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No. When you have to maintain the infrastructure you're a slave. Freedom is when I pay somebody to do it for me and move it elsewhere if I don't like it. I'm a
by comboy 6y ago
No. When you have to maintain the infrastructure you're a slave. Freedom is when I pay somebody to do it for me and move it elsewhere if I don't like it.
I'm also tired of the trend of recommending FOSS when somebody is looking for a service. For personal solutions it works only if you are valuing your time really low or if you are having a lot of fun playing with it.
Frankly, if you think setting up your own FOSS is often a good solution you haven't listened to your advice enough times. It works if you have a few things. But if you try to do it with everything you will just give up after a few years and 50 things set up this way, or you will spend considerate amount of time on maintenance (which is fine as long that's what you want to do with your life).
- ffdjjjffjj 6y agoDon’t you think it’s a little hyperbolic to compare the ownership of human beings to running some software on your computer?
- comboy 6y agoI agree, but it seems most practical to reply using the same framework that parent is using.
- 1123581321 6y agoThey were recommended FLOSS because they were histrionic about data ownership in a situation where the data was already out the door. It’s a way of presenting them with the fact that nothing reasonable can make them happy.
- coldtea 6y agoWell, a company/product with steady service that wasn't created to be quickly sold, e.g. Basecamp, would make them happy...
- save_ferris 6y ago> Freedom is when I pay somebody to do it for me and move it elsewhere if I don't like it. But you inherently have less control over the situation when you pick this option. Sure, it's convenient to pay someone else to manage the service, but you expose yourself to the acquisition situation that this user did. Also, moving to another provider isn't usually an easy thing to do, it's not like deciding to shop at Costco instead of Wal-mart today. Beyond the most trivial of services, you usually pay a fairly hefty technical migration cost to move to another provider. Most companies can't just wake up on a Monday and decide to switch from AWS to GCP or another cloud provider. I guess "Freedom" can mean different things to different people, but when you're at the mercy of a vendor like this, you're inherently less free than you would be if you ran your own service because you can't control what they do.
- iso1210 6y agoHaving someone or something else doing it I am free to breathe, I have to physically do it though. Some people have a machine to do it for them, they certainly aren't free -- https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/26/last-iron-lung-paul-alexander-polio-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/26/last-iron-lu... Sure, I sacrifice my freedom in the name of ease or expediency all the time - I'm not someone like Stallman, but I'm conscious of the tradeoff, and one of those is that services I use may well shut down, sell themselves, and indeed sell my data. That's part of the price of not being free. If you want both, you could pay someone to manage a FOSS installation for you
- fsflover 6y ago> Freedom is when I pay somebody to do it for me and move it elsewhere if I don't like it. This is exactly why you need the freedom of FLOSS. You can hire anyone to continue the development. You don't have to do it yourself.