Yarmo - gafam

ELIUF: Explain Like I Use Facebook

2020-07-18T17:51:26+00:00

ELI5</h2>
Perhaps you've seen the word ELI5</a> before. This stands for "Explain Like I'm 5". In other words, "please use simple terms and expressions to explain your point". It's not an insult to one's intelligence, it's just the process of transferring knowledge between (groups of) individuals that have different fundamental levels of understanding of the concept in question.
I've come to the realization we need a similar thing with regards to the "decentralized internet". It's not that I could only explain it to you if I use very simple terms because it's a complicated concept—it's not.
But rather, it's a significant shift in how one needs to think about how the internet works, how services are provided for us and, ultimately, how our data flows on the digital highway.

Our internet needs to change</h2>
Days rarely go by without some mention in the global news that a big internet corporation was fined for misuse of our data</a> or a report on a large security breach</a> or abuse of monopoly</a>. These links are just from last week (2020-07-13 to 2020-07-19). Next week will produce new revelations on how our online existence is threatened or abused.
Our internet today is fundamentally flawed. But with all the attention it is getting these days, people are starting to see the cracks and will turn to a better alternative: the "decentralized internet".

ELIUF</h2>
In a series of post, we will explore what it means to use this new decentralized internet, how it serves you, what are the benefits and the drawbacks, and how it fixes today's internet.
You will recognize these post by their mentioning of "ELIUF" in either the title or somewhere in the text. ELIUF stands for "Explain Like I Use Facebook". A little facetious, I admit. But it works. People who use Facebook have a good grasp on how a "centralized internet" works. With Facebook slowly crumbling under scandals and fines, it's their users and the users of similar sites (Twitter, YouTube, etc.) that will need some guidance when they choose to abandon those sites.
ELIUF 101</h2>
A first ELIUF explanation? No problem, here it is! "Decentralized" means that no single "central" authority is responsible for possessing data or knowledge. Therefore, this blog that you are reading this post on, will only be one of a larger network of blogs that will write about the topic. Each blog will aim to link to a few posts on different blogs, allowing you to easily learn about these new concepts while moving around the internet.
Just like recommended Facebook posts or recommended YouTube videos! Except, well, decentralized :)
Let's all share this knowledge with each other and welcome everyone who wishes to escape today's internet and join the decentralized web.
ELIUF posts elsewhere on the internet</h2>

How to decentralize the Internet</a> by Guillermo Garron</a></li> </ul>

Github is sinking

2020-06-29T13:06:56+00:00

If you're looking for a more reasoned argumentation, see Update 3 at the bottom.

I rarely interact with Github</a> anymore. All my projects are either on my selfhosted Gitea</a> instance or on Codeberg.org</a>. That's why I missed the following on Github Status</a>:

Yikes

Yikes, indeed. How everyone handles this is up to them. Large projects will find it hard to move, no doubt.

My interpretation? The Microsoft Github ship is sinking and it's sinking faster every day. The beauty is: you don't need them. Instead of relying on Github, you could:

selfhost your own Gitea</a> instance if you have the knowledge;</li>
use Codeberg.org</a> which also uses Gitea</a>;</li>
use sourcehut.org</a> which takes a different but very solid approach to git hosting;</li>
use any instance generously hosted by amazing people (think libreho.st</a> and Chatons</a>);</li>
use gitlab.com</a> or selfhost an instance.</li> </ul>
There are so many better places to be for git hosting nowadays. For an easy performance comparison of different services, see forgeperf.org</a>.
Abandon the corporate ship before or after it sinks, up to you.

Update 1</h2>
Added forgeperf.org</a> link after suggestion by @slow@mstdn.io</a>.

Update 2</h2>
Added sourcehut.org</a> link after suggestion by @freddyym@social.privacytools.io</a>.

Update 3</h2>
Don't publish on your website when you are feeling frustrated; that's what Twitter is for.
Let's inject some reason here. Github isn't dying anytime soon. Certainly not due to this number of outages. And all software breaks, so that's no measure; what matters is the response. And Github is on it. Like every single other time it was broken.
But that doesn't mean we can't change the status quo. Almost every defense of Github comes down to discoverability: if I put my project on Github, others will find it. If I put it elsewhere, other won't find it.
Do not forget: Github's discoverability comes from us, the userbase. We the developers make or break Github. If we all move, Github shuts its doors. This won't happen. But look at the landscape: so many alternative solutions exist, Github is no better than any other service and, in the eyes of some, me included, Github may actually provide a worse experience than most alternatives.
And about discoverability. Have you heard of social media? Blog posts? I discover a lot of new Github projects on a regular basis and almost none, I have discovered via Github itself. People talk about good projects and share them, plain and simple.
If you simply like Github and their network and their continuously "evolving" UI, have at it. To each their own.
If you don't like Github, do not stay. Be the change you want to see.

How does a textbook 'Embrace, Extend, Extinguish' operation work?

2020-05-27T13:22:21+00:00

I recently found out about what happened to the AppGet</a> tool for Windows made by Keivan Beigi</a>.
Sadly, a recent blog post</a> is outlining the details around the decision to cease development and shut down the service which provided an open source package manager to Windows.
Stories about open source services shutting down are always sad and a blow to the community, but this one in particular is noteworthy. Judging from the events as written down by Keivan in his post</a>, he has been the target of an absolute textbook case of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish</a>, Microsoft's modus operandi.
As a disclaimer, I have been rooting this past year for Microsoft's apparent change in stance towards Linux and the open source community, but I was wrong, and Microsoft has been kind enough to provide all the grounds to distrust the corporation even more, recently with the MAUI debacle</a> (see all the comments marked off-topic in this issue</a>? Flagrant censoring!) and now with AppGet.
So now, let's quickly examine Microsoft's emails from the blog post.
Embrace</h2>

Keivan,
I run the Windows App Model engineering team and in particular the app deployment team. Just wanted to drop you a quick note to thank you for building appget — it’s a great addition to the Windows ecosystem and makes Windows developers life so much easier. We will likely be up in Vancouver in the coming weeks for meetings with other companies but if you had time we’d love to meet up with you and your team to get feedback on how we can make your life easier building appget. </blockquote>
Embrace: celebrate what people contribute to your ecosystem
Extend</h2>

Keivan,
it was a pleasure to meet you and to find out more about appget. I’m following up on the azure startup pricing for you. As you know we are big fans of package managers on Windows and we are looking to do more in that space. My team is growing and part of that is to build a team who is responsible for ensuring package managers and software distribution on Windows makes a big step forward. We are looking to make some significant changes to the way that we enable software distribution on Windows and there’s a great opportunity (well I would say that wouldn’t I?) to help define the future of Windows and app distribution throughout Azure/Microsoft 365.
With that in mind have you considered spending more time dedicated to appget and potentially at Microsoft? </blockquote>
Extend: get a foothold in people's successful contributions to your ecosystem
Extinguish</h2>

Hi Keivan, I hope you and your family are doing well — BC seems to have a good handle on covid compared to the us.
I’m sorry that the pm position didn’t work out. I wanted to take the time to tell you how much we appreciated your input and insights. We have been building the windows package manager and the first preview will go live tomorrow at build. We give appget a call out in our blog post too since we believe there will be space for different package managers on windows. You will see our package manager is based on GitHub too but obviously with our own implementation etc. our package manager will be open source too so obviously we would welcome any contribution from you.
I look forward to talking to you about our package manager once we go live tomorrow. Obviously this is confidential until tomorrow morning so please keep this to yourself. You and chocolatey are the only folks we have told about this in advance. </blockquote>
Extinguish: replace the people's contributions with your own products; it needn't be better because you're a big rich corporation with enormous reach
Microsoft Loves Linux</h2>
Make no mistake: this aggressive pattern will continue. They like the name MAUI? They take it and silence the critics. They want a package manager because Linux has them? They "get inspired", build a new one and squash the existing solutions.
They love Linux, right? They are certainly "embracing" it on their platform when they launched the Windows Subsystem for Linux (or WSL), a tool to run Linux distributions inside Windows. It has also been a while since they started "extending" Linux and the open source community by means of open-sourcing Powershell</a> and acquiring Github</a>. Soon, WSL2 will launch with their own Linux kernel</a>.
Now is the time to remain vigilant but also act. Donate to or support in any other way your favorite distribution and open source tools. Microsoft is coming.
Final notes</h2>
I've tried to remain respectful to the content Keivan has posted in his blog post</a>. I feel sorry for the situation: he's the developer hero Windows needed but Microsoft felt we did not deserve. Hope you'll go on to make even bigger projects, Keivan, because you absolutely nailed AppGet!

The People's Web

2020-04-30T08:53:37+00:00

#100DaysToOffload >> 2020-04-30 >> 006/100</code>
The day has long past that we should have started worrying about the openness of our web. It was only a matter of time before censorship and individual tracking would seep into the web of the western world. It pained me to see the levels of state interference in foreign countries, but at least, to me, that was something I only read about in the news, it was then unimaginable that this would happen in the short term in the "free world".
Now, in these trying times, states and big corporations may see it more than justified to track individuals and adjust the information we receive. I do not question their motives: "we are in this together". It takes the world to fight this pandemic, and the next one, and the one after that.
But the question on a lot of minds is: "how do we come back from this?" The hardest part is for the people to accept they are being tracked and their information filtered, so big corporations did it with shady and hidden tactics to avoid this confrontation. We are past this: YouTube has announced it will ban all content that does not conform to WHO and countries everywhere are building apps to track our health and social interactions. Again, this could prove to be what humanity needs right now, but what about after? Is there even an after?
Fortunately, we all have the power to make a few changes to improve our online well-being: change social networks, don't rely on corporations, self-host as much as you can. I will be dedicating a large number of posts on this topic. Self-hosting is not hard, it just takes a little effort to get started.
As a friendly reminder, this website (blog included) has no tracking whatsoever: I do not care who you are, where you are from or with how many you are reading this post.

Yarmo - gafam

ELIUF: Explain Like I Use Facebook

ELIUF posts elsewhere on the internet</h2> How to decentralize the Internet</a> by Guillermo Garron</a></li> </ul>

Github is sinking

How does a textbook 'Embrace, Extend, Extinguish' operation work?

The People's Web

ELIUF posts elsewhere on the internet</h2>

How to decentralize the Internet</a> by Guillermo Garron</a></li> </ul>