Cooperative Software
jeferson.me
What if the apps we use were owned by the people who use them? A dive into platform cooperatives, the internet we could have, and why open source and open protocols alone aren't enough.

This is a general view on the topic. I think open-source isn’t enough, we need also governance for the software we use, and create small pockets of freedom.

All feedback is welcome.

    • nychtelios@lemmy.sinistraverso.orgEnglish
      1·
      1 day ago

      Stopping to depend on companies’ profit schemas, for example. We have to work at least 8h/day to afford subscriptions to have access to things we don’t even own. Our devices are designed to be fragile, to force us to buy them periodically. That’s not freedom, that’s a jail (and not a golden one)

      • Shin@piefed.socialOPEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        Sadly the post isn’t about this.
        I do discuss the work-life balance, the egregious ways that big tech and major companies robs people from their lives. My focus is to provide a bigger area for the “federated way”, even knowing that using this term is already wrong…

        But I mostly agree with you, just can’t see how coop will solve the deeper structural problems, will solve some of the problems, not all of the problems.

        • nychtelios@lemmy.sinistraverso.orgEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          I think the post is about this too, honestly. What the post is saying is that “open source is not enough, we need governance” and I really do not agree. What I am saying is that governance and small pockets of freedom will not solve our problems, just give us the illusion that we are good.

          What I am saying is that we don’t need small pockets of freedom, but we need to live in total freedom, and technology and software are a big part of that. This society model is destroying everything, from our wellness to the ecosystem, and “small pockets of freedom” won’t solve anything.

          • Shin@piefed.socialOPEnglish
            1·
            1 day ago

            This is the point we disagree.

            Small pockets of freedom can help, this won’t solve the global crisis, but will provide for the communities[1] the needed force. Also, this can help groups to better organize and waste the least amount of money, effort and mind these.

            Doing nothing right now will not change anything, and doing anything, even the small actions is the starting point for the next thing.

            I’ll use myself as example, even knowing that this isn’t the perfect one, I started with the homelab because Amazon stole something from me, and I decided the that was enough. Now I can see that the hardware is cheap[2], software is pretty much everywhere, federated or open-sourced (even better if it’s AGPL) and the next point is increase the range, for the smaller groups of people around the house, expanding for the neighbors to embark in this.

            1. communities in the physical sense. Group of people, talking in the garden of a common building. Not a digital community. ↩︎

            2. most of people that are in my cirle of friends have a old desktop, or laptop around that can be reused for a simple homelab for a tiny group (around ~10 users) for basic usage, so most of people don’t need a Google Photos, Docs and such. ↩︎

            • nychtelios@lemmy.sinistraverso.orgEnglish
              1·
              3 hours ago

              I don’t think you are wrong or that we disagree, I try to do everything in my power to build pockets of freedom, I also develop FOSS, I own an homelab, used to host services for a solarpunk movement here in Italy too.

              But we cannot be satisfied by small pockets of freedom, they are just a way of surviving in a world full of shit. Corporates are extremely happy with this tendency we have of boycotting and building something good only for our bubble, we stopped being a treat for their profit and instead we are enabling more and more their policies: our pockets of freedom somehow make their dystopian policies more acceptable and instead of coordinating to actually change something, we stay in our bubbles.