anti-capitalist. You are mixing up anarchism with anti-capitalism.

Not really, IMHO you're the one mixing them up. Take Noam Chomsky, he self-identifies as anarchist too, but I think you would have a hard time not to call him anti-capitalist.

I understand anti-capitalism as a criticism of the current economic system (or at least aspects of it), so it's independent to anarchism, just like it is, say, independent to Christianity.

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#52

Post by Johnny_Brahms »

agumonkey wrote: post #38
jtreminio wrote: post #20

I was excited to learn that GNU Social is in PHP, but quickly turned off because of the quality of the PHP code.

Instead of being written in Guile Scheme.

Now, you will find lots of people that claim scheme is the best programming language. I myself am torn between the caml family of languages and scheme.

Most serious stuff I write in Scheme, and when I got parsack (parsec for Racket) I now no longer have any reason to leave.

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#53

Post by shmerl »

js8 wrote: post #51
shmerl wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And even GNU founder can be considered anti-capitalist. You are mixing up anarchism with anti-capitalism.

Not really, IMHO you're the one mixing them up. Take Noam Chomsky, he self-identifies as anarchist too, but I think you would have a hard time not to call him anti-capitalist. I understand anti-capitalism as a criticism of the current economic system (or at least aspects of it), so it's independent to anarchism, just like it is, say, independent to Christianity.

Noam Chomsky doesn't speak for all anarchists. Anarchism comes in different forms.

> I understand anti-capitalism as a criticism of the current economic system (or at least aspects of it), so it's independent to anarchism, just like it is, say, independent to Christianity.

That's exactly my point (that it's independent). In case of Stallman, he isn't anti-capitalist per se, but he is definitely an anarchist.

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#54

Post by js8 »

x1798DE wrote: post #46
dragonwriter wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a hard time seeing it from an "anti-capitalist" position. The FSF position is anti-capitalist in at least one technical sense -- in the domain of software, it morally opposes capitalist model of property rights (and, in practice, uses a hack around the mechanism by which that model is implemented to subvert it.)

I always saw intellectual property rights as a hack to try and encourage the production of non-rivalrous goods. The scarcity is in some sense enforced and artificial, and there's a strong argument to be made that they aren't they aren't "natural" property rights in the same sense as you get with rivalrous goods. I think pro-capitalist (mostly libertarian) thought on this matter is divided.

> The scarcity is in some sense enforced and artificial

The problem is, you can mount the very same argument even in the case of normal property rights. At the beginnings of capitalism, the scarcity was in fact enforced by means of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure.

IMHO, most libertarians are used to idea normal property and take it for "natural", but not so in the "intellectual" world of ideas. It is partly because they benefit from intellectual world not yet completely owned by rich people. But I think people outside computing (unless they are distinctly leftist) are unfortunately lot more content with the idea of "intellectual property".

In my view, there is always a balance between "property rights" and other needs of society - availability of resources to the needy and the general public, innovation and growth.

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#55

Post by agumonkey »

Johnny_Brahms wrote: post #52
agumonkey wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of being written in Guile Scheme.

Now, you will find lots of people that claim scheme is the best programming language. I myself am torn between the caml family of languages and scheme. Most serious stuff I write in Scheme, and when I got parsack (parsec for Racket) I now no longer have any reason to leave.

I was reminded of a quote saying this kind of question (scheme or caml) is discussing brand of waters while lost in a desert dying of thirst. Although PHP post 5.5 matured enormously, I'm still rooting for a scheme.

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#56

Post by drdeca »

DasIch wrote: post #37
pekk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "value proposition"? It is free software, not a business opportunity. Not everything is about selling and money. I read about the project just to answer your question, which you could have answered for yourself by reading. You can run your own instance. The source is open, which means it is publicly auditable, you can contribute to it, you can fork it. It is federated. There is not one single glob…

> There is not one single global point of failure, which has other implications regarding things like censorship. In other words it doesn't just ignore abuse and harrassment one of the biggest problems - maybe the biggest problem - twitter has a communications platform, it practically encourages it.

I expect there are ways to make something both resistant to harassment and resistant to censorship.

Like, suppose a network was designed with those as its primary 2 goals. I don't think that would be totally unachievable.

DewDrop (I might have gotten the name mixed up with another thing by neyer) and related things seem not inconsistent with decentralized things, and they seem like they could be used for combating harassment. (e.g. by setting a minimum relative reputation for people sending one things in order to see the things, people who were more likely to be targeted could set a higher minimum, while people who no one knew could set a minimum of 0, or even something slightly negative. Someone who wanted to see everything sent to them could set it to the minimum allowed number.) (the relative reputation is constructed based on the individual, and does not rely on an authority thing to work).

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#57

Post by Outdoorsman »

js8 wrote: post #24
rocky1138 wrote: post #7

The https://quitter.se anti-capitalist message didn't resonate with me, so I joined the https://gnusocial.no federation. Much friendlier :)

I am not familiar with either, but I am curious why does "anti-capitalist message" matter so much? I thought the purpose is to build a messaging network that everybody can use. And even GNU founder can be considered anti-capitalist. I am asking because to me, to decide to join some (not political) community based on your own political opinion, is a good way to live in your own bubble. The real strength of the Interne…

Agreed...you grow by entertaining ideas other than your own, or those of the group you find yourself closely identifying with...

As F Scott Fitzegerald said:

A test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

Using the Internet just to confirm your existing beliefs sounds a bit too much like tribalism...isn't there something better to aspire to?

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#58

Post by tete »

shmerl wrote: post #53
js8 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, IMHO you're the one mixing them up. Take Noam Chomsky, he self-identifies as anarchist too, but I think you would have a hard time not to call him anti-capitalist. I understand anti-capitalism as a criticism of the current economic system (or at least aspects of it), so it's independent to anarchism, just like it is, say, independent to Christianity.

Noam Chomsky doesn't speak for all anarchists. Anarchism comes in different forms. > I understand anti-capitalism as a criticism of the current economic system (or at least aspects of it), so it's independent to anarchism, just like it is, say, independent to Christianity. That's exactly my point (that it's independent). In case of Stallman, he isn't anti-capitalist per se, but he is definitely an anarchist.

What makes him anarchist?

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#59

Post by adiabatty »

equalarrow wrote: post #23

Wasn't this the initial goal of app.net? I know it's morphed somewhat now, but, if I remember correctly, it came about as a direct response to some Twitter developer in-niceness.

Sort of. App.net's big experiment was "charge users money instead of monetizing their eyeballs". Twitter outages and developer alienation helped fuel its initial rise.

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#60

Post by Frondo »

DasIch wrote: post #41
mikekchar wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the horde descends, I thought I might respond to the suggestion that RMS is anti-capitalist. This comes up frequently and is a bit of a red herring. I won't try to speak for him (he can obviously do that well enough himself), however I think it is worth considering the free software movement in today's reality. Back when they only thing that described free software was the GNU manifesto, we still had the idea…

Have you ever read anything by RMS on what he calls Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS)? I can't think of many large businesses who aren't "guilty" of that.

This looks like the SaaSS article:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...

The payoff comes at the very end, "Do your own computing with your own copy of a free program, for your freedom's sake."

Nah, I'll pay someone to do compute (and maintain the API, infrastructure, etc.) for me. I'm a huge free software advocate, but in the SaaS situation, I'm not paying for a program, I'm paying for results.

As such, it's immaterial how I get those results--they could have a roomful of people arranging bits by hand. (What if that's how they were doing it? Would that represent a loss of freedom, if I were paying people to shuffle bits by hand?)

This particular essay seems like the RMS take on that old saw, "if all you have is a hammer..."

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