from Hacker News

A new community space for discussing free software

by wicket on 4/8/24, 12:34 PM with 22 comments

• by mkesper on 4/10/24, 9:47 AM

  This is welcome news. More and more projects are only (or mainly) reachable via proprietary platforms like discord.

• by MaxBarraclough on 4/11/24, 8:55 PM

  Another interesting project from Drew DeVault, I wish it well.

  At a glance it seems much like the FSF's members-only forum, [0] except, well, not reserved for paying members.

  [0] https://www.fsf.org/associate/about-the-member-forum

• by bruce511 on 4/10/24, 9:52 AM

  I went to the site hoping to see forums discussing the commercialisation of OSS. Ya know, how to make enough money so you can afford to do this as a day job.

  There is a pretty quiet section on funding, pretty low down. Not much there.

  First forum though (organised by category) is how not to sign a CLA [1].

  The thread seems determined that no contribution should be made to a project that ends up going commercial.

  I feel this is the subtle underlying theme in too many OSS discussions. Not just the overt "free as in freedom", but also the covert idea that "free means non commercial".

  I say covert, because of course the FSF manifesto specifically says you can sell free software. You're not even limited to selling your own software, you can sell -anyones- free software.

  Which leads a developer to a place where they like something enough to want to contribute something to the project, but at the same time add limits to the project -now- to give them fewer options in the future.

  If a project disappoints you, sure, fork it then. If you don't want people to profit from your free labor, then simply don't give it. And if you don't want to sign a CLA then don't sign it.

  (I expect this comment won't age well as the front page of the site changes :)

  [1] https://discourse.writefreesoftware.org/t/anti-cla-action-wh...

• by TylerLives on 4/10/24, 11:14 AM

  Okay, so they're building "safe", but "powerful" spaces with "political awareness that extends further than a simple understanding of free software liberation and includes solidarity against all struggles for liberation". I wouldn't be interested in joining even without this craziness, but there has to be a significant amount of people who read this stuff and think that it's at least a bit strange. I feel like I'm in some dystopian novel where everything has the opposite meaning of what it presents itself as. I wonder what the numbers are though. How many people are unaware of what this is? How many know what it is, but promote it for Machiavellian reasons? How many are too afraid to speak out? And most importantly, what will it take to free ourselves from these freedom fighters? A well organized minority will always rule a disorganized majority. I suppose some other group will have to organize around a different, but equally pragmatic set of principles?