Jan Wildeboer 😷Oct 3, 2024

(Thread) In the olden days, a FOSS (Free/Open Source Software) project typically had:

- A source code repository
- A web page with the documentation, FAQ and links to downloads
- At least one mailing list called announce, typically also one for users and one for contributors, all with public archives
- (maybe) An IRC channel to chat with other users and maybe also the developers

Maybe it’s time to try that simple approach again? Everything open, everything accessible? 1/7

Show threadJan Wildeboer 😷Oct 3, 2024
In those olden days, we also had some helpful rules. One was that only things that can be referenced in code or mail archives actually exist. So when there was a long discussion on IRC, someone wrote down the outcome (or coded the patch) and made it accessible to all. This was an important rule to avoid excluding those that didn’t have the time/willingness/connectivity to spend hours on IRC. 2/7
Show threadJan Wildeboer 😷Oct 3, 2024
When I now see slack, discord, github etc everywhere as a *requirement* for participation, I think that we are exchanging a bit of comfort for the IMHO very high price of excluding a lot of potential contributors and giving a lot of data to proprietary companies without a real need for that. 3/7
Show threadnobletroutOct 3, 2024

@jwildeboer do you think undernet and other IRC servers didn’t (don’t?) have a running cost? Or that the owners of those servers weren’t or had some special power to not monitor and collect all the data? You still needed an IRC client, half of which were shareware/nonfree. All the communication was unencrypted so any entity between you and the server could monitor and read all comms. Even trivially insert or delete messages if they wanted.

I don’t really see the distinction between entity 1 providing a free chat service and entity 2 doing it.

If your beef is more that people have gotten lazy about their decision making process, then I’m all for a mindset change. It sucks having decisions made and then no reference to them.

Show threadCarlos O'Donell
@nobletrout @jwildeboer Hard agree. For me this is about project governance, and infrastructure governance along with sustainable fund raising models (includes corporate sponsors). We must raise funding to support FOSS solution providers that respect privacy and user freedoms. Unpopular opinion: It does a disservice to our communities if we all stand up forgejo instances without considering that if we all put that money towards something like CodeBerg, that we might get a solution we all need.
Oct 3, 2024 at 12:15pmWeb
Show threadJan Wildeboer 😷Oct 3, 2024
@codonell (FTR: I am a paying member of Codeberg, moved most of my projects there and am also running my own forgejo instance :) @nobletrout
Show threadCarlos O'DonellOct 3, 2024
@jwildeboer @nobletrout I figured you were, and I wrote "without considering" purposely. It is absolutely OK to do this for yourself, I don't object to that, but as @nobletrout says, and I agree with, we need a mindset change where we consider our options and their consequences. Consider if the top 3 downstream distribution put all of their sources on CodeBerg, and put all that funding in the same place? Imagine being able to do PRs against the same debian, gentoo, and fedora sources?
Show threadJan Wildeboer 😷Oct 3, 2024
@codonell I am not a big fan of centralisation. Forgejo is working hard to integrate ActivityPub so that ultimately you can file issues, pull requests etc to any instance with your preferred AP account. It's going to take a while to get there, but that's the future I am hoping for. Decentralised, distributed, open. @nobletrout