Now is the time for a genuinely non-evil, open-source, privacy-focused ecosystem -- operating system, email and other basic services, mobile OS, phone -- that would allow consumers to entirely defect from the enshittifying exploitation systems controlled by today's increasingly fascist tech bros.
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code: https://github.com/onebusaway
donate: https://opentransitsoftwarefoundation.org/donate/
I use https://fosstodon.org/@calyxos for my phone
Based upon Android. Some parts do not work, but much of it does work.
Apps can be added, with risk of violation of privacy
https://calyxos.org/
- https://www.redhat.com/en/store/red-hat-enterprise-linux-workstation
- https://www.suse.com/shop/desktop/
- https://assets.ubuntu.com/v1/a48fc9cd-Ubuntu%20Desktop%20DS%2021.06.23.pdf
(disclaimer: I'm employed at RH and my direct colleagues put a big effort to make the desktop work, the latest work is available in Fedora for $0)
Some low hanging fruit that could replaced with a co-op owned offering:
* Office (LibreOffice is open source, but work is needed to simplify it into a Google Docs experience)
* Substack (@volts.wtf, want to be an early adopter?)
* Calendar
* Email (maybe. People won't want to part with their gmail address, but smaller progressive leaning orgs might move a custom domain)
I think there's enough of us realising now that we need alternative tech infrastructure and that government isn't coming that it might be the time to start building this
I work in a Linux server environment (CLI) and even I won’t use Ubuntu desktop.
Most people just open a browser anyways. My MIL didn’t know she was using openSUSE because the Firefox icon is the same as Windows.
Windows just works and that’s what I want in a desktop
The server is different because the whole point is the flexibility
Interesting point, though. As the late, great Clay “Innovator’s Dilemma” Christensen had to admit, the cheapest, commodity solution doesn’t always win. People will pay extra for a superior user experience.
JK
I actually think that software and cloud compute is commoditized enough that something can be spun up at massive scale relatively cheaply.
BlueSky being basically stable at over a million users per employee is crazy!
Up till now, I have been happy to pay for their services with no ads, no tracking, etc.
sticking to signal
Gah!
the quicksand you're trapped in
is deeper than software.
you need to call out for help
and look for a rope or a branch.
Open source needs an Outlook replacement
Some people are predicting a giant backlash against the current trend. Fingers crossed.
Nextcloud is cool, but a hosted option would make it more approachable.
ProtonMail is probably a decent enough privacy focused alternative to start with.
One side project I am working on (which is not ready to share, but will def be OSS when it's ready) is to have an RSS Reader with the ability to post.
Obsidian has a freemium model, and comes sub instructions on how to set up sync... or you can get a subscription that deals with that for you.
When people tell us there would be no innovation without the profit motive, they are just plain wrong.
People need living wages, but the modern technical world runs on the backs of the curious and the generous.
We could pay them directly.
I wrote about it in 2016, in fact. But people weren't ready to listen yet.
A system that demands less effort can't really give users control, and is thus vulnerable to capture and enshitification.
Tech challenges: Funding hardware dev while being non-evil is hard. Working on existing hardware you need to think about technical and also legal plays for control by the manufactures
The open question is how much control (aka work) you prefer to outsource.
But someone doing email as a service could handle that for folks.
New services that send email spring up all the time (cold outreach sales tools, give me your email and I'll email you the document, or even just services needing to verify identity).