See Reflections: The ecosystem is moving (2016) by Moxie Marlinspike the founder of Signal (privacy oriented secure messaging app).

The gist of it is that decentralised systems are more difficult to evolve by their very nature, therefore we need centralised but public† services to keep up with the pace of centralised and private ones. Another emphasis is on the word “services” as software alone is often not sufficient without some server component, centralised (e.g. Signal) or federated (e.g. Lemmy).

† Public as in the commons: owned and controlled by non-profits for the benefit of public.

Why?

There is BitTorrent which I’m sure you’re aware of, and then there is also WebTorrent which you may not.

I’m also actively working on this exact problem with WebMirror with the key difference being that it works in browsers without requiring any additional software. Here is its demo: https://webmirror-demo.netlify.app/

How is Brave right wing? Because of cryptocurrencies?

I read this on Hacker News, which I found particularly interesting:

Elon Musk’s bid for OpenAI isn’t about buying it but about disrupting its transition to a for-profit company. OpenAI Inc., the nonprofit, controls OpenAI LP, the capped-profit subsidiary. To convert to a full for-profit entity, OpenAI Inc. must sell its technology and IP to the new company, with regulators determining a fair valuation.

The rumored SoftBank investment at a $260B valuation relies on this transition, but the current estimated valuation is around $150B. Typically, control premiums in such deals range from 20-30%, putting the expected nonprofit payout at $30B-$40B. However, Musk’s $97B bid for OpenAI Inc.’s assets sets a significantly higher valuation, giving regulators a strong argument that the nonprofit should receive much more.

If regulators adopt Musk’s benchmark, OpenAI Inc. would end up with a 62% majority stake, making the transition far more complex or even blocking it entirely. Even though OpenAI won’t accept Musk’s offer, the bid’s primary effect is to make the legal and financial process of going for-profit much more difficult. It’s a strategic move designed to frustrate OpenAI’s leadership, particularly Sam Altman, and potentially derail the entire transition.

How does it compare to ollama in your experience?

To be clear (and as far as I understand), it’s not a hostile takeover bid because it cannot be: OpenAI is not a public company and thus doesn’t have a fiduciary duty to thousands to millions of shareholders but instead to a handful of big investors who can decide for themselves whether they want that Elon’s money or not. So this isn’t similar to what Twitter had been through but more like Elon teasing Altman I believe.

Perfect thank you!

Were FOSDEM talks recorded?

This was posted 3 months ago! :)

People used to defend to the death others’ right to say things (that they may even disagree with): National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie

[…] The injunction was granted, prohibiting marchers at the proposed Skokie rally from wearing Nazi uniforms or displaying swastikas. On behalf of the NSPA, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged the injunction. The ACLU assigned civil rights attorneys David Goldberger and Burton Joseph to Collin’s cases. The ACLU argued that the injunction violated the First Amendment rights of the marchers to express themselves. The ACLU challenge was unsuccessful at the lower court level.

The ACLU appealed on behalf of NSPA, but both the Illinois Appellate Court and the Illinois Supreme Court refused to expedite the case or to stay the injunction. The ACLU then appealed that refusal to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Here is the interesting bit:

• Burton Joseph’s parents “ran a business caretaking Jewish cemeteries.” [Wikipedia]
• David Goldberger is “a Jew”. [Once a Bastion of Free Speech, the A.C.L.U. Faces an Identity Crisis — The New York Times]

Ah makes sense, thanks for the clarification! I’d pin this if I could.

Are you referring to this bit?

update: Tried again, this time it worked, writing a longer post and putting the words in apostrophes.

Putting the words in apostrophes may’ve worked as it prevents pixelfed.social from being linked to. It must be then the URL, not the “pixelfed” keyword, that is being blocked.

My issue with this is that, especially as a foreigner living abroad, I cannot always answer which shop might have the items I’m looking for.

I wish Google Maps allowed searching for shops by their inventory, like it does searching for restaurants by their menu. Even better, an open web protocol like RSS where shop websites can communicate to all crawlers what items are being sold where and which are out of stock, so that it’s not a Google Maps monopoly but an ecosystem…

Interesting! What’s the book’s name?

I fully agree with you and I’m not saying this in their defence but Element is not owned by Matrix either right? It’s owned by another (for-profit?) party and in fact Matrix (Foundation) doesn’t maintain any clients whatsoever.

I guess it has something to do with “client neutrality” and the protocol not being defined by / tied to a “reference implementation” which I can get behind, but it’s hurting users in the end as you said.

Hopefully things should get a whole lot more stable with Matrix 2.0 and which may incentivise people to put in more effort into writing better and more polished clients.

I see, thank you!

Are there any iOS apps?

Neat! Is this like Hacker News but federated?

Yeah it is!