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GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

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Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#191

Post by st3v3r »

bcg1 wrote: post #146
tehmillhouse wrote: post #110

Before 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.

Perhaps instead of just complaining, people could help out with the documentation: https://git.gnu.io/gnu/gnu-social Then again, you're right... some things never change.

Except we don't know enough about the project to do so. And it seems like those involved in the project that could do so have no interest in doing so.

This is not a "blame the people who complain for not contributing" thing. This is a "the people who are presenting the project are doing a horrible job of it."

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#192

Post by rocky1138 »

motters wrote: post #175
rocky1138 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There needs to be a much better solution to the use case of having to jettison from an existing federation that might be disappearing soon (or where the admin changes the rules and you no longer want to be there). Currently, the only fix is to create a brand new account on a different federation and start again.

Again that may just be the wrong paradigm. If you are especially concerned about disappearance of a server then just run your own installation. This is partially why I'm making debian packages for GNU Social, to make that process easy. There isn't really any "different federation". You just follow whoever you want to follow, regardless of what server they're on.

Yes, but if you use someone else's install and they disappear, you lose all your followers and everyone you follow.

You have to start from scratch.

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#193

Post by st3v3r »

jeena wrote: post #48

Reading the comments here it seems that people are missing the point by just joining one of those instances. It is not about just using some alternative to Twitter, the real advantage begins when you host it yourself so that you can own your own content and post whatever you want (not what some company wants you to) and (perhaps) syndicate to other services like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc. I just gave a small tal…

"Reading the comments here it seems that people are missing the point by just joining one of those instances."

No, they're not. They just want to get started and go. They don't want to deal with hosting or configuring servers. Many of them might not even have the equipment to do it. That's the experience they've gotten from Twitter, and most people like that.

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#194

Post by st3v3r »

rndmind wrote: post #138
jaredklewis wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I'd say 1 hour/week is quite a bit more than the a normal person would like to spend on maintaining apps (probably 0). Why someone would want to run their own instance of their favorite web app when most are given away for free, no maintenance required.

Hosting your own node is reserved for hobbyists, and privacy, cryptography, tech enthusiasts, not regular users. Although regular users can support by simply using the services and contributing.

And now that comes back to the problem that was pointed out in the other thread: Which one do you join?

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#195

Post by st3v3r »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #164

After 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 hom…

Why did you decide on that server, out of all the others?

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#196

Post by st3v3r »

js8 wrote: post #47
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…

I am not talking primarily about Stallman's free software work; have you ever read his political notes? It seems that he is very critical to capitalism (as a description of the existing economic system, contrary to free market, which describes - somewhat different - ideal). In fact he also seems to be critical about free market, in particular in environmental and social issues.

Being critical of, and believing that those systems can better work for most people, rather than those at the top, isn't enough to make someone anti-capitalist.

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#197

Post by st3v3r »

quadrangle wrote: post #155
js8 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not talking primarily about Stallman's free software work; have you ever read his political notes? It seems that he is very critical to capitalism (as a description of the existing economic system, contrary to free market, which describes - somewhat different - ideal). In fact he also seems to be critical about free market, in particular in environmental and social issues.

RMS is a classic Green Party guy, explicitly . That is not the same as being anti-capitalist. And only idiots think that free markets don't have externalities, so RMS noting that there are environmental or social issues free markets fail to address is itself completely unremarkable. Anyone who denies those facts should be completely disregarded. Even the most staunch free market advocates who have any understanding o…

Usually the staunch free market advocates don't want to do anything about those externalities, though. They accept that they exist, but that doesn't stop them from fighting whenever regulation or taxes come up as a way to fix those externalities.

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#198

Post by st3v3r »

dragonwriter wrote: post #44
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…

> 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.)

"it morally opposes capitalist model of property rights"

Does it? Or does it take a much more hardline stance in favor of property rights, by saying you should control what is running on your property?

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#199

Post by st3v3r »

belorn wrote: post #76
js8 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You have the draw the line somewhere and using physical boundaries is quite useful. It create a natural distinction. The problem with IP is that there isn't any limit to it. A driver license is not more or less a property than a patent, but it acts wastingly different. Can I sell a driver license? can I rent it? Can I cut it into two different part and give a friend half of it? What makes the exclusivity of state gra…

I don't think I can go along with the idea that a license is property. By the very nature of a license, you can't do any of that stuff with it. I'm the one, who, by nature of being granted the license, was granted the privilege the license confers (driving, practicing a specific trade, etc). It would make absolutely no sense to rent out a driver's license to someone who has not demonstrated the competency needed to get one.

Re: GNU Social, a FLOSS alternative to Twitter

#200

Post by st3v3r »

reidrac wrote: post #69
Gracana wrote: post #9

Is there a good way to publish to this at the same time as twitter, so I'm already established and can drop twitter when it dies?

In my humble opinion, that's what ruined indenti.ca back in the day. If you're mirroring Twitter and losing the interactions you have in GNU Social, your account is just a bot and you're not really using the social network .

Does someone have a client that can work with both? Because, lets face it, Twitter is the 800 lb gorilla in the room. Most people, if they want to try this out, would also like to maintain their activity on Twitter. Hopefully there would be some way that you can do both, and be alerted to messages and replies on both, and even have a unified timeline in one app.

(And if you're not interested in maintaining presence on Twitter as well, that's great, I'm happy for you, but please don't reply just to say that. It's not interesting or contributing to the discussion in the least).

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