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This looks really cool. The screenshot is awesome. Though I'm a bit put off by the giant Facebook logo on the homepage. I find it odd for an OS like this to org

by yosito 5y ago

This looks really cool. The screenshot is awesome. Though I'm a bit put off by the giant Facebook logo on the homepage. I find it odd for an OS like this to organize their community on Facebook.

gogopuppygogo 5y ago
There is no better way to get engagement than Facebook these days. People don’t sign into forums on websites like they once did,
- spijdar 5y ago
  People are downvoting this, maybe because of the fact-of-the-matter'ness, but I think this is probably true, coming from someone who despises Facebook. Especially for certain age-groups, Facebook is one of the few social networks you can assume people have logins on, and (maybe especially) niche communities need to lessen friction to get people involved. I don't know, I've never tried to create a public forum for this kind of thing, but I'd bet you'd get more activity out of facebook than some bespoke web forum or IRC/Matrix/what have you.
  - oooooooooooow 5y ago
    Yes, it was engineered to be this way intentionally, through unregulated competition rules and systematic killing of any open alternative by way of massive pumping of capital. We live in a disgusting scenario, we're held hostage by a racket.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  I see a lot of people moving away from Facebook here in Europe though. Maybe not in the US.. But about half of my friends were either never on FB or left it recently. The other half are still there. Mainly the older people in fact. The younger ones are on other stuff (like Instagram which is of course also facebook I guess) But I don't see it as viable as a sole outreach platform for that reason.
  - fnord77 5y ago
    I don't most people under 30 in the US use facebook unless they have to for something. Boomers, on the other hand...
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    A lot of my friends are still there but using it much much less. Has happened over the past few years. It has kept up during our plague which I didn't expect. I figured it would pick up a bit with more people being indoors and not traveling as much. I think it's rotting from the inside out. I know accounts are one metric, but how is traffic doing?
- croes 5y ago
  People don't sign into FB just for this.
Trufa 5y ago
It seems from the past somehow.
kxrm 5y ago
Sadly it's becoming more the norm to rely on other services for social interaction. The last company I worked for completely ditched forums in favor of Facebook groups for community support.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Yeah even open-source projects, like HomeAssistant moved to discord :( Matrix would be a much better choice IMO.
  - lolinder 5y ago
    I see this comment on so many different threads about so many different organizations who choose something other than Matrix. Matrix is clearly not a much better choice for most orgs, or more orgs would use it. That many FOSS orgs don't suggests that even people who believe in free software don't all see Matrix as a viable alternative to commercial solutions. Nebulously insisting that Matrix is "better" (without any specifics) doesn't help address the problems that drive people away.
    - thewakalix 5y ago
      “Better” and “more often used” are not definitionally equivalent.
  - Mawr 5y ago
    Just tried it with the hopes it's not just another FOSS alternative to <popular app> that gets touted everywhere as 'better', but is very clearly worse in every way. It's worse in every way. It's not even close to something as polished as Discord. 1. "Open in browser" is a good start, but then the registration process is downright painful. Discord doesn't require you to register at all to try it out, just to pick a nickname, it's vastly better for onboarding. 2. Requires unique nicknames. A chat app with unique nicks? this has to be a joke right? 3. As usual with FOSS, the worst part is the UI/UX. The whole design is extremely confusing. At first glance it appears the app only supports 'rooms'. But it seems that there are 'communities' and 'spaces' too? I have no idea what's going on. Discord just has servers with channels and private messages and it's all clearly indicated in the UI. Listen, I do want to use open and free alternatives if possible. But let's be realistic and stop pretending that something like Matrix is anywhere near Discord. A more reasonable alternative would be Zulip.
fouc 5y ago
They could be using github or gitlab for their source code repository and then use gitter.im for the community perhaps.
- tomrod 5y ago
  Gitter.im is a poor substitute for IRC, imo.
  - StavrosK 5y ago
    Gitter is on Matrix now, which is a great substitute for IRC.
hn3333 5y ago
off topic: this anti facebook stance by some people here on HN is getting ridiculous.. sad this is a comment here that apparently gets upvotes. I would say that if you do not care about Kolibri os just don't comment..
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  It's just not a great fit for an open source project IMO. They go to all this trouble to build something noncommercial without tracking, and then start requiring a commercial tracking platform to collaborate? In fact one of the reasons I use HN so much is because it's not doing any of that. And because I can choose what I read (rather than Facebook's algorithms deciding what appears on my timeline). I'm sure many people come here for that reason. This'll be a reason for the many anti-facebook sentiments. Because those sentiments are one of the reasons to come here :)
- joshgoldman 5y ago
  You would be better suited on Reddit with your bashing
nicbou 5y ago
I can understand. The maintainers might want to focus on maintaining their project, not the social network infrastructure for their community.
- yosito 5y ago
  Matrix.org
salmo 5y ago
The code is in svn. I think it's all relative.
- nix23 5y ago
  No it's in assembler.
  - salmo 5y ago
    I mean SVN for the code repository vs a more modern alternative eg git, mercurial, fossil… I don’t know of an SVN language?? Not hating on SVN, just think the “why aren’t they using a more modern/superior X” should be taken in that context.
    - nix23 5y ago
      Whats the problem with old technology? Linux is quite old and Unix even older. >why aren’t they using a more modern/superior X Because no one cares if it's not superior for that case.
      - salmo 5y ago
        I'm very confused by this conversation. I am agreeing with you. The line you quoted, I had in quotation marks because it was essentially the question of the parent thread, not because it was my stance. "That context" meant that they started with tools like SVN for version control, and Facebook for their community. They were 'current' at the time and they probably haven't seen a reason to switch. I have no problem with this. I use many tools people find uncool or outdated. I still use RCS in places and like it better for those particular use cases (eg Bind DNS zone files), where things like file locking and versioning files vs codebases are features and not detriments. I have shell scripts I've carried around for 10-15 years to support it (ironically kept in git now), and I don't feel like reengineering for a git/ci workflow to get back to feature parity. You should look into the history of RCS->CVS->SVN (and revision control systems in general) to understand the nuances there.
rob74 5y ago
The giant Facebook logo is probably from a time when Facebook was regarded with less suspicion than it is today. But if you want to avoid Facebook, you can use their good ol' phpBB forum. If you look at it more closely, the site is really a time capsule: forum powered by phpBB, documentation on MediaWiki, source code hosted on WebSVN, bug tracking powered by Mantis...

by yosito 5y ago

This looks really cool. The screenshot is awesome. Though I'm a bit put off by the giant Facebook logo on the homepage. I find it odd for an OS like this to organize their community on Facebook.

gogopuppygogo 5y ago

There is no better way to get engagement than Facebook these days. People don’t sign into forums on websites like they once did,

spijdar 5y ago
People are downvoting this, maybe because of the fact-of-the-matter'ness, but I think this is probably true, coming from someone who despises Facebook. Especially for certain age-groups, Facebook is one of the few social networks you can assume people have logins on, and (maybe especially) niche communities need to lessen friction to get people involved. I don't know, I've never tried to create a public forum for this kind of thing, but I'd bet you'd get more activity out of facebook than some bespoke web forum or IRC/Matrix/what have you.
- oooooooooooow 5y ago
  Yes, it was engineered to be this way intentionally, through unregulated competition rules and systematic killing of any open alternative by way of massive pumping of capital. We live in a disgusting scenario, we're held hostage by a racket.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
I see a lot of people moving away from Facebook here in Europe though. Maybe not in the US.. But about half of my friends were either never on FB or left it recently. The other half are still there. Mainly the older people in fact. The younger ones are on other stuff (like Instagram which is of course also facebook I guess) But I don't see it as viable as a sole outreach platform for that reason.
- fnord77 5y ago
  I don't most people under 30 in the US use facebook unless they have to for something. Boomers, on the other hand...
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  A lot of my friends are still there but using it much much less. Has happened over the past few years. It has kept up during our plague which I didn't expect. I figured it would pick up a bit with more people being indoors and not traveling as much. I think it's rotting from the inside out. I know accounts are one metric, but how is traffic doing?
croes 5y ago
People don't sign into FB just for this.

Trufa 5y ago

It seems from the past somehow.

kxrm 5y ago

Sadly it's becoming more the norm to rely on other services for social interaction. The last company I worked for completely ditched forums in favor of Facebook groups for community support.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
Yeah even open-source projects, like HomeAssistant moved to discord :( Matrix would be a much better choice IMO.
- lolinder 5y ago
  I see this comment on so many different threads about so many different organizations who choose something other than Matrix. Matrix is clearly not a much better choice for most orgs, or more orgs would use it. That many FOSS orgs don't suggests that even people who believe in free software don't all see Matrix as a viable alternative to commercial solutions. Nebulously insisting that Matrix is "better" (without any specifics) doesn't help address the problems that drive people away.
  - thewakalix 5y ago
    “Better” and “more often used” are not definitionally equivalent.
- Mawr 5y ago
  Just tried it with the hopes it's not just another FOSS alternative to <popular app> that gets touted everywhere as 'better', but is very clearly worse in every way. It's worse in every way. It's not even close to something as polished as Discord. 1. "Open in browser" is a good start, but then the registration process is downright painful. Discord doesn't require you to register at all to try it out, just to pick a nickname, it's vastly better for onboarding. 2. Requires unique nicknames. A chat app with unique nicks? this has to be a joke right? 3. As usual with FOSS, the worst part is the UI/UX. The whole design is extremely confusing. At first glance it appears the app only supports 'rooms'. But it seems that there are 'communities' and 'spaces' too? I have no idea what's going on. Discord just has servers with channels and private messages and it's all clearly indicated in the UI. Listen, I do want to use open and free alternatives if possible. But let's be realistic and stop pretending that something like Matrix is anywhere near Discord. A more reasonable alternative would be Zulip.

fouc 5y ago

They could be using github or gitlab for their source code repository and then use gitter.im for the community perhaps.

tomrod 5y ago
Gitter.im is a poor substitute for IRC, imo.
- StavrosK 5y ago
  Gitter is on Matrix now, which is a great substitute for IRC.

hn3333 5y ago

off topic: this anti facebook stance by some people here on HN is getting ridiculous.. sad this is a comment here that apparently gets upvotes. I would say that if you do not care about Kolibri os just don't comment..

GekkePrutser 5y ago
It's just not a great fit for an open source project IMO. They go to all this trouble to build something noncommercial without tracking, and then start requiring a commercial tracking platform to collaborate? In fact one of the reasons I use HN so much is because it's not doing any of that. And because I can choose what I read (rather than Facebook's algorithms deciding what appears on my timeline). I'm sure many people come here for that reason. This'll be a reason for the many anti-facebook sentiments. Because those sentiments are one of the reasons to come here :)
joshgoldman 5y ago
You would be better suited on Reddit with your bashing

nicbou 5y ago

I can understand. The maintainers might want to focus on maintaining their project, not the social network infrastructure for their community.

yosito 5y ago
Matrix.org

salmo 5y ago

The code is in svn. I think it's all relative.

nix23 5y ago
No it's in assembler.
- salmo 5y ago
  I mean SVN for the code repository vs a more modern alternative eg git, mercurial, fossil… I don’t know of an SVN language?? Not hating on SVN, just think the “why aren’t they using a more modern/superior X” should be taken in that context.
  - nix23 5y ago
    Whats the problem with old technology? Linux is quite old and Unix even older. >why aren’t they using a more modern/superior X Because no one cares if it's not superior for that case.
    - salmo 5y ago
      I'm very confused by this conversation. I am agreeing with you. The line you quoted, I had in quotation marks because it was essentially the question of the parent thread, not because it was my stance. "That context" meant that they started with tools like SVN for version control, and Facebook for their community. They were 'current' at the time and they probably haven't seen a reason to switch. I have no problem with this. I use many tools people find uncool or outdated. I still use RCS in places and like it better for those particular use cases (eg Bind DNS zone files), where things like file locking and versioning files vs codebases are features and not detriments. I have shell scripts I've carried around for 10-15 years to support it (ironically kept in git now), and I don't feel like reengineering for a git/ci workflow to get back to feature parity. You should look into the history of RCS->CVS->SVN (and revision control systems in general) to understand the nuances there.

rob74 5y ago

The giant Facebook logo is probably from a time when Facebook was regarded with less suspicion than it is today. But if you want to avoid Facebook, you can use their good ol' phpBB forum. If you look at it more closely, the site is really a time capsule: forum powered by phpBB, documentation on MediaWiki, source code hosted on WebSVN, bug tracking powered by Mantis...