4 ms·

Yeah. The TechBros changed things globally. I can not support their Evilness, so I also need to get people to commit to having viable alternatives, e. g. improv

Yeah. The TechBros changed things globally. I can not support their Evilness, so I also need to get people to commit to having viable alternatives, e. g. improving LibreOffice to the point where the proprietary office suites from US corporations are no longer needed.

palata 9mo ago
I don't think that the proprietary office suites are needed. The alternatives are good enough for what people do, aren't they? The problem is that people don't want to change, because it takes some effort. Why would people use WhatsApp instead of Signal otherwise?
- iAMkenough 9mo ago
  For the context of this thread, WhatsApp and Signal are both American. Just look to the federal United States government using it for communicating military strikes, and including journalists.
  - dmantis 9mo ago
    But it doesn't make Signal bad. If Americans blindly process our messages without knowing what's inside, it's worse than not depending on them, but better than showing your private correspondence to somebody. At least we don't seem to have things which are close by UX and security at the same time. Simplex is fine, but still feels a bit raw. Everything else is either untrustworthy because of the closed code or no e2e encryption or custom encryption schemes (WhatsApp, Telegram, any Asian messenger) or unusable from UX perspective (Tox, Matrix).
    - immibis 9mo ago
      Simplex is a project by a fervent COVID conspiracy theorist FYI. (Evidence: his Twitter page)
      - clates 9mo ago
        Wouldn't that lend it credibility if your concern was privacy?
      - dmantis 9mo ago
        And the internet is originally made by the US army (i.e. professional murderers). Doesn't make the internet bad as a technology. Simplex is quite well designed. Even if it doesn't succeed, I think we'll see its forks and similar implementations.
  - palata 9mo ago
    For the context of this thread, it's infinitely better to depend on Signal than to depend on WhatsApp.
    - iAMkenough 9mo ago
      The context of the thread was "deAmericanizing." Not "what's good or bad."
      - palata 9mo ago
        You must be joking :-). I was saying that non-US office suites are good enough in terms of features, but people don't like to adapt to new things. WhatsApp vs Signal was an example where people don't want to use the better alternative, for no other reason than they can't be bothered to try it. But even when talking about not depending on US tech, it is relevant: depending on open source US tech is a step towards not depending on US tech. The goal is not racism ("it's made by US people so I don't want it"). The goal is sovereignty ("if I depend on this, the US government can screw me").
- immibis 9mo ago
  There used to be programs that would connect to multiple proprietary systems, like Pidgin. If we had this today we'd have one free-software app for WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram (and some used in other countries, like IIRC Zangi?). However, the social and regulatory environment changed - now whoever made that app could expect to be charged with a crime.
  - noisem4ker 9mo ago
    The European Commission has recently put WhatsApp under scrutiny in terms of the Digital Services Act, and forced them to open up allowing interoperability with other messaging applications. Perhaps we'll see a return of apps like Pidgin soon.
    - rw_grim 9mo ago
      We've never left. https://pidgin.im/ https://pidgin.im/
  - palata 9mo ago
    I don't have a definitive opinion on such messaging apps. I like that it bridges between different services, trying to free the users from the lock-in, but... If I talk to someone on Signal today, I know that they are probably using the official Signal on the other side. With the guarantees that I know from Signal. Now what if half of the users of Signal were using a third-party app? How much can I trust this app? Say Matrix has a bridge to Signal. I talk to someone over what looks like Signal from my end, but it goes to some third-party server that pretends to be Signal and then relays those messages to my friend on their Matrix client. As a Signal user, I cannot know it, but my conversation is not E2EE anymore. And it kind of defeats the point of using Signal entirely, doesn't it? I guess my point is that in terms of security, there is value in making it possible to verify that both ends are using the official Signal app, by locking it as much as possible (e.g. with DRM-like technology). But of course it's annoying to be locked in. Even though I don't feel personally super locked into Signal: I could move to another similar app in a minute. But again people tend to be lazy and don't want to switch apps. It's a hard problem, I guess.
- foobarchu 9mo ago
  To the average person, no. If you ask a regular user, you'll find that there is no alternative what Excel can do, the PowerPoint alternatives are missing loads of features, etc. Additionally, files created in MS Office still cannot reliably be used in the open source alternatives without something breaking. Until a non-technical user can open my PowerPoint presentation in LibreOffice and not have to apologize for the formatting, they aren't equivalent. A huge part of this is fonts. Users prefer proprietary fonts, and when you open files using them in the alternatives it tends to look like terrible. You will not convince users that this is on them to fix, and to be honest they're right, it's not their problem.

palata 9mo ago

I don't think that the proprietary office suites are needed. The alternatives are good enough for what people do, aren't they? The problem is that people don't want to change, because it takes some effort. Why would people use WhatsApp instead of Signal otherwise?

iAMkenough 9mo ago
For the context of this thread, WhatsApp and Signal are both American. Just look to the federal United States government using it for communicating military strikes, and including journalists.
- dmantis 9mo ago
  But it doesn't make Signal bad. If Americans blindly process our messages without knowing what's inside, it's worse than not depending on them, but better than showing your private correspondence to somebody. At least we don't seem to have things which are close by UX and security at the same time. Simplex is fine, but still feels a bit raw. Everything else is either untrustworthy because of the closed code or no e2e encryption or custom encryption schemes (WhatsApp, Telegram, any Asian messenger) or unusable from UX perspective (Tox, Matrix).
  - immibis 9mo ago
    Simplex is a project by a fervent COVID conspiracy theorist FYI. (Evidence: his Twitter page)
    - clates 9mo ago
      Wouldn't that lend it credibility if your concern was privacy?
    - dmantis 9mo ago
      And the internet is originally made by the US army (i.e. professional murderers). Doesn't make the internet bad as a technology. Simplex is quite well designed. Even if it doesn't succeed, I think we'll see its forks and similar implementations.
- palata 9mo ago
  For the context of this thread, it's infinitely better to depend on Signal than to depend on WhatsApp.
  - iAMkenough 9mo ago
    The context of the thread was "deAmericanizing." Not "what's good or bad."
    - palata 9mo ago
      You must be joking :-). I was saying that non-US office suites are good enough in terms of features, but people don't like to adapt to new things. WhatsApp vs Signal was an example where people don't want to use the better alternative, for no other reason than they can't be bothered to try it. But even when talking about not depending on US tech, it is relevant: depending on open source US tech is a step towards not depending on US tech. The goal is not racism ("it's made by US people so I don't want it"). The goal is sovereignty ("if I depend on this, the US government can screw me").
immibis 9mo ago
There used to be programs that would connect to multiple proprietary systems, like Pidgin. If we had this today we'd have one free-software app for WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram (and some used in other countries, like IIRC Zangi?). However, the social and regulatory environment changed - now whoever made that app could expect to be charged with a crime.
- noisem4ker 9mo ago
  The European Commission has recently put WhatsApp under scrutiny in terms of the Digital Services Act, and forced them to open up allowing interoperability with other messaging applications. Perhaps we'll see a return of apps like Pidgin soon.
  - rw_grim 9mo ago
    We've never left. https://pidgin.im/ https://pidgin.im/
- palata 9mo ago
  I don't have a definitive opinion on such messaging apps. I like that it bridges between different services, trying to free the users from the lock-in, but... If I talk to someone on Signal today, I know that they are probably using the official Signal on the other side. With the guarantees that I know from Signal. Now what if half of the users of Signal were using a third-party app? How much can I trust this app? Say Matrix has a bridge to Signal. I talk to someone over what looks like Signal from my end, but it goes to some third-party server that pretends to be Signal and then relays those messages to my friend on their Matrix client. As a Signal user, I cannot know it, but my conversation is not E2EE anymore. And it kind of defeats the point of using Signal entirely, doesn't it? I guess my point is that in terms of security, there is value in making it possible to verify that both ends are using the official Signal app, by locking it as much as possible (e.g. with DRM-like technology). But of course it's annoying to be locked in. Even though I don't feel personally super locked into Signal: I could move to another similar app in a minute. But again people tend to be lazy and don't want to switch apps. It's a hard problem, I guess.
foobarchu 9mo ago
To the average person, no. If you ask a regular user, you'll find that there is no alternative what Excel can do, the PowerPoint alternatives are missing loads of features, etc. Additionally, files created in MS Office still cannot reliably be used in the open source alternatives without something breaking. Until a non-technical user can open my PowerPoint presentation in LibreOffice and not have to apologize for the formatting, they aren't equivalent. A huge part of this is fonts. Users prefer proprietary fonts, and when you open files using them in the alternatives it tends to look like terrible. You will not convince users that this is on them to fix, and to be honest they're right, it's not their problem.