What's the value proposition over Twitter?
Decentralized, no ads, no tracking, free software.
GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
161–170 of 259 posts
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And even GNU founder can be considered anti-capitalist. You are mixing up anarchism with anti-capitalism.
Anarchism is anti-capitalist… but RMS is neither an anarchist nor strictly anti-capitalist
> Anarchism is anti-capitalist
Some of it. There are various views on this subject as well as different variants of anarchistic approaches.
> RMS is neither an anarchist nor strictly anti-capitalist
Giving a single label is probably pointless. He definitely has anarchistic ideas.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
His core ideas of free software are based on the concept of being free from control over it. The idea is anarchistic since by controlling the software and computing technology one controls society in some way, and the more technology is intertwined with social aspects (which gradually happens the more technology progresses), the higher is that level of control.
RMS is on record saying "I am not an anarchist. In fact, I have a pro-state gland"
I assume that's because someone tried to attribute to him certain anarchistic positions that he didn't share. This doesn't make his own ideas less anarchistic however.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#164After reading about GNU Social on HN last night I created an account on the first of the 6 provides, loadaverage.org
I like the service and I am considering running my own server. My account is https://loadaverage.org/markwatson and I am going to start out by cross posting some of the things I post on Twitter and G+ and see where this goes.
When I quit consulting at Google in 2013 the first thing I did when I got home was to write an article on how to use Twitter, G+, and Facebook while preserving some degree of privacy. If alternatives like GNU Social catch on (a big IF), that will be a good thing!
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
> GNU projects always remind me why programmers alone isn't enough, apps also need good design and UX. Some people need others to think for them. Some people like to make their own decisions. GNU is for the latter ones. GNU has always been freedom of choice. Design is overrated. Functionality and reliability are more important. Even Apple has to admit that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11061111
You probably shouldn't choose any of them, but should set up your own server, but some people don't want to do that, and we don't want to play favorites and say "this is the best server to join" so instead we list a few servers run by our community.
"To use our version of Twitter, first set up your own server" is even worse user experience than picking between seven preexisting servers.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#166Is that a rebranding of diaspora?
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
What makes him anarchist?
His core ideas of free software are based on the concept of being free from control over it. The idea is anarchistic since by controlling the software and computing technology one controls society in some way, and the more technology is intertwined with social aspects (which gradually happens the more technology progresses), the higher is that level of control.
As someone else said, Stallman does not identify himself as being an anarchist. If you listen to his talks, he does spend some time on what we need to do to protect ourselves politically and the need to protect democracy.
I may be in the minority: I agree with almost everything that Richard says.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
I signed up and am having a great time. 3 people responded to my first message within a minute. Sure it doesn't replace existing communities or networks. But it's creating new ones right now. You just have to believe in it!
This. Your family doesn't use HN or reddit, but you do. You can use GNU Social the same way, and maybe it will attract your family to it over time as well. (my mother has a reddit account, gods help me)
Apples and oranges. I use HN and Reddit because those have communities centered around certain interests (tech news here on HN for instance). So I come here to chat with people about tech topics. The design of the forum facilitates this, by people posting links to articles and then us discussing them.
Places like Facebook are full of random people, generally who you know but for a brand-new social network would be just a bunch of unknown randoms. I'm sorry, I have no interest in trying to strike up a conversation with some random person who could be anywhere on the planet. There needs to be some kind of commonality, some reason to interact. On Reddit I can go to a subreddit centered on a certain esoteric topic and chat with people about that. On OKCupid I can try to chat up women who live near me and have interesting profiles and go out on dates with them. On GNU Social, what am I going to do there? I have no idea.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
* Federated vs Centralized * Usenet vs Internet. * IRC vs AOL Instant Messenger * Email vs Xanga / Myspace / Facebook * Torrent vs Dropbox / Cloud Storage Federated has its advantages. Centralized has its advantages. 40 years from now, people will continue to use the federated platform. The centralized platform only stays around as long as it is profitable. But while the centralized platform is around, things are a l…
Damn good observation -- but it begs the question, why can't federated be as frictionless as centralized? Is this a matter of effort, funding and organization, or something more fundamental?
Its a fundamental difference.
Consider HTTPS, SSLv2, SSLv3, and TLS1.0, and TLS1.1. As web security standards evolved, the people who run HTTPS servers flat out refuse to upgrade the security protocols. Federated admins don't necessarily run their servers as a full time job, while centralized organizations are well funded and well paid.
It takes a lot longer for infrastructure in federated networks to upgrade. Facebook can add new features across the entire network immediately.
Imagine if you wanted to add a game protocol to IRC for example. You'd create the protocol, then you'd try to get Freenode to switch over to the new and improved game protocol, and then they won't do it. So you create your own IRC server and no one comes. You give up and open source the project. Years later, some guy finds your open source implementation and maybe the protocol finally becomes popular enough to be used... or maybe they'll use your protocol as a base for their ideas and it will evolve into something else.
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When "federated" works, it is mostly due to the big players agreeing that a particular federated protocol is amazing. Take OAuth for instance, which got Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft support early.
Ultimately, it is very difficult to make money from federated services, so there's no money (or investment) going into those projects. OAuth was a pro-bono non-political effort to make the web better. Such efforts are extremely rare.
In fact, most federated protocols exist to give a particular company an advantage (or to levy disadvantages on a particular company's competitors). So there's a healthy amount of distrust to any newly proposed protocols... for good reason. Ex: Theora / MPEG4 / video tag nonsense, or DRM support in web browsers.
The big daddy federated network: Email / SMTP, was basically a research project from the late 1960s, and received public investment in the 1990s as IMAP and POP3 protocols were developed. (Anyone else remember paying for Juno email on their 33.6kbps modems?). Due to years of use, it has found its niche and no "competitor" will ever really displace it.
Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter
#170Before the site has given me any reason to join, it makes me choose between 7 virtually indistinguishable options of providers with subtle technical advantages and disadvantages. Ah, GNU projects. Never change.
It could be as easy as just recommending one at random every time you load the page. I don't understand why they don't implement this.
It's a static site, but also maintaining a huge list of servers, monitoring them, etc seems like a lot of work when the real goal should be "start your own server"