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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 1st, 2023

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  • From my perspective mails are federated. If I want to explain federation as a concept to someone I always use mail as an example because everyone can write to everyone independent of the provider, you can selfhost it easily, you could move from one company to another (if you use your own domain), protocols are all FOSS.

    So at least it’s an open and distributed system. What would be missing for it to count as federated?




  • Some time ago a client of me was looking for a solution to add watermarks to PDF files from their local on premise ERP system. The ERP system itself is a standard software. Obviously, they have a license to use that ERP but they definitely do not own the source code of it. Thus, they cannot change the license to AGPL or integrate it somehow.

    I thought about writing a little plugin with Java in iFile to do that which is published unser AGPL. Using something under AGPL would mean that we have to make the entire solution available under that license.

    Question 1: What is the entire solution in that scenario?

    • Is it the part of the plugin that deals with watermarks?
    • Is it the entire PDF handling plugin?
    • Is it the entire process in the ERP system?
    • Is it the entire ERP system that calls the plugin?
    • Would it include sattelite systems that are connected to that ERP system that indirectly use the PDFs and thus potentially ‘infest’ the entire IT landscape?
    • If the PDFs are send automatically to business partners of my client and they process it internally in their systems, are their systems now part of the solution?

    Question 2: AGPL says users must have access to the source code of the solution no matter if they use it locally, over network etc. But Who is the user in such a scenario?

    • The IT department of my client?
    • The end users of the ERP system of my client who are only interested in the PDF but definitely not in the source code?
    • Everyone at my client?
    • Including business partners who might have access to the PDFs?
    • Everyone?

    Question 3: My client is not a software company, so they never published ANY source code or software. Where would you publish the code?

    • The plugin for PDF creation would be called only in the background. The frontend is only standard ERP so I couldn’t easily put a link to the source code in the GUI.
    • My client’s intranet?
    • My client’s homepage?
    • GitHub or a similar platform?

    There is a lot of uncertainty when using AGPL software in a business context which will - in many cases - lead to the decision not to use the software at all.






  • For people without IT background, I can recommend Mozilla common voice. They plan to release an advanced AI model for text-to-speech or speech-to-text conversion, e.g. for an offline, open source alternative to Amazon Echo, Siri etc.

    To train the model they need at least 10000 hours of speech samples per language. So you can donate your voice by reading aloud small snippets, checking already recorded samples or making up new sentences.

    https://commonvoice.mozilla.org/




  • Not sure about that. Sure, you might drive up your short term sales if consumers think they're getting a great 5* product at a bargain. But in the long run, your customers will be disappointed by the quality and turn away from the platform. I hear more and more complaints about fake products being delivered, service degrading and real brands being drowned in the search results with Wish/Temu-like rubbish on Amazon.

    I am still a regular customers at Amazon and I even still pay for the Prime membership but my shopping behavior has changed a lot over the years. Instead of buying expensive stuff like TVs, notebooks, sport equipment etc. I nowadays mostly buy cheap stuff due to the "free" shipping. Super glue, adapters, a cable here and there, little kitchen supplies etc.

    I don't trust Amazon anymore for bigger things which from they'd profit the most.

    Also Prime memberships are questioned more and more across my friends and family. And I think fake ratings are one important aspect for that. Among others like treating their employees like shit, having a horrible person as CEO, etc.