Lemmy is software anyone can develop and everyone controls, libre software, which makes it very hard for Lemmy to abuse us. To keep it this way, share the ideas of software freedom.
- Always check its software license: always check it is libre software (video guide here).
- Also avoid service as a software substitute.
- Libre software plus decentralisation [federation or peer-to-peer] is ideal.
- Remember, ‘open source’ misses the point.
If we focus on warning against individual apps, we must repeat our time and effort everytime new malware appears. So, target a common property: its software license.
With proprietary software, we are not the user, we are the used.
Lemmy say that uses AGPL, so any changes to the code must be publicly available.
https://www.tldrlegal.com/license/gnu-affero-general-public-license-v3-agpl-3-0This copyleft libre software license is one the strongest at defending our software freedom.
Unless you’re Trump and try to build a social network based on opensource software, and say that you made it.
In a rapidly evolving technological world that seems to be hurtling towards a Black Mirror dystopia, federated services seem like we’re getting off that ride and one step towards a brighter, freer future.
Although Lemmy is free and open source, the main power is the federation. The most valuable thing that Lemmy has, are its users and the content (this is the same for Reddit). And because of the federation every instance in the Lemmy network has these assets.
Let’s say one instance would get massive, and would stop federating and start charging for API access. If that happened, we would be in the same situation as now with Reddit. Yea, it would e a lot easier to set up your own instance, but you would still need to convince all these people to give up that main instance. So I’m really happy that federation basically would mean that all other instances could cut that massive instance out and still have all the data.
I like that idea.
What would happen to the communities on that instance, though? If they choose to block/defederate then the other instances would no longer be able to access them (or “have all the data”), right?
From what I understood from the Beehaw situation, other instances would have a snapshot of those post, but they would no longer receive any new reactions or votes, not even from other instances that they are still federated with (the host instance is the instance that should provide all other instances with new comments and votes). People would still be able to add comments, but those would not be shared with other instances.
Let’s say one instance would get massive, and would stop federating and start charging for API access. If that happened, we would be in the same situation as now with Reddit. Yea, it would e a lot easier to set up your own instance, but you would still need to convince all these people to give up that main instance.
I argue it wouldn’t be the same, but much better for the users.
You can already make an account on another instance. Ditch the old, use the new. Problem solved. The big advantage is, you don’t need to look for a new platform, accustom yourself with the new environment, and so on. Switching between instances is much easier than switching between platforms.
Yes, you might lose access to some communities, but that would happen anyways if you switch platform. And community redundancies exist (the good side of ‘fragmentation’).
Hopefully, we will get GitHub feature request #1985 fulfilled: Moving user profile to a new instance, which would further ease transitioning between instances. (Don’t get too excited, doesn’t seem it’s being worked on. Consider contributing if you can.)
This would make it harder to excert power in awful instances, people can easily vote with their feet.
It’s important to note that both Lemmy and kbin are licensed under AGPL, which means that any instance using code based on Lemmy or kbin must publish their full source code. Not even the Lemmy devs can change this.
A number of Lemmy instances that have their own forks have unfortunately not upheld this license, as they only link to the LemmyNet github, not their own code. Nothing against the instance maintainers of course, everything is still very new here.
But yeah, it is possible that a Lemmy or kbin instance pops up that has reimplemented the Lemmy federation from scratch, withuot publishing their source code. Doing that is highly likely to be a form of “Embrace Extend Extinguish”, and any instances doing that should be defederated as a matter of policy.
But yeah, the decentralized nature of Lemmy means that if any instances try to do anti-user things, then the users can just vote with their feet and leave, and still have access to all of their communities. The only limitation is that instances effectively control their communities and user accounts, but hopefully that will be improved in the future with user migration features and community federation.
Technicly the Lemmy source code owners could change the license as they hold the ownership.
It does get a little blurry when there are many different contributors though
I see a lot of people misunderstand these licenses as binding for the original copyright holder/author, when they’re allowed to dual license, or take the project private. They just can’t remove the license from any code already released.
True
Lemmy uses ActivityPub so even in a case where Lemmy would for whatever reason decide to use software You do not like, as long as other application that support the standard exists you’ll be able to access the same content. As a side note, I’m surprised you linked directly to YT instead of an Invidious instance which would offer more privacy and is open source. Sure the data is still fetched from a service, but some is better than none, right?
For your first point, I post this from a server that uses non-free components for firmware and microcode. Also it might have non-libre software as it does not run a libre distribution. Whilst I do agree agree with the idea of opting to use libre software, sometimes in the current market it is not feasible. Technically one could colocate fully libre machines to use as servers, but when running something as a hobby it’s likely to exceed the budget one is willing to spend.
I do agree with with preferring a selfhosted software solution to services wherever feasible, even better when libre. “Funnily” enough even some libre software end up including non-free software like in the case of microcode in Libreboot. Makes sense to run updated code which has security vulnerabilities missing compared to the unpatched code in the CPU that will be running regardless of ones preference.
Now on the linked article about open source missing the point. I can see where the article is coming from, but I guess some visibility is better than none? Sure I’m sure everyone would prefer to not make a compromise but what can You do in case no libre option exists?
I disagree with the last note. While that seems to be the case especially with free closed source services and current tracking practices nowadays, I do not believe that proprietary software is the cause, but rather its just one way to obscure what is happening in the background. For example when I buy a single player offline video game, I don’t see myself as the product.
Thank you for the Invidious tip, I did not know about it and it’s awesome!
How would Lemmy not remain libre? No one is coming after their license.
If we wait, we will lose at the first attack, so share the ideas of software freedom now.
Yeah, the Lemmy devs are very ideological, which is why they are the last people I would expect to change the license and sell out.
