Hello Everyone,
I have been cooking and will get back to many of you soon. Quesadillas, breakfast burritos, and some noodles have been a start of what my cooking repertoire has become. No longer is my food burnt or undercooked, as I’m being more conscious and feeling more nourished :)
The title of this post is meant to start a discussion with those of you who have freed yourself from all the proprietary software (or most, excluding devices assigned by your employer).
As corporations pervade nearly every aspect of our lives, I believe it would be a fun hobby to delve into FOSS with a group of you. We could discuss even ordering a RISC-V laptop/PC, driver creation, and how one designs a hobby board. The resulting computer will likely be leagues behind everything you can buy that is PnP, but it’s an obsession I would like to bring to fruition.
For those of you who yearn for a corporation free computing experience, how close have you gotten? What next step is stopping you from going deeper? I want to get back onto Matrix and start a channel for this if our sub admins would appreciate a reignition of this discussion. We could then open source this design to other auties and those interested in sharing knowledge. I believe we could build something beautiful for our community to use.
Thoughts? :)
I’ve been trying to consciously move more towards FOSS solutions, but the truth is I don’t have a gripe with proprietary software, generally. In fact, commercial software often has people putting thought into, like, user experience and stuff like that, which FOSS software does not.
I’m not a software developer. I do not think like a software developer. I, generally, have a shit time using software that has a UX designed by software developers. Especially those that are doing is as an untrained hobby.
But I do have issues with monopolists, which puts me in direct conflict with the popular commercial software solutions. And I doubly have issues with monopolists that think they own my computer, and my usage data.
So I’ve been trying. It’s been helped by the fact that the monopolists collecting my usage data seem to believe they have to make their software worse in order to achieve their goals. I’m more than old enough to remember when the software released by these companies was truly useful and functional for the things I wanted to do, and didn’t carve the programs up into choice cuts for different subscription tiers. But I have not found all of the FOSS alternatives to be enjoyable.
Too many of them are still built by and for developers. And many of those developers don’t seem to understand that that’s what they’re doing.
As much as I would like to turn to professional developers for nearly every solution, I would like to learn how a professional developer operates.
My assumption is that Lemmy has many professionals who may be benevolent enough to lend some time and discussion regarding FOSS development. I would gladly assist, as it would improve my knowledge. My career is in hardware manufacturing, so maybe I can be useful for them as well.
A clear and transparent discussion of even the “developer tool chain” and open configurations + hotkey and macro suggestions would be great. Sometimes UX is enough to put people off from programming. This is a slight detour, but coding is as fundamental as literacy with all the semiconductor devices that surround us. I’m talking out of my ass when it comes to how a washing machine or computer console in a car is programmed, but I’m sure the concepts would be just as helpful as knowing how to wash dishes or mop ones floor.
Not everyone needs a DIY fab in their home, but as technology miniaturizes, we can achieve much more. Some of the tools when they were pioneered had their calculations performed on computers as large as an entire room. Nowadays it can fit on a table top.
I grew up under the poverty line and am sickened by how people are being screwed by software. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Intel are a couple to name of these monopolists that the general person is not really able to sever out of their lives. Don’t like that banking, travel, etc are all being relegated to an app.
Does this make some of my goals a bit clearer? I would like to do as much as we can as a community, as simple as possible. Arch and Gentoo are great as DIY examples, but software libraries and solutions created by others start to sound like fantasy when no actual English words are used to describe dependencies and abstract programs.
coding is as fundamental as literacy with all the semiconductor devices that surround us
This is like saying being an amateur auto-mechanic is as fundamental as literacy with all of the cars that surround us. Most people who push this narrative, though, cannot do an engine tear down. I’d be shocked if they can replace their breaks.
Hell, in my personal experience, they often don’t even drive, instead relying on taxis, Ubers, or public transit.
We pay professionals to do all that shit. And we do the same with software, when we’re not programming hobbyists.
As much as I’d love to know more about my car, I just don’t know how to ascertain the information to do so. Even if I did, the tribal knowledge that a mechanic has from working in a shop, personal investment in their own vehicle(s) assists greatly in literacy here.
Do you have a video of an engine tear down? How would you learn about cars? I don’t think this type of response is too conducive to keeping people curious. This could also help one communicate with their mechanic and increase literacy.
hey friend, we are kinda coming across as too abrasive and too uncompromising here. Which can be good traits, don’t get me wrong.
The engine teardown videos are readily available to you, and your local library is a great place to learn. It is not that person’s responsibility to show you how to teach yourself. The use of the term “tribal knowledge” here is out of place and is loaded with implications about race/class. That knowledge is available to you, if you express the initiative to get it.
I think I once found a college lecture on youtube about software development, would you like me to share a link for you? I’m all for literacy, but let’s try to think about other ways to communicate when our correspondents are showing agitation through words like “hell” and “shit”
Please let me know if you would like me to explain anything further. Social interactions confuse me often.
