Michele Santullo

2017-05-22 13:44:10

I see lots of people on #Jolla blog complaining that Jolla is announcing stuff too early, then has to step back because reasons and by doing that it hurts its own credibility. I say that's the very spirit of being open instead, and I'd hate to lose this aspect of Jolla. Closed companies take all decisions behind closed doors and piles of NDAs that sometimes prevent even employees from talking to each other (I'm looking at you #Microsoft), then after several internal failed iterations you get presented to the final product and all you can do is open your wallet or shut up. More often than not they just scrap products midway and you'll never even hear about those.

Imo, that's not how it works in the #OpenSource world. Failed iterations are part of the development of the final product, and I believe that getting feedback from the wide public at that stage is the brave thing that Jolla is trying to do. Yet years of closed development spoiled users into thinking that either a company (or person, like myself with my home projects) gets something right immediately or they suck, no matter how much you try to explain that's an early release. Version 0.1? Who cares, it's glitchy, u suck. Prototype? Omg so slow u suck plz refund. Early access? But play mode XYZ is missing, u suck scammer!

The very same people criticizing Jolla for "not keeping promises" are also seen complaining about Jolla not being more open. To that, I say WTF. Stand back a second and ask yourself what being open even means. Is the codebase of 2mil bug-free lines of code magically appearing overnight what you'd call open development? Or is it you being involved in chats and being presented with options at early stages of development?

Björn Schießle

2017-04-13 13:40:47

German City of Göppingen builds on Free Software

"Contrary to common belief, free availability and low costs are not the main arguments for choosing open source," Rettberg said. "For me, the reliability of the software comes first. I can set up a Linux proxy server in half an hour and I won't have to come back to it for the next ten years."

https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/160370

#FreeSoftware #OpenSource #Politics #Germany #Göppingen #pmpc

dandelion* - diaspora android app

2017-04-09 17:14:15

GitHub | Translate

dandelion* - v0.2.5 update released

We are happy to announce the release of the v0.2.5 update of #dandelion!

General

This is an unofficial webview based client for the community-run, distributed social network diaspora*. It's currently under development and should be used with that in mind. Please submit any bugs you might find.

• Download (F-Droid, Release Archive)
• Watch Changelog
• See Screenshots

Changelog

• Introduce minimalistic Markdown Parser
• Show LICENSE at first start
• Show CHANGELOG after update
• Convert existing Markup files to Markdown
• Update existing markdown files
• Update AboutActivity to use new Parser
• Added Korean and Danish as translation options

What’s next?

Visit https://github.com/Diaspora-for-Android/dandelion/milestone/8 to see whats planned for the next update.

Contributions

If you want to contribute translations to the project, visit: https://crowdin.com/project/diaspora-for-android/invite. If the language you want to translate into isn’t listed, please contact us. Currently our core team consists of 2 developers, and we do most stuff on GitHub and Telegram.

You can help us, even if you don't know how to code: * Artwork * Design ideas * Infrastructure/Hosting/Services * Translations * Share this post or create a new one * Blog about your experience
* We'd like to know what you think

We are also happy about any other kind of contributions, visit our GitHub Page for more informations.

Credits

• Maintainers (@gsantner, @vanitasvitae)
• Contributors
• Blowball image

(posted by @gsantner)

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Sharing welcome!

Tags: #diaspora #android #app #android-dev #DiasporaForAndroid #dfa #diasporaAndroid #diasporawebapp #foss #freie-software #freesoftware #opensource #translation #translator #release #diasporaapp #mobile

Björn Schießle

2017-03-31 14:06:10

A study by the European Commission concludes that Free Software is a driving force for innovation in Europe:

The argument that established revenue models of the software industry were being eroded by open source software being available for free can no longer be upheld. Instead, there are many examples of successful OSS applications that are generally viewed as innovation drivers. Furthermore, working business models have been developed and have proved to be successful.

Read the whole study: The economic and social impact of software & services on competitiveness and innovation

#FreeSoftware #OpenSource #EU #Europe #innovation #economy

Free Software Foundation Europe

2017-03-22 12:56:53

Moritz Bartl informed the #FSFE community on the disscussion@ Mailinglist about his side project www.fossjobs.net

Posting job offerings there is free and the site is also Free Software itself.

Job categories so far are: #Administrators #Editors #Marketers #Designers #Managers #Testers #Consultants #Programmers #Researchers #Translators #Support

Good luck! :)

#FreeSoftware #Jobs #developer #fossjobs #foss #opensource #work

fossjobs.net FOSS jobs board

^{lists.fsfe.org}

Free Software Foundation Europe

2017-03-21 13:52:06

Blog post by FSFE's Executive Director @jonaso@diasp.eu :

Policy, why's that?

"... but as Schneier puts it: it's no longer a question of it, it's a question of when. As free and open source software gets into health care, automotive and other safety critical areas, it's getting further into areas of software regulation, and those areas will only expand over time.

To meet this need for regulation, we must ensure regulatory agencies and governments are getting the support and knowledge they need to create good policies and regulation, rather than bad ones.

Advertisement: This is something the FSFE is already doing, but we could use your support to do more."

#FSFE #Policy #FreeSoftware #OpenSource

Policy, why's that?

In November 2016, Bruce Schneier wrote about the need for increased regulation in the software sphere. If we want to secure our increasingly computerized and connected world, we need more government involvement in the security of the "Internet of Things" and increased regulation of what are now critical and life-threatening

^{blog.jonasoberg.net}

dandelion* - diaspora android app

2017-02-24 17:12:19

#dandelion announcement

GitHub | Translate (posted by @[url=https://pod.geraspora.de/u/gsantner]gsantner (diaspora)[/url])

Thanks for your feedback on the previous post regarding app download source. The results are obvious - 100% of votes for F-Droid. Well, we expected a high percentage for F-Droid, but this is very clear.

Based on the results:

• We won't publish releases of dandelion* signed by our key anymore
• We will wait for F-Droid to build dandelion* and attach the app signed by them to our GitHub page
• This way there will be just one signing key used - for you users - this means you can update your dandelion* installation regardless if downloaded from us, or from F-Droid store
• If you download an *.apk telling a wrong key error at installation, you can be sure it's not done by F-Droid - so don't install
• In the last versions, there was an "secondlion*" apk attached on our GitHub Release page. This one has a different package id and can be installed beside dandelion*. In future updates this won't serve the only purpose - to just allow a second account - anymore. secondlion* will be our dandelion*-fresh/beta version from now on, signed by us, which can be installed alongside dandelion*.
• This will affect all future releases - we won't update or change previous releases
• It's up to you - you can go for the F-Droid release, the faster published secondlion* - or install both

Does this mean the project is dead?Absolutely not.

What if my current installation came from the GitHub page?Just uninstall the app, and install the latest build from F-Droid:https://f-droid.org/repo/com.github.dfa.diaspora_android_12.apk

Who has access to future used signing keys

• dandelion*: Just F-Droid has access to the key
• secondlion*: Maintainers (@[url=https://pod.geraspora.de/u/gsantner]gsantner (diaspora)[/url], @vanitasvitae)

Support the project

• Leave us a star on GitHub
• Provide Translations
• Send some Bitcoin to keep us motivated - contact us
• Report or fix bugs, send PR's

Credits

• Maintainers (@[url=https://pod.geraspora.de/u/gsantner]gsantner (diaspora)[/url], @vanitasvitae)
• Contributors
• Blowball image

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Sharing welcome!

Tags: #dandelion #dandeliondev #diaspora #diasporaforandroid #diasporaandroid #diasporaapp #app #fdroid #freesoftware #opensource #app #android-dev #foss #freie-software #freesoftware #opensource #translation #translator #release #mobile