Notices by Cassidy James :eos: :gg: :fh: (cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family)

At a truck stop in Wyoming

TIL Fedora is packaging a web browser app I developed for elementary OS, stopped updating over three years ago, and marked as end-of-life two years ago—yet it happily shows up in Fedora 40 if you search my name. It crashes on launch, so it doesn’t even work…

WHY??

#Fedora #Linux

“AI” as currently hyped is giant billion dollar companies blatantly stealing content, disregarding licenses, deceiving about capabilities, and burning the planet in the process.

It is the largest theft of intellectual property in the history of humankind, and these companies are knowingly and willing ignoring the licenses, terms of service, and laws that us lowly individuals are beholden to.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/technology/tech-giants-harvest-data-artificial-intelligence.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ik0.Ofja.L21c1wyW-0xj&ugrp=m

#AI #GenAI #LLM #LLMs #OpenAI #ChatGPT #GPT #GPT4 #Sora #Gemini

I just saw that Mozilla is retiring Mozilla Location Services which provided an open, crowdsourced alternative to proprietary location services from Google and other vendors. 😰

https://github.com/mozilla/ichnaea/issues/2065

This is used by GNOME and thus Fedora, Ubuntu, Endless OS, etc. to help provide OS-level location services without requiring every app to implement its own. And apparently a patent troll is part of the reason Mozilla stopped investing in it. 🙃

#OpenSource #Linux #GNOME #Mozilla

It was great to meet @Gargron at #FOSDEM! Bummed I missed #JohnMastodon, though.

#FOSDEM2024

Do you work on GNOME or adjacent stuff? Do you want to help improve the GNOME desktop around usability, reliability, safety, digital well-being?

GET PAID TO DO IT!

The @gnome Foundation is offering a one-year contract (with potential to extend) to work on the above on behalf of the Foundation. You’d probably interact with me, the GNOME design team, and core maintainers of GNOME components.

https://foundation.gnome.org/2024/01/12/application-open-for-gnome-foundation-software-engineer/

#GNOME #Linux #OpenSource #FOSS #FLOSS #GetFediHired #OpenPosition #hiring

I feel like I’m always poking journalists and other public figures to get verified on Mastodon… part of this is a lack of knowledge around the topic and the fact that joinmastodon.org kind of buries the details of “how” in the docs.

So, I’ve written up my own how and why:

https://cassidyjames.com/blog/mastodon-verification/

Feel free to share! Hopefully it adds to the collective knowledge and helps get more folks verified here.

✨🗨️ Public replies to this post will appear as comments on the blog.

#Mastodon #verification

Man, I have such mixed feelings about this—on the one hand, focus is good, actually! Yeah, don’t go off and do random weird side ventures! On the other hand, you're continuing to do terrible things to your reputation of maintaining services, and putting people off using anything you make in the future.

And to be clear, it’s being transferred to Squarespace, so it’s not like the domains will just… stop working. But still.

https://9to5google.com/2023/06/15/google-domains-squarespace/

#Google #GoogleDomains #Squarespace

I feel like a solution would be to spin these off as distinct companies so they could live or die by their own merit and not be beholden to the whims of Google, but then that gets complex with sharing resources,/technology/data between them. Idk.

I think I have one domain through Google, so I'll transfer it out to where everything else is and continue on with my life, but this just isn't a good look.

#Google #GoogleDomains #Squarespace #BreakUpBigTech

But as someone who genuinely loves my Pixel phone, watch, buds, etc. and that whole ecosystem, seeing this—as vastly disconnected from the ecosystem as it is—does make me start to get nervous that some of my favorite tech could disappear overnight. And that's awful for Google's brand.

I’d feel a whole lot better about the Android/Pixel ecosystem if it were separate company from the ads business, too. :)

#Google #GoogleDomains #Squarespace #BreakUpBigTech

Web developers: when you say, “your browser does not support this site,” what you REALLY mean is that YOU don’t support the browser. Don’t turn it around on the user because you chose not to stick to well-supported standards, or worse, are doing user agent sniffing.

If you truly use some feature shipped by one browser and not everyone, at least say, “We use x standard feature, which is unsupported in this browser.” But even then, the web is all about progressive enhancement.

#WebDevelopment

The new @frameworkcomputer updates look great! It makes sense to expand the lineup to include a more powerful 16" model, and the back module is a super cool way to tackle graphics.

I am bummed that the new Framework Laptop 13 display retains the same non-integer-scaling HiDPI resolution, though… that's literally my only complaint with the laptop.

https://frame.work

#Framework #FrameworkComputer #FrameworkLaptop

Things are moving along. I’m feeling good about this proposal. Now we gotta convince everyone else. :)

I love that these sort of efforts force us to take a long look at other areas of the desktop and work to improve things—even before the thing we're explicitly working on ships.

Things are looking 🔥 is all I’m saying.

My silly little toy app is officially part of GNOME Circle! Check out Clairvoyant’s flashy new page:

https://apps.gnome.org/app/com.github.cassidyjames.clairvoyant/

#GNOME #GNOMECircle #Flatpak #Flathub

I just had a super productive discussion with some talented designers and developers within #GNOME. I’m happy to see some long-wanted but often-delayed work being picked back up, and excited to be involved in the process!

I think we’re gonna get some thing spiked out and prototyped, but spoiler alert: it’s to do with making GNOME feel more your own while considering the needs of app authors and distros.

#GNOMEdesign #FOSS #OpenSource #Linux #FLOSS

This is great! There are over 2,000 apps on Flathub, but there are already 360 verified apps before the feature is officially launched! These have been verified to be uploaded and controlled by their actual authors.

There’s everything from KDE apps and both first-party GNOME apps and third-party GNOME Circle apps as you might expect—but there are already big names like Firefox, Telegram, LibreOffice, OBS Studio, Plex, OnlyOffice, Kodi, GIMP, and more!

https://beta.flathub.org/apps/collection/verified/

#Flathub #Flatpak

I’m on the latest episode of @linuxuserspace! Give it a watch/listen for a fairly extensive look at what we do at @EndlessOS, as well as why I think right now is the most exciting time in desktop Linux.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5AvLAusUIs&t=2622s

#Linux #OpenSource #EndlessOS #GNOME #Flatpak #Flathub #FOSS #FLOSS #GTK

This is the sort of client-side innovation I like to see!

Rather than a centralized server deciding what topics a post is about and then using them to feed an algorithm, a client could do that analysis locally in a way that remains compatible with every other implementation. And then apps can also do more interesting things with hashtags on the other side of the equation.

Basically, the benefits of The Algorithm with more transparency and control. 👍

@IceCubesApp https://mastodon.online/@IceCubesApp/109993925297233380

I’ve posted here in the past about how awesome 3D printing is on Endless OS or any modern Linux distro thanks to the availability of tools on Flathub, so I decided to write it up. Enjoy, boosts and feedback appreciated!

https://cassidyjames.com/blog/3d-printing-endless-os-linux-flathub/

#3DPrinting #Flathub #Flatpak #EndlessOS #GNOME #Linux #OpenSource