Context:
/r/ProgrammerHumor/ closed for a couple of days, then - “because mods have to listen to the community or otherwise they get replaced by more /u/Spez compliant mods” opened up again, and held a voting which new rules to enforce. The sub opened up with the new rule allTitlesMustBeCamelCase.
I made the first post about 15 minutes after the sub re-opened (because I’m in their discord, I was aware it opened up again, it wasn’t announced yet, I think) - and of course I just make a shit-post about John Oliver since it’s the /r/pics (and a bunch of other) subreddits way to protesting the API changes.
It wasn’t even that good of a post to be honest, it got temporary taken down by the subs’ mods since they mentioned “it’s only anecdotally related [to programmer humor]” - but after messaging them explaining the context they put it back up. So it’s basically approved by the moderators of the subreddit. And not against the content policy of the sub
It got like 3k upvotes in about an hour, so I got a message from some bot that I was on the frontpage of /all/ as well. At the end of the day it had 13.5k upvotes
About 48 hours later I got an automated message:
Your account has been permanently suspended for breaking the rules. This account is permanently suspended due to violations of Reddit’s content policy
I posted an “appeal” basically just asking “Lol you banned me for posting John Oliver?”
And the only response I got was:
Thanks for submitting an appeal to the Reddit admin team. We have reviewed your request and unfortunately, your appeal will not be granted and your suspension will remain in place. For future reference, we recommend you to familiarize yourself with Reddit’s Content Policy. -Reddit Admin Team This is an automated message; responses will not be received by Reddit admins.
I posted another “appeal” yesterday asking “Could you clarify which Content Policy rule I broke?” To which they haven’t responded yet.
It’s the only post I made in the last 2 weeks, so there wasn’t any other reason to suddenly ban me besides this post…
My reddit account was 12 years old at this point. I was going to leave anyways because the Reddit client I use (sync) already announced it would be shutting down June 30 - so I don’t care that much that they banned me - just though it was a pretty weird approach from the Reddit Admins to start banning people for getting John Oliver on the front-page
By the way, sync for Lemmy is coming ;)
But why use a proprietary app when there are awesome people making Free and Open Source applications? For example Jerboa or wefwef.app. Anyone can audit their source code and make sure they don’t spy on you or do anything malicious.
I’m using Jerboa now and it’s pretty good. A few hiccups here and there, but all in all not bad.
Because the developer has years of experience in crafting a near perfect app for Reddit, much of which applies to Lemmy as well.
Over the years this dev definitely earned the community’s trust and I see no reason to assume he will pull sneaky shit now.
FOSS is awesome, but I kind of dislike the militant push towards it here on Lemmy. As soon as someone does not release their source code people go “But have you thought about open source?”, “Why not open source?”, “No source, no install” and the likes.
The fact that he puts you in a position where you have to trust him makes him not trustworthy. There is no place for trust in computer security or privacy. If you have to trust something, it is bad for you. For example it would be ridiculous if encryption relied only on trust and nobody could verify that it’s actually secure. I’m not saying the developer is malicious, but he should know better than this (all programmers should).
Why do you dislike that? Do you not want to have control over your own devices and software that runs on them? Free and Open Source software gives you the freedom to study the program, modify it and distribute the original and any modifications you make to it. This way not only we can verify what the program does, but we can also change it to fit our needs. But also this makes it impractical to implement any malicious functionality, because users can easily remove it and share the modified version with others. So instead of the developer having power over users, the users are the ones in control. They can have privacy and security, which is impossible with proprietary software. That’s why proprietary software is unethical.
That is an awful way to go about it. Have you verified your bank’s computer systems? What about the servers your health data is stored on? I hope you use an Android AOSP ROM with a public source code. Do you even trust your microwave to not send death rays because of a malicious programmer?
I don’t dislike it in general, I just think that FOSS is not a good fit for every project. A good and recent example: I work as a software engineer in a pretty niche market and my team and I have developed what we believe is a really neat algorithm for a pretty niche problem. There are already other players trying to replicate the solution, but thankfully they are falling short compared to our approach so far.
Suppose instead of keeping the library proprietary we would make it open-source (and free). Well, now every competitor in the market just needs to look at our GitHub, and months of R&D budget would be basically wasted while at the same time, our competitors would get our IP handed on a silver plate.
I’m pretty sure that Sync for Lemmy will have a pro version priced similarly to the Sync for Reddit pro version (~ $4.99 one-time). The dev would be stupid to release it as FOSS, if he intends to make money on premium features, when literally anyone with a computer and two brain cells could just compile the premium app from a public GitHub.
Now take good examples of FOSS: Blender, Gimp, Inkscape, and the likes. The main difference is that there is no obvious monetization happening besides donations and sponsorships and for such passion projects FOSS is absolutely the way to go as you can pool in the knowledge of the community if your project generates enough traction. Blender wouldn’t be what it is today without all the volunteer devs contributing to it.
No, it doesn’t run on my computer, so that’s impossible.
I don’t use Android. I have a PinePhone - it runs GNU/Linux.
I have to trust it, because if it has any firmware, the source code is not public. But I’m pretty sure there are standards for electromagnetic radiation, which are regulated by the government. It would be nice to be able to modify such firmware though and change how much the microwave beeps after it finishes. But anyway, the Free Software movement recognises that it is currently impossible to write replacements for all firmware for every possible device. So if a program isn’t running on a computer, it’s ok if it’s proprietary (for now at least).
You could release it under AGPL license. Since it’s a Copyleft license, your code couldn’t be used (legally) in proprietary software. If other companies wanted to use your code in their product, they would have to release the source code for the entire program (or they can pay you for MIT licensed version - this is called dual licensing). If they make improvements to your AGPL licensed code, they would have to release those changes. Win-win for the society. I don’t release my code under anything weaker than GPL. You don’t have to use permissive licenses and you probably shouldn’t.
Think of all those companies developing almost the exact same thing you are and wasting time and money on it, while they could all contribute to your solution instead and spend the saved money on something more important. How many other areas of development are there where this happens?
I’m pretty sure nobody has to pay for any software ever. People choose to pay for it. Checkout the game Mindustry on Steam. It’s Libre Software, you can not only get the code for free from GitHub and compile it, but the author ever releases the builds there for free. Yet me and tons of other people still bought a copy.
I think most people probably don’t even know what GitHub is, but yes the more technical users could compile it. That doesn’t mean none of them will buy it though.
Blender, Gimp, Inkscape are developed by non-profits. But that doesn’t mean that commercial Libre software doesn’t exist or that it can’t exist.
I’m not so sure about that…
I’ve been nagging /u/ljdawson (the sync dev) to comment on whether he’d open-source sync or whether he’d make it compatible with Lemmy: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditsync/comments/145vvjg/reddit_clients_can_support_lemmy_just_by_changing/jnog4ag/?context=3
The news so far is
ReVanced has patched sync to be compatible with any reddit API key, in case /u/ljdawson nukes it. And people have been working on decompiling sync and making it compatible with lemmy, and then recompiling it, but that’s not a long term solution. Making large changes on decompiled source is not ideal in the long run. Best case scenario would be for sync to become open source
Edit: Apparently I was wrong and the actual reddit sync dev is making a “sync for Lemmy”. The context here for preferring an “open source reddit sync” was that - if there wouldn’t be an official app - it would make it a lot easier for the community to port reddit sync to Lenny from open-source, instead of having to do it from a decompiled closed-source."
How is open source related to Sync for Lemmy being an option? It was announced already: it’s coming.
Something being open source or not may be a reason for some to use or not use something but generally it isn’t an issue for the mainstream. (Exhibit A: Windows and MacOS hold around 85% of regular home users).
He also wouldn’t nuke Sync for Reddit… the key he uses will stop on July 1st since he won’t pay for it.
Oh ok, my bad. I wasn’t aware the actual sync dev was working on an “official sync for lemmy” - I suppose I missed the official announcement
As far as I was aware “reddit sync” would be abandoned and “sync for lemmy” was going to be an un-official port from the closed-source version by volunteers decompiling the closed-source version of reddit-sync and replacing the reddit API layer with a Lemmy one. - Which wouldn’t be ideal for long term support.
That was the context for the initial “I’m not so sure about that…” comment
What is the problem with it being closed software? I mean it is his decision after all.
The problem is not knowing what the program does on your device (if it spies on you or if it shows you what you want to see instead of what the developers want you to see). It’s his app, but your device and you deserve to have control over it. The author doesn’t think so apparently, but fortunately other Lemmy developers have better standards.
True… But are people reviewing open source software and code to make sure they aren’t malicious? I’m not. I haven’t looked at the Lemmy code once, just saw there was a repo.
I think the bigger issue is what motivates the dev. If it’s freeware, then the project probably isn’t backed by greed VS passion. In saying that, I paid $3 for an android music app (Symfonium) and it’s closed source. I absolutely love it way more than plex Amp and the dev is active. I have no issues with closed source unless development halters.
Yes, people look at software’s code all the time, if it’s popular enough. Lemmy seems to have multiple people contributing right now and each of them knows some portion of the code. You don’t have to do that yourself to benefit from this. When a program is Free and Open Source, it doesn’t automatically mean that it’s secure and private, but it can be. With proprietary software that’s not possible at all, because it’s very difficult to verify what the program does and when authors do add malicious features, the users can’t do anything about it.
With Free and Open Source software, users can study what the program does, make changes to it and share their modifications with others. It wouldn’t make sense to add malware to such program, because users can easily remove it.
Isnt the logic in the case lemmy kinda flawed? Sure the main instance is open source but you never know if any other instance may added tracker and such stuff since you cant directly verify what it runs.
Technically, because of the AGPL license that Lemmy users, instance owners have a legal obligation to disclose any changes they made to the source code upon request. But you are right that we can’t verify what is running on somebody else’s server. There is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to verify what runs on your computer/phone though and that’s more important.
What do you like about Sync vs the other apps out for testing right now? Still trying to figure out which I prefer.