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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 2nd, 2023

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  • They have talked a bit about what they are trying to do. It’s backed by Silicon Valley billionaire Eron Wolf, and he has talked about his frustration with everyone putting their blood, sweat, and tears into the software and then someone like Facebook comes along and makes billions from the work of others.

    I get it’s frustrating, but personally I think it fails to see that Facebook is part of the ecosystem, but also so are many small companies, and many of these are contributing back to the software. If you remove the companies then you have removed a significant source of help. Eron wants to replace this with an expectation that people pay for their software, he wants to normalise paying for OSS so OSS doesn’t have to rely on the companies. You can see this in how FUTO keyboard using language implying you need to pay to get a license, but also it holds no features back from you and doesn’t nag if you don’t pay.

    Personally I welcome new ways of thinking but even if the pay for your OSS thing works I think companies are uniquely placed to contribute in ways that a small team relying on purchases is never going to be able to replicate.

    I don’t hold any ill will though, I think their heart is in the right place, albeit having missed what makes FOSS special.


  • Haha yeah I do find the licence a bit weird. Kind of a non-commercial licence but there are definitely some parts that I don’t quite get.

    I have seen Eron Wolf talking a bit about what he is trying to do. I get his frustrations, but am not convinced their licence helps with those at all. You can’t really take open source, take away some freedoms that are sometimes taken advantage of, and pretend that removing those freedoms didn’t remove the benefits that are the reason those freedoms existed in the first place.


  • Dave@lemmy.nztoTechnology@lemmy.worldGrayjay for desktop has arrived!
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    2 days ago

    Typically licenses not OSI approved are referred to as “Source available” rather than “Open source”. This is one reason FUTO (who make Grayjay) refer to their license as “Source first” and not “Open Source” (though they did call it that for a while before clarifying and switching to the new term).



  • Dave@lemmy.nztoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldEvil
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    4 days ago

    As someone else commented, it appears that the license isn’t free because when you share it the new person now owes the original author a beer if they ever meet them, so the middle person isn’t free to do whatever they like because of the ongoing obligation being forced on their users.









  • I believe the current state is:

    • Mastodon users can participate on Lemmy
    • Lemmy users cannot follow Mastodon users

    So you may see comments or posts from Mastodon users who have posted to Lemmy, but if you want to follow Mastodon users you’ll need a Mastodon account.

    There is a middle ground. Mbin allows you to participate on both Lemmy and Mastodon.