this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2024
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Soo the only way to really communicate with your free software project that is all about self-hosting & privacy is thru fully-closed, US-based services with ads & ToS that let them track you. Way to practice what you preach.
Most people don't use federated services. I know it's ironic that an open source project isn't using open source channels, but sometimes it's best to stick to services that are easy access and popular.
I'm sure if enough people got in contact about using open source communication they would likely attempt it.
Not to mention that self-hosting/federation comes with a million small headaches.
If the devs are paid, do you want to pay them to work on the project or work on maintaining a contact infrastructure?
If they aren't paid, do you want them using what little free time they have working on the app or working on maintaining a communications network?
If it's someone else's forum/matrix/chat server, are you okay with 1. a third party having access to your communications and 2. being able to force a comms blackout for any reason whatsoever?
Or would you rather they use their time and money focusing on finding a provider who meets every need of the project AND every user?
These do not meet the philosophical or privacy needs of users. Look at how the Switch emulator situation was handled where one megacorporation told another megacorporation to shutdown their communications & they did. Look at how US sanctions prevent users form touching these platforms. Look at how the feds & advertizers use all the collected data.
You said it better than I could
You see the chicken-egg situation here, right?
You can have multiple channels. You can bridge. You can designate some spaces as reserved but unofficial. They do list a Matrix in the finer print, but not choosing it as primary is madness IMO since the option are certainly good enough & if you believe in the philosophy you will direct your community in this direction to inspire other folks to uptake & hopefully improve our freedom-respecting options. Instead you start at bifurcating a community along lines of those that want ethical software & privacy over those who are willing/able to give it up—which as you say is definitely ironic given the marketing buzzwords chosen like “self-hosted”, “respects your privacy”, “open source”.
Right but a small company or even a group of people aren't going to put resources into something that a few % of people use. Look at Linux, despite it being the most used operating system in the world, retail sticks to windows and Mac, so it just doesn't get the same level of support.
I completely agree in the sense people should educate themselves and use products that benefit them and don't abuse them, but people don't. And because people don't, companies won't.
Folks are free to do what they want with their project just as I am free to judge them for their choices. The big problem with these sort of communication decisions is that you effectively silence those that would like to raise their hand toward wanting something for them too. “We asked our Discord chat room if they like it & they all said yes, so the community has already spoken with regards to Discord”. If lazy, it is next to zero effort to say: “we also (unofficially) support a Libera.Chat/OFTC room @
#foobar” so the other folks know where to find the other ones that value their bandwidth, system resources, freedom, privacy, security, blocked by sanctions, or just sick of mainstream social media/ads.With regards to Linux, it’s been a grassroots effort by enthusiasts that take the philosophies to heart, & it is just a shame to adopt the licensing, but not the general philosophy. As users, I think we should be more critical of these choices, but there’s a lot of shrug it would be nice, but…
It's harsh to criticise people for not working for free..
Start with good, accesible tools you can have control of—either by self-hosting or that they have their source code available so you can suggest fixes, or migrate off later. Choosing proprietary software like this leads to inevitable lock-in so why start there if we have seen this play out many times?
They are also on Mastodon and Matrix. If you cite stuff from the website, at least read it properly. You had to scroll down to the very bottom to find the link to that contact page, right above it you can see a whole bunch of other (including federated) platforms.
I noted it in a different comment, the open options are listed at the end, it still shows the priority of the platform the devs specifically noted it in the body of the contact page, & doesn’t address the software forge + source contributions.
The contact page probably wasn't updated in years. It's also really irrelevant, since no one goes to that page, and even if someone finds it, they still see all the other platforms before actually clicking on the link to the contact page.
I went there. I go there often usually in search of the non-garbage options that might be hidden on this page instead of a logo for a for-profit entity in the banner of every page. Sometimes you find the other communities which is good—but increasingly you don’t.
Ok but I still want to know how the actual fuck you found this tiny link to the contact page on the bottom of the website, but managed to overlook the 10 links to other platforms right above it.
The first page I went to was: https://ente.io/community/ where the big 3 priority links are Discord, Figma, Microsoft GitHub--these are Ente’s priority platforms. Seeing no alternative to the code forge under ‘Community’, I was curious if ‘Contact’ had listed another forge or a mailing list since this page is generally where you find email addresses. The page did not have an alt forge or mailing list, but there was a call to how they prioritize communications for their free software on nonfree Discord & MS GitHub.
Matrix sucks, but it as a chat option in the ‘better’ category. Bugs can be reported via email according to the ‘Contact’ page …but there is no other option for sending patches--not one of your 10 links.