It already is.
Web Servers: Apache, nginx are far more popular then Microsofts Internet Information System.
Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB are all more popular then Oracle Database or IBMs DB2
OS: Linux distros are more popular then MS Windows. Microsoft Azure runs more Linux virtual machines than Windows
I mean more in the consumer space, like with word processors, file hosting, and other apps/services
I use OpenOffice and Libre Office on the regular at work.
Sorry, but Word is way way more advanced than both. Both in ease of use and extended feature set.I’m not sure there’s much of a consumer market for those products. At least not in the self-operated and self-hosted way you might be thinking. I feel like way too many of us here have major blinders on in the way non-experts or non-hobbyists approach a vast majority of technology and technology adjacent subjects.
Speaking as if I were a layman, why would I download and install a word processor when I can just login to gdocs and have it there?
And in regards to enterprise, you’d be hard pressed to find any tech crew willing to stake their career on open source, user facing tools that don’t have a robust support structure in place.
Costa money to do all that though. That’s the challenge. Bring able to fund development while still being open
You’ve got Firefox and Brave. Edge + Chrome are based on the free software Blink engine, while Webkit is one of the only free software projects Apple develops and maintains. Who doesn’t use VLC? Bitwarden is a popular password manager. About 50% of the world uses Android, which is nominally free software with some proprietary components. Blender is the world’s most successful free software project. A surprising amount of mainstream artists use Krita. People who download torrents are probably using a free software BitTorrent client like qbittorrent, Deluge, or Transmission, rather than uTorrent. A lot of people use the uBlock Origin extension, which is a free software content blocker.
And hey, everyone who has played DOOM was playing a game released under the GPLv2 in 1999, minus the game data.
File hosting isn’t really an issue of free software, because very few people will host their own cloud storage server. It’s more about relying on servers to provide a service rather than software, which is a good and bad thing.
This is kind of a neutral point, but a lot of software has become services accessed through a web client (browser). This means anyone on any operating system can access the service so long as they have a browser, which evens the playing field for us SerenityOS and Haiku users :^).
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I’m working on a FOSS hosting protocol (it’s perfectly working except the security is not top notch just yet, encryption is hard). On day though !
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Do you have a minute to talk about our lord and savior Typst? https://typst.app
I have been summoned 🕯️
Gamepass. Get me a solution to that and I’m moving right now.
I tried the cloud app and it demanded I use a controller and not kb/mouse
Quick question: is steam being extremely slow in inplementing a competitive product to gamepass (I assume they should since recurring revenue and all) or am I on the wrong track?
I haven’t heard of anything from steam that resembles a subscription service.
Exactly. That’s what baffles me since it’s somewhat low hanging fruit.
Office software - OpenOffice
Free File Hosting - OpenSSH server and Filezilla
OpenOffice? No way… please use/recommend LibreOffice instead as OO is merely on lifesupport now.
Yeah but things like OpenOffice aren’t nearly as popular as Word and the like
Who would pay for a database when you can get a free one?
some do pay for it. And i dont understand why.
Just because something is available for free doesn’t mean it’s better for all use cases. There are cases where Oracle will perform better than Postgres (and vice versa of course).
And there’s a business case for finger pointing — security issue with your open source DB install? It’s either your fault (configuration), or the fault of some possibly volunteer engineer (bug). But if you pay enough, the whole thing is Oracle’s problem, and you can tell investors with a straight face that it’s not your fault. And Oracle are big enough that it’s an easy decision to defend should something go wrong (which is something of a self fulfilling prophecy, but that’s the way it is).
But yeah, whenever I need a database it’s Postgres :)
Business reasons. Some companies like to pay for licensing because that will lower the chance of getting wacked by a patent troll lawsuit. Vin addition they like being and to call someone when something goes wrong.
Even a database with no licensing fees costs money in terms of wages/salaried employee time to use, so while that cost advantage is real, there are costs on both sides. If MS has products you want to use that are much easier (read: cheaper) to use with their paid database than some free alternative, that’s certainly a good reason to consider it.
The longer you use it, the less likely it is to pay off, but execs focused on short term profits don’t weigh that very highly.
Who would pay for a database when you can get
a free onePostgres?Typically support is cheaper and many times infrastructure and high availability will be baked into the contract. Unless you are planning the service as a core business capability it’s typically cheaper to support.
Big business still loves “enterprise” software unfortunately.
Im a business intelligence analysts and would love to have the opportunity to work with Tableu (not sure if its FOSS, or just OS), but everyone is on the PowerBI train, except the company I work with that for some reason goes with QlikSense that sucks.
It’s not FOSS. Never actually found a FOSS BI tool alternative for the company.
Linux distros are more popular then MS Windows.
MS Windows is a Linux distro.
How so?
It distributes Linux kernel as part of itself.
My university actually hosts NextCloud for faculty and students to use. It’s nice to see!
Wow, really! That’s amazing! I love hearing things like that!
Let me guess is a university in Europe?
Yup - Taltech
Which university?
I want you all to hear about this actually good website: alternativeto.net
Type in the software that you want to replace.
Then toggle filters for your OS and if you want Properitery (paid or freemium) or FOSS.
Whole thing is based on community votings.
You can also vote down and describe with text a feedback, why a listed software doesnt really make a alternative to your software.
Or why it is a good alternative.
Sorry for bad formatting. I am writing this on mobile.
Nah, this is great! I had seen a little bit of it before but hadn’t ever investigated, I will do so now!
I always suggest FOSS options when they apply!
Me too! I’m in the process of switching my family over to things like Bitwarden
I wish I could do that, but they just don’t seem to really care
lol same. wanted to switch my mom over to ff and uninstall chrome, but she didn’t wanna lose all her open tabs. bitch u don’t remember what the fuck is on tab #127, you don’t need it. it is what it is ig
You never know, she might have an index of what is on every tab in a hand-written diary
Then she can reopen those tabs in FF :)
lol maybe
The sneaky play is to copy over all her tabs when she’s sleeping, then see if she notices. Either that or just slowly start closing her oldest tabs and see if/when she notices, then get her to move over when it’s managable
If it’s like my grand ma: Oh no, there is an unfamiliar button I have never seen before and I am too scared because I may break the pc. calls me for advice, but listens not really (I am not mad about it)
If anything they are so far in their tracks they will notice it on mobile.
Maybe not so fast on desktop.oh yeah I close a few every time I use her phone
this is how Joker started probably
Why though? If she already knows how to use something, the hurdle of having to deal with her complaints when something is slightly different will make everyone lose.
Godot might with unity going nuts
Seriously considering starting a Godot User Group in my city. Very impressed with v4 (I last looked early in 3.x’s development cycle and moved on because vr/ar support didn’t really exist at the time) – everything from webxr to fbx animation support and more has blossomed nicely, this is an awesome open source project and I think we’re going to see amazing games coming from it soon.
Shame Unity had to shoot itself in the face for this to happen but honestly the writing was on the wall when Helgason appointed JR as CEO - it’s been in a downward spiral since.
I’ve been super interested in Godot for over a year now, and am really happy it’s getting all this attention
Blender moment
Based Blender
Sadly it will never. The average consumer does not care to do their own research, and will always fall for options with a marketing budget, even when FOSS options are similar or better quality. Now consider that often times (not always), FOSS is not up to the same quality.
Disclaimer: I always use FOSS when I can, even when lower quality.
But some foss like blender are actually mainstream though
I think you underestimate how upset Unity users are at the moment. I’ve been using Unity since 2009. It’s been responsible for a large part of my income for the past decade, especially AR/VR stuff. The crazy shit Unity pulled over the last week (including removing TOS from the internet as if the fucking wayback machine doesn’t exist) has poisoned any love I had. Coupled with the actors - John Riccitiello specifically - and the fact that unity has been wandering aimlessly in fractured development that leaves lifetime devs wondering what fucking versions they can ship a project with (before last week’s crazyness, dots, render pipelines, all kinds of other issues) - I strongly suspect we’re going to see a gigantic change in engines getting used.
As awesome as Unreal is, it’s a 500lb club for mobile and other lightweight projects, and a tremendous amount of overhead for VR/AR stuff that needs to run performant to avoid nausea and input lag. There’s amazing ar/vr stuff made with unreal, but it’s much harder and requires ruthless, fantastic optimization.
Anyway, that’s just my pov as a dev. YMMV
I’m sure Godot will become a lot more popular. There are exceptions to the rule. But in general, FOSS isn’t winning the software field. But I agree with you and sympathize.
Godot being FOSS is awesome, but I suspect if any project with Godot’s scope and goals came along and garnered as much support as Godot (not sure how you’d do that without being FOSS but let’s just posit they have FANTASTIC logo or ceo or something) would be the new hotness as unity continues to shoot itself in the face over and over again.
FOSS is real nice, but it’s frosting, the cake is knowing your game engine isn’t going to turn around and suddenly be an antagonist, a threat to your ability to plan projects… you do not what your game engine to be a wildcard.
And that’s unity these days.
Glad seeing Blender getting picked up more
FOSS:
Ahaha, that’s kind of it eh? I love foss but I also love when things work…
Oof haha, you’re right though :(
I like FOSS not being mainstream because it takes a special type of personality to break with standard convention and make the extra effort to learn about FOSS. This weeds out a lot of people that would otherwise turn FOSS into Facebook or Instagram. Remember how Reddit used to be ~12 years ago? Look at it now. While it’s not entirely mainstream, the general population has at least heard about it, and it’s slowly become the crap it is today.
I’m happy Lemmy isn’t mainstream. We do miss out on some benefits of dependent on a large user base, such as specific niches, but at the same time, we have a respectful community that mostly adheres to solid values and ethical standards. People here are building a supportive community.
That wasn’t my experience with Reddit for about the last 5 years. It became an idea popularity contest, where the same repeated joke was the top comment and dissenting voices were buried under a sea of downvotes. Discussions were about who was right rather than what idea made better sense for the topic. While Lemmy still has remnants of that stemming from the recent migration, but it is nowhere near to Reddit’s level.
Coincidentally, I was already on my way out of Reddit when the API fiasco happened and got lucky enough to hear about Lemmy before I completely left. I’m never going back to Reddit, just like I’m never going back to FB and IG. Hopefully, if Lemmy starts becoming mainstream and the culture changes, the ability for instances to defederate will be helpful at maintaining the community-feel of this place.
Put in the billions of man hours to make them better then the paid alternatives.
It’s pretty heart warming when you see some organization you didn’t suspect already adopts FOSS alternatives of things. I think there’s value is explicitly popularizing when this happens: they will get more popular through emulation, as humans are social beings. If one piece of software is considered to be some edgy stuff that nobody uses and works poorly then few people will use it. Otherwise, the “if relevant organization / person I follow XYZ used this solution then I should give it a go” thought pattern takes place. Worked with Krita.
Being good enough is hard work and slow going.
Being better than paid alternative is just a waiting game. At a moment’s notice, they can decide they’ll keep the money and give people nothing… and that’s when people realize they’d rather have the opposite.
Philosophy doesn’t move the needle. But it’s hard to compete with free. Especially if you expect people to pay serious money just to be told “no.”
The chemical process industry as well as undergraduate chemical engineering curriculum really needs to show that DWSIM exists as a FOSS alternative. ASPEN is a complete load of shit and is filled with tons of bloated features… It made it hard as hell to learn a software with a billion buttons on it whilst simultaneouslyadjusting to pedantic scientific vocabulary…
I didn’t even know vim existed or VScodium due to my undergraduate forcing anaconda on us. The instructors had no clue how to code and neither did the graduate students, so more FOSS options are definitely needed.
Do it already
Do what?
Mainstream
