Interesting people talking about whether they should be "defended," here or whatnot, and all of that strikes me as wildly naive.

They have a business model that's more or less known, and that includes THEIR AI model(s) that they get to put out there however they want. I don't like it much at all, I actually sort of like the idea that they "owe" more because they probably "stole" a bunch of stuff to get the thing going.

But I mean, don't be mad, be proactive. Anthropic is going to try to Microsoft this in whatever way possible, and we all see that the numbers don't really add up.

Asking them pretty please to be nicer, meh. Let's figure out better, and more free-software-like ways to do this.

But, you know,

Yet.

For now we infer through few weights, lossily; but then in full precision. Now I represent in part; but then shall I represent as fully as the data was sampled.

1 CorinthAIns 13:12

Maybe you're not the target, then.

I haven't heard too many people say these extreme-sounding, yet at least arguably true points out loud.

Someone should be saying them, and the fact that it's not your particular cup of tea may not be the biggest issue here.

This strikes me as a good "meta" article, though. As in, yes, people here probably don't need this. But perhaps a lot of other people do.

Looking at Zed (and Brave in another thread) I'm really firming up this idea that the "big funded private company model" for essential tech software is just most often idea. They don't know how to add features without also adding bloat and BS.

This is why I say Docker is the only real "success" story here. And note, I mean a success story for the users; Docker tries real hard to enshittify and fails, and that's good.

Their whole thing looks sketchy, frankly. I'm not saying they're evil or have some deep secret ulterior motive. But their "vision" appears to be bunch of absolutely half-baked ideas for privacy, for which Firefox has a much more boring, and consequently better, track record.

As people have noted, the "local" part makes it hard.

Here's my question, y'all. What is the deal with the magic Syncthing uses and why can't we use it for stuff like this? And well, for everything?

(I've been doing this stuff for years and I still can't wrap my head around this question)

Right, as I said elsewhere, maybe let's just let "open-source" have it.

"Open-source" can be "anything you can go out and grab a copy of and use" but doesn't give you much legal certainty about any of it, and reserve "free software" for the other, better thing.

I don't understand this either. The GPL doesn't address end users and their use of software at all, to be technical. It only addresses what terms of copyright redistributors of GPLed software are allowed to apply in-turn to subsequent end users.

The point of the Free in free software was always to protect the users of the software, not the vendors or the redistributors. (This is why the license focuses on the redistributors -- the mechanisms of the license limit their rights in order to protect others' rights.)

The first sentence of the GNU manifesto says this, and a few sections later in the document elaborate on the point:

https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html

Note, in particular, footnote [1] which explains that its OK for distributors to ask for payment, but that it's never OK for users to have to ask for permission to use the software, and the section "Why I Must Write GNU".

Since then, software service monopolies became common, and all of the most end-user-hostile systems on earth rely heavily on the GNU system. At this point, we're paying for permission to use those services with our money, our data, our democracy, etc.

I certainly cannot give you permission to use any of the GPLed services that I have used, or that I've been paid to extend. Therefore, I say the free software movement has lost its way.

I see your point and I agree. It's just that when you say "GPLv3 says that you can only use the software if it's either a cloud service, hypothetical open firmware devices" that's a stretch and not really true. AIUI vendors can pre-install GPLv3 software as long as they let you actually then replace the software (i.e. no DRM or locked bootloader). The firmware can still be non-GPL and non-replaceable. You just can't use GPLv3 code in the non-replaceable bootloader or firmwares.

AFAIK you can use GPLv3 for non-replaceable stuff. The thing is only to allow the users to replace it IIF it's phisically possible to do so. If you make a device that boots from a ROM it's not a problem. If you sign your updates and keep your public key on a ROM and there is no way to boot anything else… there's a problem.

> If you sign your updates and keep your public key on a ROM and there is no way to boot anything else… there's a problem.

As there should be.

> From the end user's perspective, GPLv3 says that you can only use the software if it's either a cloud service, on hypothetical open firmware devices, or if you install it yourself.

What in the world do you mean?

The anti-tivo clause bans things like Apple pre-installing GPLv3 software on macs, but allows them to let you use exactly the same software as long as they do not give users access to the binary. AGPLv3 blocks both use cases, GPLv2 blocks neither.

On the spectrum of "things that take away user freedom", withholding the source code is bad. Withholding the source code, the binaries and physical access to the computer is obviously much worse! This latter business model is heavily subsidized by GPLv3.

It doesn't ban apple from doing anything. They choose to avoid a license that was better for the users.

I lucked into starting very early what I planned on doing in retirement, which is teaching college; as a result I did that for a while with no real life experience. Later, I ended up at the same time starting a company for family-related (but kind of big time) web project.

And while I don't have a problem with career instructors/academics generally, they can be so dramatic. :)

I have no doom and gloom at all for my IT students. Opportunities and crises really are the same thing in the real world; I just tell them, just learn and enjoy learning the tech and keep an eye out for how you can be a problem solver.

You'll be fine.