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Our list of free software for remote work

puri.sm

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Re: Our list of free software for remote work

#11

Post by bigiain »

daniel_iversen wrote: post #8

Not sure if we are in a tech, “like to fiddle with things” echo chamber, but I would not recommend any of these tools to a team in general (even if it was a small product team).. slack and zoom and the likes (who all have free tiers) I find much better, simpler and successful to get started with.

You're right. Unless you value "freedom" higher than "simpler, better, and successful".

Some people/organisations definitely do. (I would leave a company that decided to use Facebook For Work, and I wouldn't join a company that uses it.)

Purism additionally pretty much _have_ to take this stance for branding/reputational reasons, even if they didn't believe in it (which I'm 100% certain they do. This is _the_ moral imperative that is the core of their business.)

Re: Our list of free software for remote work

#12

Post by Polylactic_acid »

john61 wrote: post #10
daniel_iversen wrote: post #8

Not sure if we are in a tech, “like to fiddle with things” echo chamber, but I would not recommend any of these tools to a team in general (even if it was a small product team).. slack and zoom and the likes (who all have free tiers) I find much better, simpler and successful to get started with.

> I find much better, simpler and successful to get started with. It is a trap. Traps are especially effective and harmful in panic mode when everyone catches the first bait. In the long run, free software (not as in beer) is much better for everyone. Especially in panic it is essentiel to think thoroughly through your decisions.

Especially zoom which is insecure spyware. Not long ago there was an exploit that allowed any website to grab your webcam feed from zoom. Even if you had uninstalled zoom because the app leaves behind a web server service listening on localhost so the malicious website can just reinstall zoom and grab your webcam.

Re: Our list of free software for remote work

#14

Post by stonogo »

john61 wrote: post #10
daniel_iversen wrote: post #8

Not sure if we are in a tech, “like to fiddle with things” echo chamber, but I would not recommend any of these tools to a team in general (even if it was a small product team).. slack and zoom and the likes (who all have free tiers) I find much better, simpler and successful to get started with.

> I find much better, simpler and successful to get started with. It is a trap. Traps are especially effective and harmful in panic mode when everyone catches the first bait. In the long run, free software (not as in beer) is much better for everyone. Especially in panic it is essentiel to think thoroughly through your decisions.

Slack and Zoom have the advantage of being in FedRamp. I hope some free software competitors bother to go through the process one day, but I'm not going to wait around for it.

Re: Our list of free software for remote work

#16

Post by l0b0 »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #13

Is the best, free (not necessarily open source), email desktop client still Thunderbird?

If you don't need a calendar, PGP support or [censored list of broken features so that the trolls don't descend], then it's certainly one of the most popular ones. But how would you even quantify "best"?

I personally migrated to Evolution at a particularly frustrating moment relatively recently, and it's been less painful for a lot of things. It has built-in calendar and PGP support, which certainly help. Unfortunately searching through message bodies is unusably slow.

I don't know whether my standards are unreasonably high, but several colleagues have expressed similar views on both.

Re: Our list of free software for remote work

#18

Post by LeoTinnitus »

wiradikusuma wrote: post #13

Is the best, free (not necessarily open source), email desktop client still Thunderbird?

Dealing with exchange is a pain. OWL or something charges like 10 a year to get it to work with a 30 day trial. Works flawlessly but I just can't be bothered to pay for it right now. I may hit a point though where I I just will do it.

Also a unified calendar is out of the question.

Re: Our list of free software for remote work

#20

Post by LeoTinnitus »

zie wrote: post #3

What do you use for back-office things, like accounting, inventory, etc?

Gnucash or Kmymoney.

I used to hate gnucash but I have basically become an accountant with my own life. For businesses it can definitely be used for minimal crm tracking and invoices.

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