Discussion
Imagine there was a software collective. A group of people that collaborated on different projects, helped each other, and built a better future together. What would you do? What would you work on? What would you contribute?
This isn't a hypothetical. Fedi, please add your own reply and boost this post for reach (thank you in advance). I want to find the people that believe such a thing is possible and want to be a part of it.
@jakehamilton I've been thinking in this direction as well. Even grabbed a domain already: careful.party
My own thoughts tend toward the creation of an anticapitalist software stack, starting (and possibly remaining) low-level, and more reliable, than is common now. To build on firmer foundations, so we don't have to spend so much time looking over our shoulders.
I don't think such work should be done in the open, but openly among comrades. These are my thoughts: https://lyk.so/collective.html
1. An AI-free web browser & web browser engine
2. An AI-free search engine & search index
3. An AI-free operating system & kernel
@pip @jakehamilton - so for the first two, would @Vivaldi and say Duck Duck Go get you there? Third one is getting more rare still.
@tchambers @jakehamilton @Vivaldi
For me, no.
I'm glad Vivaldi's AI-free, but I don't trust any software built on Chromium. From a security and privacy standpoint, I think people should run for the hills there.
DDG I used for years, but switched when I discovered how sketchy they are. Sure they don't have AI turned on by default, but they're still building their own AI, which is still ethically terrible. And they quietly censor adult-oriented results like for dildo sellers, even with safesearch off, and have never acknowledged it. So I can't trust DDG.
@pip @jakehamilton @Vivaldi Hmmm. What do you not trust on Chromium browser? Vivaldi has stripped out nuetered any of the Google advertising and surveillance code.
@jakehamilton - a general use programming language with both a plaintext-based representation and a node-based visual representation that can be switched between at will, as an easier onramp for non programmers to learn the skills and get useful / fun things done on a computer
- a gamelike "learn computing concepts" interactive primer written in said language
- version control for non programmers that's usable for text as well as binary files, eg images, audio/video etc
@jakehamilton I could do nice icons, visual design and polish; maybe even UX as I know how frustrating it can be when you know what a tool can do, but you, rhe user, don't know how
@jakehamilton I want to build software plumbing. At some point the collective must have contact with the rest of the world, right? What tools would help make that easy while still supporting the goals of collectivism? That's what I'd want to build.
@jakehamilton@hachyderm.io A software to create a new wave for a federated semantic web (something like ontology/knowledge graph visualisation) and/or good documentation resources on this field
@jakehamilton I'd be a fan, but while I've got two young kids plus a job plus burning available software-writing cycles on my own projects, couldn't contribute much.
But, as a teacher, I could try to get the word out to interested students and/or have them use stuff produced by such a collective in classes.
Might eventually chip in games/visualizations.
@jakehamilton Three ideas, all crazy, two potential tools:
1. A tool that tries to bring web creation back to the 2000 flash and CD-ROM days, now in wasm form. There is something to be said about these old tools (Bryce3d, Director, AS2 flash) that made people want to do stuff.
2. A museum, a digital one, full of impossible things that can only be done in a digital museum (no AI ofc).
3. A way to make interactive essays, hyper-comic style (e.g Stanley Parable, but branches are like citations).
id want to try and make something like a VCS but for beginners with a good UI and simpler than git
@jakehamilton i'd have to learn how to do this first, but i know of a couple of projects that take dirt-cheap esp32 processors and get them to boot to a python prompt. i want $10 computers that are outside the commercial software chain and are too shitty for the commercial software chain to take an interest in them — but just not-shitty enough to be useful to real people of a, say, solarpunk mindset.
@jakehamilton Working on a no-dependencies, no-build step, no-maintenance web framework and site generator: https://mastrojs.github.io
@jakehamilton I would want to work on porting the projects of others to legacy or unusual platforms
@jakehamilton great question and Initiative! We're doing this for a couple of years now and love it! Our recommendation is to not focus on the tech but the politics: What are your shared values, how do you want to work together, what would your ideal society look like. This will help find projects you can really get behind as a collective.
Also we have a local first approach, meaning we operate in our city, meet regularly in person and build strong relationships with people/groups we work with.
@jakehamilton We build @lauti and a personal digital security analysis tool, help self-organized groups who share our values with websites, FOSS hosting and trainings.
Furthermore we're part of @coopcloud
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@jakehamilton I'd want to contribute to desktop UI libraries, and ecosystem tooling 🤔
If an OS of choice emerges, maybe see about contributing to its UX to ensure it's broadly accessible by non-tech people as well as people who need accomodations