Conversation

Notices

1. xianc78@gameliberty.club's status on Monday, 27-Jan-2025 22:56:18 JST xianc78

   Is there a single school, college, or university left that doesn't rely on Microsoft or Google for emails, calender, etc?

   • matrix07012 :thotpatrol: likes this.
   • xianc78@gameliberty.club's status on Monday, 27-Jan-2025 23:57:23 JST xianc78

     in reply to

     • Vokainen

     @vokainen099 My Dad works in public education. The distract he worked for switched to Gmail a decade ago because of some law that required emails to be stored on their servers for 7 years and they didn't have the infrastructure to handle that.

   • Vokainen (vokainen099@cawfee.club)'s status on Monday, 27-Jan-2025 23:57:24 JST Vokainen

     in reply to
     @xianc78 Outise the US, most public school utilize gov run platforms (But still rely on MS for OS/Office or Google for OS/Other services), but at least most critical info is on whatever platform their govs run.
     
     Inside the US, no, those corporations have captured everything.
     
     They would never use free software, because they can't sign contracts or draw guarantees from free software organizations. Besides, most school technicians are not trained into it.
     
     I still remember a lab technician (Early 2010s) struggling to make VLC work on all computer lab computers (And she still never managed to)
   • beard :meru_dab: (beardalaxy@gameliberty.club)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 01:53:35 JST beard :meru_dab:

     in reply to

     • opal
     • Vokainen

     @wowaname @vokainen099 @xianc78 yeah schools being able to afford 200 macs, 400 PCs, a dozen carts full of chromebooks, etc. but not being able to hold emails for 7 years seems a little weird to me.

     matrix07012 :thotpatrol: likes this.
   • opal (wowaname@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 01:53:36 JST opal

     in reply to

     • Vokainen
     @xianc78 @vokainen099 they didn't have a $500 raid array for mailboxes? when goolag keels over i'm just gonna laugh at everything collapsing
   • Vokainen (vokainen099@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 01:55:31 JST Vokainen

     in reply to
     @xianc78 They begun pushing for schools being full-digital back in the late 2000s (Financial crisis going and all that).
     
     It probably was a gift to keep those corporations afloat, since it was easy to guess schools would be forced to rely on their services most of the time (Alas, transfer public money to them)
     
     Email in particular, even if they had the infrastructure, it probably wouldn't work because of all those antispam safeguards google is enforcing
     matrix07012 :thotpatrol: likes this.
   • Vokainen (vokainen099@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 01:55:50 JST Vokainen

     in reply to

     • opal
     @wowaname @xianc78 Or it would have taken months to get the contract going, and in the meantime they would have been in the wrong, legally-wise.
     
     Probably they just threw the towel
     
     Also, those 100s of PCs are bought in batches with discounts
     
     Edit: Also google anti-spam practices requiring DKIM and things like that
     matrix07012 :thotpatrol: likes this.
   • opal (wowaname@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 03:03:08 JST opal

     in reply to

     • Vokainen
     @vokainen099 @xianc78
     >they can't sign contracts or draw guarantees from free software organizations.
     i'm someone interested in bridging this gap, but nobody gave me enough interest to support my direction, and i never had enough money in my pocket to put toward initial funding myself.
     xianc78 likes this.
     xianc78 repeated this.
   • xianc78@gameliberty.club's status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 03:12:30 JST xianc78

     in reply to

     • opal
     • Vokainen

     @wowaname @vokainen099
     >i'm someone interested in bridging this gap, but nobody gave me enough interest to support my direction, and i never had enough money in my pocket to put toward initial funding myself.

     And the worst part about it is that there are organizations that could do it but choose not to. Disroot has been around for a decade now, runs on entirely free software, and is funded 100% by donations (some features are ONLY available if you donate though), but their ToS prohibits commercial use of their services with a few exceptions. I understand not wanting huge corpos using your service, but I see no problem with small businesses using it.

   • Soul Dessin (souldessin@noauthority.social)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 10:21:20 JST Soul Dessin

     in reply to

     • opal
     • Vokainen

     @wowaname @vokainen099 @xianc78
     In Delaware, the state literally will not accept bids that don't have a price. So, a school's IT could say we need LibreOffice and the board isn't allowed to accept it because it doesn't cost anything.

     The government managed systems are fundamentally broken with regards to open source software.

     xianc78 likes this.
     xianc78 repeated this.
   • opal (wowaname@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 10:21:28 JST opal

     in reply to

     • Soul Dessin
     • Vokainen
     @souldessin @vokainen099 @xianc78 the trick there is for those software projects to distribute physical copies so that it *does* introduce production and logistic costs. pretty much a loophole for that shitty system
     xianc78 likes this.
     xianc78 repeated this.
   • opal (wowaname@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 10:22:20 JST opal

     in reply to

     • opal
     • Soul Dessin
     • Vokainen
     @souldessin @vokainen099 @xianc78 basically foss needs to rethink a lot to stay sustainable in the broader market so we aren't solely depending on the fsf as a cornerstone for our success. something else to worry about is maintaining a release schedule for updates, which (in your example) libreoffice would have to figure out on their end how to enter contracts with these businesses
   • xianc78@gameliberty.club's status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 10:25:54 JST xianc78

     in reply to

     • opal
     • Soul Dessin
     • Vokainen

     @wowaname @vokainen099 @souldessin Or go the Ardour business model where they charge for binary downloads even though you can still compile the source code for free or download the binary for free from a mirror.

     For some reason, it works for them. It's the only modern example of FLOSS that I know of that is paid.

     https://community.ardour.org/download?platform=linux&architecture=x86_64&type=compiled&paymentSelection=options

   • Pawlicker (pawlicker@lab.nyanide.com)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 10:26:47 JST Pawlicker

     in reply to

     • opal
     • Soul Dessin
     • Vokainen
     @wowaname @vokainen099 @xianc78 @souldessin physical copies you say?
   • xianc78@gameliberty.club's status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 10:26:47 JST xianc78

     in reply to

     • opal
     • Soul Dessin
     • Pawlicker
     • Vokainen

     @Pawlicker @vokainen099 @wowaname @souldessin So basically just buy hardware from System76, Purism, or ThinkPenguin?

   • xianc78@gameliberty.club's status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 11:15:04 JST xianc78

     in reply to

     • opal
     • Soul Dessin
     • Vokainen

     @wowaname @vokainen099 @souldessin Oh wait. I forgot that there are already distros that still sell live media. You can buy them from ThinkPenguin.

     https://thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/linux-mint-usb-flash-drive-installation-media-w-installation-support-tpe-lmfldrv

   • opal (wowaname@freesoftwareextremist.com)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Jan-2025 11:57:51 JST opal

     in reply to

     • Soul Dessin
     • Vokainen
     @xianc78 @vokainen099 @souldessin thanks for reminding me that's been an option
     xianc78 likes this.