3 ms·

I looked into these guys recently. I do think their heart is in the right place. Like it's obviously a small operation, but I think that's all the better. We d

I looked into these guys recently. I do think their heart is in the right place. Like it's obviously a small operation, but I think that's all the better. We don't need another Mozilla foundation. But being small their marketing is a bit sparse and engineer:y so I'll take the opportunity to shill a bit. They do sort of seem to worry about a lot of the right stuff. As programmers and engineers we can have an idea and then through some effort just make that thing exist. It's really is tantamount to wizardry. Sadly it feels like there are more obstacles to this every day, both in terms of literal hurdles like locked down hardware and app stores, but also the (erroneous) notions that you need to host your software in the cloud or use FAANG-scale solutions like kubernetes, or just the Jenga towers of half-baked libraries that make up the technology stacks many developers are stuck with means constant attrition from library churn any time you get anything to work. And also this weird mentality that's drilled into a lot of inexperienced developers that they need to lower their ambitions, and to stick to building simple things. I think that sticks with people even as their experience and capacity to produce software grows. I think it's gotten to the point where many people with the skills to build amazing software just don't understand that this is something they're able and permitted to do. You get to build software for the sake of software existing and providing a benefit to you, to yourself. If you need something, you get to build it. Software can be used to change your world, the world, it can be an extension of your will. Programmers obviously get that they can write software, but not that software can be very impactful, it can change lives, even reshape societies. You don't need to limit yourself to todo apps, text editors and static site generators. You don't need a license or approval or permission to do build crazy ambitious stuff for the sake of crazy and ambitious stuff to exist. Not yet anyway.

Fnoord 4y ago
> I looked into these guys recently. I do think their heart is in the right place. Like it's obviously a small operation, but I think that's all the better. We don't need another Mozilla foundation. But being small their marketing is a bit sparse and engineer:y so I'll take the opportunity to shill a bit. Mozilla Foundation has large overhead on management (CEO getting more while people getting fired), and it has that structure of a non-profit within a for-profit of the same name/brand. For organizations providing grants, I don't think Mozilla even does that? Unless you mean stuff which is brought under the umbrella of Mozilla. Even YC and Google provide grants, its just with a twist (not selfless with the kicker being private equity). For an organization which provides selfless grants, there's for example the Dutch NLnet Foundation [1]. Which also falls under a different jurisdiction which can be a pro or con. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLnet
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  I'm contrasting them to the Mozilla Foundation specifically in the sense that it's very administration heavy, and produces an insane amount of hot air and marketing fluff (that aligns relatively poorly with its actions). FUTO seems diametrically opposite in that it's ostensibly run by a small number of tech people. NLnet is cool too. They seem relatively similar to FUTO in terms of goals, but they've been around for decades and it shows. Dunno how to describe them other than that they're very streamlined. Still also very low-nonsense and the people you interact with as a grantee are technologists and not bureaucrats.
- mburns 4y ago
  > For organizations providing grants, I don't think Mozilla even does that? https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-fund/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-fund/
dgreensp 4y ago
Thanks for writing this bit of inspiration. I definitely feel this way.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  If the search engine doesn't work out I guess I'll try for a career in tech freedom agitprop ;P

Fnoord 4y ago

> I looked into these guys recently. I do think their heart is in the right place. Like it's obviously a small operation, but I think that's all the better. We don't need another Mozilla foundation. But being small their marketing is a bit sparse and engineer:y so I'll take the opportunity to shill a bit. Mozilla Foundation has large overhead on management (CEO getting more while people getting fired), and it has that structure of a non-profit within a for-profit of the same name/brand. For organizations providing grants, I don't think Mozilla even does that? Unless you mean stuff which is brought under the umbrella of Mozilla. Even YC and Google provide grants, its just with a twist (not selfless with the kicker being private equity). For an organization which provides selfless grants, there's for example the Dutch NLnet Foundation [1]. Which also falls under a different jurisdiction which can be a pro or con. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLnet

marginalia_nu 4y ago
I'm contrasting them to the Mozilla Foundation specifically in the sense that it's very administration heavy, and produces an insane amount of hot air and marketing fluff (that aligns relatively poorly with its actions). FUTO seems diametrically opposite in that it's ostensibly run by a small number of tech people. NLnet is cool too. They seem relatively similar to FUTO in terms of goals, but they've been around for decades and it shows. Dunno how to describe them other than that they're very streamlined. Still also very low-nonsense and the people you interact with as a grantee are technologists and not bureaucrats.
mburns 4y ago
> For organizations providing grants, I don't think Mozilla even does that? https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-fund/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/what-we-fund/

dgreensp 4y ago

Thanks for writing this bit of inspiration. I definitely feel this way.

marginalia_nu 4y ago
If the search engine doesn't work out I guess I'll try for a career in tech freedom agitprop ;P