4 ms·

>I see far fewer discussions of open source as compared to AI. Because the big discussions of open source were decades ago now. If you add up all the discussio

by pixl97 1y ago

>I see far fewer discussions of open source as compared to AI. Because the big discussions of open source were decades ago now. If you add up all the discussions of open source in the past I'd assume they'd out number the AI discussions now. Also, there is very little novel to discuss about open source. Now novel and 'important' are different things, but novel is what tends to write articles and get eyeballs.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
I don't really know man half the population doesn't know what open source means or cares whereas a lot of people seemingly have lots of opinions about AI. One can liberate people from big tech and the other ties them to it in sorts. And there are very very more conversations about the latter than the former. The point of discussion is to bring change. There has been a real change in how usable Linux has been lets say compared to past but now its really about user adoption I suppose. I genuinely think that we might need to reopen that discussion window as a lot of people are getting interested in linux/homelabbing /realizing that they can degoogle and what not to really get privacy. Those discussions brought a change into how open source software is written today (git) etc. but now we probably might need discussions about the awareness of these open source products to the general public if we truly want mass adoption I suppose. What are your thoughts?
- SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
  > I don't really know man half the population doesn't know what open source means or cares whereas a lot of people seemingly have lots of opinions about AI. I'm not the person you responded to, but I'm certain that way less than half the population knows about or considers open source, that's one of those living in a bubble illusions. Ultimately those people aren't here and have no interest in being here.
  - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
    I agree that those people aren't here and have no interest. I would say that it is the issue of lack of knowledge if anything. Yes, there is an infinite amount of knowledge available on the internet regarding open source and that's honestly where I learnt about stuff but its overwhelming at first and required something to kickstart the whole process/ be a catalyst of sorts. Realizing using linux that privacy matters a lot and then realizing that I can just search open source alternative to X really helped me in the beggining/still sometimes does and there are a lot of low hanging fruits that can just be told for people to follow (like use signal instead of whatsapp) so there's definitely that. I definitely am thinking about doing something about it tbh the more I think about it but I think that partially why people don't go around doing this is because of how AI seemingly sells and open source fundamentally doesn't sell
    - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
      It's not knowledge, it's interest. You go looking because you care. But people don't even use desktops anymore. They could, but they don't, what's the point? I know devs who haven't even put together their own PCs in decades if they ever did at all. I don't know how you shift that, but getting people interested would be the first step. They need to have a reason to want to learn.
      - johnnyanmac 1y ago
        >They need to have a reason to want to learn. Supposedly evveryone's mad over paywalls and enshittification and slop, but no one wants to take the time find geuine, curious content anymore. As far as I'm concerned, the frog it cooked already. immediate dopamine trumps over the idea of ever owning anything in life.
- pixl97 1y ago
  >One can liberate people from big tech A very small portion of the population, yes. The percentage of the population that is going to run things on their own is comparatively tiny. Mass adoption isn't going to happen because convenience and support is what most people want. Again, these things have been discussed for decades, and yet we keep seeing tighter and tighter centralization of data and services. In phones it's pretty much dead. You have apple (totally locked) and Google (on their way to totally locked).
  - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
    yes I understand and your points are valid. Yet I still feel like things like grapheneos are really valid nowadays and there are definitely some de-facto low hanging fruits of open source where you still get the same-ish level of convenience and support and the only reason I can't think of the same thing happening is knowledge. my country is literally filled with everyone owning whatsapp, when I ask people why not signal... they don't even know what signal is. Everyone has always been doing chats on whatsapp and now there is this weird lock-in but all it takes is for masses to use signal and spread the word as an example for a small victory towards a path of good. I will try to do my part I suppose, we can all be pessimist but atleast I feel deep down that we can create a system of convenience and support for other open source projects too if we can donate to these projects too and have a reasonable assessment of that too. Too many people think of open source as free and yes its free but I also think that its the responsibility of us as a whole as a society to fund open source if we want support otherwise we should stop thinking about it. Regarding google locking down, what can I say except that I think that this decision should be fought against with as much scrutiny by the people advocating for freedom as possible. There is a way to do things with adb but still, it is a shame that google went down this path and we should definitely fight against this too of sorts but I have hope in grapheneos + f-droid too tho. I definitely need to enlighten myself more if the google's thing is gonna cause an issue for things like grapheneos too as that would be a real deal breaker / cause even more severe issues as from what I know grapheneos is one of the safest os roms/ most privacy friendly android rom for mobile and gives a lot of security advantages that are definitely something to look at and admire.
pessimizer 1y ago
There's an enormous amount to discuss about "open source," and it's neglected enough that the bro generation of programmers doesn't even understand it, or the difference between it and Free software, and what those differences materially mean to developers and the public at large. The reason that HN is eaten up by LLMs is because it's eaten by any trendy topic that's in the mainstream news. HN used to be directed by an active and opinionated mind in pg, and it's been left to salaried, caretaking censors whose primary job is to make sure the site doesn't become an embarrassment. This mainly consists of artificially excluding discussions that may lead to energetic debate; debate that usually becomes swamped with low-quality comments by people speaking outside of their expertise, and can make the place look like a cesspool. But energetic debate is where all of the energy is. The problem isn't those topics, the problem is that those topics also take a lot of energy to moderate the problems out of. We're experiencing an abandoned place, not a place driven by anything internal. It's an old barn that is kept clean just so it doesn't catch on fire. We don't talk about FOSS because it isn't a general topic that is in the mainstream news, not because it isn't an important topic that is more vital to discuss than ever, in the face of monopoly, walled-gardens, verified signatures and centralization. A positive editor like pg was aware of this, and treated the site as his personal playground. It partially revolved around what were essentially his journal entries. I only ever ended up on this site because he decided one day to have every front page article be about Erlang, of all things. edit: and to add to the penultimate paragraph, an energetic discussion of FOSS that lead to productive projects and statements by people of influence would influence the mainstream. This place used to make stories, not just Digg them. The purpose of the site (other than to run something on Arc) seemed to me to be to juice new YC startups in a way that would leak into the general media. It doesn't even seem useful for YC any more.
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  That is an insight that my age simply didn't bring. I am not sure about the accuracy of it as I was there after the AI era and I have only seen the slow but steady creep of it. > This place used to make stories, not just Digg them This does give me goosebumps. Honestly, I like this place because it has a lot of nice people and we are more alike and different and it's just that this seems to be the place I have decided to call a home to all of my ramblings/thoughts on essentially everything. The only other social media that I operate is maybe discord and a very small dose of reddit. it does seem to me that somewhere along the internet, we might have lost it, or atleast its hidden, waiting to be discovered. I can't help but share things like julia evan's zines and how he inspired one day when I messaged him on mail about being worried about AI when he shared me somebody who had created a better UI for the man pages and so many other interesting pages which really reflected personality that I didn't know exist. I don't really think that we can do over hackernews but there is certainly a possibility of atleast having niche discussions like erlang and discussing them could lead to more people exposure's to it... which can benefit them or the community! I can maybe think of that we might need to use something like matrix to atleast create a public community with better moderation if that's the issue. I think the HN mods are also trying their best but if we want opinions, the best way I right now could think of to fixing this as an issue might be to creating a hackernews but not for AI which I had actually suggested once but everybody just said to me to block posts about AI or to create a tracker which removes all AI references at most, the post is definitely lost in my comments but I definitely remember it. I can understand where you are coming from and I think that this place isn't a substitute for a place like that and we still might need a place like that too if we become too pessimistic of y-combinator. Never give up hope I suppose :)

by pixl97 1y ago

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago

I don't really know man half the population doesn't know what open source means or cares whereas a lot of people seemingly have lots of opinions about AI. One can liberate people from big tech and the other ties them to it in sorts. And there are very very more conversations about the latter than the former. The point of discussion is to bring change. There has been a real change in how usable Linux has been lets say compared to past but now its really about user adoption I suppose. I genuinely think that we might need to reopen that discussion window as a lot of people are getting interested in linux/homelabbing /realizing that they can degoogle and what not to really get privacy. Those discussions brought a change into how open source software is written today (git) etc. but now we probably might need discussions about the awareness of these open source products to the general public if we truly want mass adoption I suppose. What are your thoughts?

SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
> I don't really know man half the population doesn't know what open source means or cares whereas a lot of people seemingly have lots of opinions about AI. I'm not the person you responded to, but I'm certain that way less than half the population knows about or considers open source, that's one of those living in a bubble illusions. Ultimately those people aren't here and have no interest in being here.
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  I agree that those people aren't here and have no interest. I would say that it is the issue of lack of knowledge if anything. Yes, there is an infinite amount of knowledge available on the internet regarding open source and that's honestly where I learnt about stuff but its overwhelming at first and required something to kickstart the whole process/ be a catalyst of sorts. Realizing using linux that privacy matters a lot and then realizing that I can just search open source alternative to X really helped me in the beggining/still sometimes does and there are a lot of low hanging fruits that can just be told for people to follow (like use signal instead of whatsapp) so there's definitely that. I definitely am thinking about doing something about it tbh the more I think about it but I think that partially why people don't go around doing this is because of how AI seemingly sells and open source fundamentally doesn't sell
  - SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
    It's not knowledge, it's interest. You go looking because you care. But people don't even use desktops anymore. They could, but they don't, what's the point? I know devs who haven't even put together their own PCs in decades if they ever did at all. I don't know how you shift that, but getting people interested would be the first step. They need to have a reason to want to learn.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      >They need to have a reason to want to learn. Supposedly evveryone's mad over paywalls and enshittification and slop, but no one wants to take the time find geuine, curious content anymore. As far as I'm concerned, the frog it cooked already. immediate dopamine trumps over the idea of ever owning anything in life.
pixl97 1y ago
>One can liberate people from big tech A very small portion of the population, yes. The percentage of the population that is going to run things on their own is comparatively tiny. Mass adoption isn't going to happen because convenience and support is what most people want. Again, these things have been discussed for decades, and yet we keep seeing tighter and tighter centralization of data and services. In phones it's pretty much dead. You have apple (totally locked) and Google (on their way to totally locked).
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  yes I understand and your points are valid. Yet I still feel like things like grapheneos are really valid nowadays and there are definitely some de-facto low hanging fruits of open source where you still get the same-ish level of convenience and support and the only reason I can't think of the same thing happening is knowledge. my country is literally filled with everyone owning whatsapp, when I ask people why not signal... they don't even know what signal is. Everyone has always been doing chats on whatsapp and now there is this weird lock-in but all it takes is for masses to use signal and spread the word as an example for a small victory towards a path of good. I will try to do my part I suppose, we can all be pessimist but atleast I feel deep down that we can create a system of convenience and support for other open source projects too if we can donate to these projects too and have a reasonable assessment of that too. Too many people think of open source as free and yes its free but I also think that its the responsibility of us as a whole as a society to fund open source if we want support otherwise we should stop thinking about it. Regarding google locking down, what can I say except that I think that this decision should be fought against with as much scrutiny by the people advocating for freedom as possible. There is a way to do things with adb but still, it is a shame that google went down this path and we should definitely fight against this too of sorts but I have hope in grapheneos + f-droid too tho. I definitely need to enlighten myself more if the google's thing is gonna cause an issue for things like grapheneos too as that would be a real deal breaker / cause even more severe issues as from what I know grapheneos is one of the safest os roms/ most privacy friendly android rom for mobile and gives a lot of security advantages that are definitely something to look at and admire.

pessimizer 1y ago

There's an enormous amount to discuss about "open source," and it's neglected enough that the bro generation of programmers doesn't even understand it, or the difference between it and Free software, and what those differences materially mean to developers and the public at large. The reason that HN is eaten up by LLMs is because it's eaten by any trendy topic that's in the mainstream news. HN used to be directed by an active and opinionated mind in pg, and it's been left to salaried, caretaking censors whose primary job is to make sure the site doesn't become an embarrassment. This mainly consists of artificially excluding discussions that may lead to energetic debate; debate that usually becomes swamped with low-quality comments by people speaking outside of their expertise, and can make the place look like a cesspool. But energetic debate is where all of the energy is. The problem isn't those topics, the problem is that those topics also take a lot of energy to moderate the problems out of. We're experiencing an abandoned place, not a place driven by anything internal. It's an old barn that is kept clean just so it doesn't catch on fire. We don't talk about FOSS because it isn't a general topic that is in the mainstream news, not because it isn't an important topic that is more vital to discuss than ever, in the face of monopoly, walled-gardens, verified signatures and centralization. A positive editor like pg was aware of this, and treated the site as his personal playground. It partially revolved around what were essentially his journal entries. I only ever ended up on this site because he decided one day to have every front page article be about Erlang, of all things. edit: and to add to the penultimate paragraph, an energetic discussion of FOSS that lead to productive projects and statements by people of influence would influence the mainstream. This place used to make stories, not just Digg them. The purpose of the site (other than to run something on Arc) seemed to me to be to juice new YC startups in a way that would leak into the general media. It doesn't even seem useful for YC any more.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
That is an insight that my age simply didn't bring. I am not sure about the accuracy of it as I was there after the AI era and I have only seen the slow but steady creep of it. > This place used to make stories, not just Digg them This does give me goosebumps. Honestly, I like this place because it has a lot of nice people and we are more alike and different and it's just that this seems to be the place I have decided to call a home to all of my ramblings/thoughts on essentially everything. The only other social media that I operate is maybe discord and a very small dose of reddit. it does seem to me that somewhere along the internet, we might have lost it, or atleast its hidden, waiting to be discovered. I can't help but share things like julia evan's zines and how he inspired one day when I messaged him on mail about being worried about AI when he shared me somebody who had created a better UI for the man pages and so many other interesting pages which really reflected personality that I didn't know exist. I don't really think that we can do over hackernews but there is certainly a possibility of atleast having niche discussions like erlang and discussing them could lead to more people exposure's to it... which can benefit them or the community! I can maybe think of that we might need to use something like matrix to atleast create a public community with better moderation if that's the issue. I think the HN mods are also trying their best but if we want opinions, the best way I right now could think of to fixing this as an issue might be to creating a hackernews but not for AI which I had actually suggested once but everybody just said to me to block posts about AI or to create a tracker which removes all AI references at most, the post is definitely lost in my comments but I definitely remember it. I can understand where you are coming from and I think that this place isn't a substitute for a place like that and we still might need a place like that too if we become too pessimistic of y-combinator. Never give up hope I suppose :)