If you want people to switch to your non-evil tool:
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"refuse to take responsibility" this exists; although I note that the responsibility that users also have for paying for that labour seems also in short supply.
If developers and users want to have a relationship that isn't *gestures broadly* this. Then both must take responsibility for their roles in undermining the economics of a functioning Free Software service industry.
Devs serve users, not yourselves. Users #PayForFreeSoftware to build that relationship.
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This is excellent!
There are way too many alternatives that can’t even spit out a simple HTML page (Solid, cough cough) after years of development. They’re shiny toys for protocol enthusiasts.
Document editing is a particular need that isn’t met - I don’t care where something is hosted if it yeets a grant application into the void half an hour before the deadline, or can’t handle two whole editors at a time.
Too many announcements about FLOSS go something like “Introducing Greeble 3.5! Now with more florp! You can mash the pronation setting to 11 with a fneeth command!” and no mention of what the thing actually does.
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I would agree. If I could require computer science degrees to have design modules I would.
Programmers rarely know how to design, hell they barely know that things *can* be designed. Only a vague sense of rightness based on past reading.
And I mean in everything. API Design is lacking, CLI design is disappointing. GUI Design is hit and miss but at least those devs sort of know design exists at all.
I claim skills. We need to hire designers.
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I would only request one consideration. You say linux users, but I think you mean tech enthusiasts, or perhaps linux user stereotypes.
My daughter is a linux user. She should be blessed with good design and not with a fussy old tech bro culture.
And often "normal" is used as a bludgeon to mean windows and anything not normal is to be sneered, repressed and devalued. And this view is very common in industry which hurts. Linux use is normal, and shouldn't be different.
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If you want people to switch to your non-evil tool:
- make it accessible
- make it usable
- make communicating with you about bugs and usability easy
@akareilly they are all good things to target, but... most evil corp tools don't pass these tests.
- most are inaccessible
- usability suffers with enshittification
- communicating with evil corps is harder than an in person audience with a deityReplacing evil corp tools without evil corp resources while setting a higher qualifying bar is not an encouragement for alternative producers.
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@akareilly they are all good things to target, but... most evil corp tools don't pass these tests.
- most are inaccessible
- usability suffers with enshittification
- communicating with evil corps is harder than an in person audience with a deityReplacing evil corp tools without evil corp resources while setting a higher qualifying bar is not an encouragement for alternative producers.
@adityabhaskar Why is the higher qualifying bar applicable to say, security but not to accessibility?
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@riverpunk @doctormo @akareilly The easier said than done part is the domain of the skilled public teacher. I had to pass courses on “Universal Design for Learning” in my masters program and the concepts are exactly what we need in non-evil tech in my opinion. Not only are most people non-techy, a huge percentage have learning disabilities or cognitive impairments that make them more vulnerable to tech-related exploitation and less likely to explore alternatives.
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If you want people to switch to your non-evil tool:
- make it accessible
- make it usable
- make communicating with you about bugs and usability easy
@Wren Reilly Agreed with the person above that most proprietary tools are a UX hellhole, and people only use them because they've been locked into using them for however many years or decades.
And one of my favourite parts about FOSS is that I can just open up a Matrix room and there's the lead developer right there, online 24/7 like some kind of maniac, ready to happily answer my questions or let me know if the bug I'm experiencing is going to be fixed in the next little while. -
@Wren Reilly Agreed with the person above that most proprietary tools are a UX hellhole, and people only use them because they've been locked into using them for however many years or decades.
And one of my favourite parts about FOSS is that I can just open up a Matrix room and there's the lead developer right there, online 24/7 like some kind of maniac, ready to happily answer my questions or let me know if the bug I'm experiencing is going to be fixed in the next little while.Try using a Linux distro without the use of your hands or eyes, from setup to everyday tasks.
Usable for biotypical people doesn’t mean *accessible*
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@akareilly they are all good things to target, but... most evil corp tools don't pass these tests.
- most are inaccessible
- usability suffers with enshittification
- communicating with evil corps is harder than an in person audience with a deityReplacing evil corp tools without evil corp resources while setting a higher qualifying bar is not an encouragement for alternative producers.
@adityabhaskar@hachyderm.io @akareilly@hachyderm.io It’s not like “pass this list or the fedi council will block your project”, it’s “I made this free thing, why is nobody using it?”
And the bar is higher because free software doesn’t come with corpo sales representatives.
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@akareilly they are all good things to target, but... most evil corp tools don't pass these tests.
- most are inaccessible
- usability suffers with enshittification
- communicating with evil corps is harder than an in person audience with a deityReplacing evil corp tools without evil corp resources while setting a higher qualifying bar is not an encouragement for alternative producers.
@adityabhaskar @akareilly Gmail is vastly more keyboard and screen reader friendly then @protonprivacy for example
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anyone chiming in with:
“I made this for free so uppity end users can suck it!”
or
“uwu I made this just for meeeeeee!”
gets blocked.
If you make janky things for yourself then these posts are not about you. Programmers should be able to work with IF/THEN statements, wouldn’t you think?
@akareilly I'm still waiting to find out whether my partner (who just gleefully degoogled his phone and then slammed me for not having done so when my disabilities are the reason I cannot) had technical issues with his solo appointment with our couples therapist last week. Because, as I'm sure you know, most medical software requires chrome or a chrome based browser. I'm not sure if his fancy new firmware will let him install Zoom or not. >
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@akareilly I'm still waiting to find out whether my partner (who just gleefully degoogled his phone and then slammed me for not having done so when my disabilities are the reason I cannot) had technical issues with his solo appointment with our couples therapist last week. Because, as I'm sure you know, most medical software requires chrome or a chrome based browser. I'm not sure if his fancy new firmware will let him install Zoom or not. >
@akareilly he did this whole mansplain thing and it felt like deja vu after having dealt with a whole lot of internet tech bros who do not understand the needs of normal people, much less disabled folks, and who tend to forget living in a rural area is a thing. So I'm just sitting here waiting for him to start realizing how many things he's going to have problems with over time because he jumped off the high dive before taking smaller steps and seeing how hard just that much was.
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I loved this blog post in so many ways! I do somewhat disagree about marketing concepts. Non-tech people love podcasts and love how open podcasts are, and nobody changed how an RSS feed is presented. They know they can use that RSS feed in any podcast app they want. I do think a bigger issue is education, and I am not talking about code, either. I am talking about knowing things like everything on the web is a server. Your browser is just a user agent. Things like that. Learning how email works and how email travels across wires, for example. I don't get the hate for the interoperable word. Non-tech gamers understand it via cross-play as an example. If non-tech people can understand how open the podcast is *and* use an RSS feed, then the podcast community is doing something right. @riverpunk @akareilly
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If you want people to switch to your non-evil tool:
- make it accessible
- make it usable
- make communicating with you about bugs and usability easy
do not be an asshole to people who use your program (saying "PRs welcome" in response to a feature request is okay; telling people they're stupid if they can't figure out your UI is not)
ESPECIALLY do not be an asshole to people who use the program it is an alternative to
if you're going to tie your software to your politics (as you should), have the common decency to say what they are and how you will respond to people who do not share them in CONTRIBUTING.md
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@riverpunk @akareilly oh my gosh yes please!!! i am here because i am super passionate about my politics and values but it took me a good 24hours of research to understand and get myself onto the fediverse and its quite intimidating and i reeeaaally want to get more people here (and generally into open source, of which ibe known about and used for years) who i know wont do that work. i dont have any experience in code/programming and am overwhlemed by how many people here are, so it feels pretty alienating figuring out how to use things sometimes, as even if i ask i dont really understand the instructions
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Thank you for the shoutout
And yes, avoiding technical language is really important, there's almost always a non-technical way of saying the same thing!
