I’ve seen many threads suggesting products but they often don’t mention FOSS projects, which should always be preferred to corporate software. With FOSS you are already boycotting capitalism, on either side. Free and Open Source ignores borders and shouldn’t be categorized in nationalist terms, no matter where some of the maintainers happen to live.
I’ve tried to extol the virtues of FOSS for a long time. Not many people even care about it or their privacy, always parroting the adage “If i do nothing wrong what do I need to worry about” without a further thought.
I think there is a different problem. Many of the best FOSS products are unknown to the general public ;/
@not_IO
I agree on that.FOSS is not American. Foss belongs to literally everyone.
I kept saying it all over the place regarding the fascistic rejection of Russian (as in race) code and got flamed as result. These people use FOSS, especially GNU/GPL software and yet they have no clue about the license themselves.
Lol, first time I hear that, as European😆 what a stupid movement…
I always like to say the fruits of FOSS labour are the common heritage of mankind. It belongs to all of us as a public good, created and maintained by selfless workers. (Nevermind the fact that most FOSS projects are based out of Europe anyways).
FOSS is definitely not boycotting capitalism, but its still an objectively good thing. I see FOSS work as a way for relatively rich imperial core citizens to give back to the world.
Definitely do not boycott FOSS projects.
I don’t understand why you say FOSS isn’t boycotting capitalism. I don’t disagree, but I also don’t know enough to agree yet.
Look at the success of Linux. It’s not in opposition to capitalism, it’s ba kernel widely used by capitalists. If Linux was truly a threat to capitalism, google wouldn’t use it in their phones.
I still think that Linux and open source are great. They’re just not neccesarily anticapitalist. They definitely can be in certain circumstances, and definitely make some rent seeking impossible
To be fair, what Google is doing is a perversion of the original intent of Linux. It used to be a direct competitor to commercial OSs. Google turned it into one.
The original intent was a hobby project, not a competitor to orher kernels
There are some pretty corporate “open core” software companies tho, that’s a more grey area
Are they open or free? That’s the point here.
It’s hard to say. “Open core” means that most of the software is open source (licenses vary) but some features are locked behind a paywall. Gitlab takes this approach for example, also maybe onlyoffice.
Free software is the antithesis of capitalism. It doesn’t make sense to boycott them.
I came into this thinking its more like “Oh no open sores is full of communists let me pay for worse software I never own” which is an argument that comes from the same camp as “this software I don’t like is woke”
Is someone doing that? If it’s FOSS it’s from the internet.
I would think it depends on the project
Are there US open source projects?
I mean, open source projects can be started or based in the US. But that doesn’t mean it’s an American project; it’s just that the people who started it happened to be American.
I guess if we had to point to a specific American OSS, maybe Tor would qualify? It was initially developed by the CIA, so that may qualify it as US OSS. But it has since taken on a life of its own and the CIA doesn’t have any hand in active development anymore… So it’s still hard to say that even “being made by the literal US government” qualifies an OSS project as “American”.
It’s sort of a Ship of Theseus situation. At what point in the development process do we consider it a non-American project?
There definitely are FOSS projects run by the US government: Ghidra is an open source reverse engineering tool developed by the NSA.
I think the majority
I don’t know about that, to be honest.
I don’t have any hard data to back me up, but anecdotally I find that most FOSS software I use is headquartered in Europe. Quite often Germany. There are many maintainers from all over the world, but I feel like (again…in my experience) Europe has always been bigger into starting such projects.
Agreed.
I’m the most anti-American user on here and I agree.
I’d rather use USA-linked free software than Spotify.
Wasn’t Spotify Swedish tho? But yeah
Didn’t microsoft buy them?
No, they’re still independent with majority of shares owned by their founders.
Ah ok, maybe that’s why they arent enshittified that much then!
Spotify donated to trumps inauguration
https://www.avclub.com/spotify-donald-trump-brunch is just one of the many reasons not to support spotify.
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Spotify for lots more
Let me guess, you get your news from Facebook?
I think that’s the point, he’s saying he’d rather use USA-linked FOSS than non-USA proprietary software.
I get it as an European that it means more to me to consume “locally” and to prioritize services that are European-based. But due to the nature of computers and FOSS, borders are redefined and it is more about ideas and politics rather than physical location. However, computers and servers are also physical and submitted to legislations of countries, we cannot ignore laws such as the Patriot act and the power that the American state can have even on FOSS projects.
For me the priority is to use software that match my needs; if I have the choice between an American and an European solution, I’ll tend to choose the latter one.
If you are worried about US laws affecting FOSS projects, it can always be forked, perhaps even be rewritten.
Of course, but what about the individual behind it, if it is someone who is also against their current government, while having to live in that country? It is tricky to ask how to reconcile the need for EU solutions while encouraging American citizens to fight against their system!
FOSS devs can do FOSS work only because of the relative luxury conditions of their imperial core countries, which comes at the expense of global south countries.
In other words, they can do that because their countries imperialist relations with the global south, this is the reason that most FOSS projects come from the US and Europe.
In some way FOSS work is a way for these people to give back to the world, i think its fine to donate to these projects regardless of their location.
I canceled ongoing donations to several projects based in the US and stated that my reasons for doing so was US policy against my country. It doesn’t matter if the dev or project lead supports those policies or not, I refuse to contribute to the US economy if I can at all help it.
By donating to contributors to free and open information and software you support the movement against tyranny inside the us and also everywhere.
compared to that foss devs buying groceries is negligible to the us economy.
I understand, but I am also thinking about the dev of those projects, as an individual who (probably) really despises the current US Gov, and even though they have to engage in the US economy, as they need to eat, pay bills, etc. It is a very tricky problem for those individuals and how to emancipate from. It is like with Russia where such individuals do not endorse at all the ongoing war but still live in that system 🤔
