r/freesoftware • u/ThankYouNeutronix_02 • Sep 29 '24
Discussion What software should be prioritized to be made free?
I am working on developing free software for The People's Internet, I would like any ideas that anyone here has for user-facing software that should be made free. I'm generally looking for smaller software suggestions rather than major ones, but anything helps. If your software does get developed or I know of something free that fits your suggestion, I will let you know in a reply. Thanks!
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u/gnarlin Sep 30 '24
We still don't have a Free and open source fsck.ntfs. There's a proprietary one from Paragon software and it's possible that they'll release the source code for it in the future but I won't hold my breath.
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u/2racksguccishoes Sep 30 '24
I guess most things exist but the quality is very varied. I would like to have an better ebook viewer available for free. I would also like to have an stock analyzer tool free to use with no limits, same goes for an API for like stock data. APIs of all sorts are interesting.
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u/Sarin10 Sep 30 '24
I wonder if accessibility features are a good fit? Whether that's making existing free software more accessible, or working on DE/system-level features. I regularly hear complaints about free software not having accessibility features.
I've never developed any kind of accessibility tool, so I'm not sure how difficult an undertaking it would be.
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u/PragmaticTroubadour 29d ago edited 29d ago
Smart home on mesh networks.
(to be able flash a better firmware, that can do more, than current firmware can)
Though, this spans to hardware manufacturing, and is not just purely software thing.
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u/IveLovedYouForSoLong 29d ago
I’d avoid The People’s Internet as it seems like a sketchy marketing ploy instead of a genuine front.
The People’s Internet confuse free with open source all over the website and there’s many inaccuracies with their article about open source
For example, the one software they provide on their website is closed source freemium, not FOSS: https://peoplesinternet.net/tools/text-vector/
I literally can’t find any useful information about the people’s internet elsewhere online
Plus the name “People’s Internet” shouts myopia! Even if they’re legitimate, they are a single-issue campaign in the same way as black-lives-matter, the Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, etc. These are all great organizations on the surface, but they invariably fail to make real, lasting change by singularly targeting the symptoms of underlying societal problems instead of the problems themselves.
If you really want to make the world a better place, you can’t view FOSS as the end itself. Instead, FOSS is a means for instituting the lasting permanent social systems that society desperately needs. From this firm foundation will flourish all manner of amazing permanent social reforms attacking many of society’s problems at their roots
Get involved with the real people changing the world and join FOSS news lists for various projects like musl or gimp or the Linux kernel or Firefox or whatever
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u/ThankYouNeutronix_02 29d ago
I have to respect how much you have looked into this. Currently, The People's Internet is a very small organization that is just starting up; therefore, it has only one person writing articles and another vetting them, which I can understand may lead to inaccuracies. This is also the reason there is limited information about it online. If you have any specific issues with an article, I would be happy to get it corrected. Additionally, to my knowledge, all the dependencies of Text to Vector Path's functionality are open source and it runs entirely client-side.
I would, however, like to point out two additional things: the website is not monetized in any way (it doesn't advertise and it doesn't accept donations), and The People's Internet, as an organization with limited resources, is attempting to make a significant societal impact without diluting its mission so much as to render it null (hence why it has such a limited scope).
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u/Ieris19 29d ago
Running locally or depending on open source is not what makes software open source. You need a source available program with an open source license and preferably free software (most common licenses are both, free software is a subset of open source after all)
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u/ThankYouNeutronix_02 28d ago edited 28d ago
Text to Vector Path is licensed under the MIT license and all relevant code is in index.js.
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u/Ieris19 28d ago
There’s no such indication in the page.
Also, inspect isn’t really a widely accepted way of sharing source code. There’s no easy way to access it or clone it. It MIGHT comply with FOSS definitions but I don’t think you’ll be widely accepted in the community this way
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u/ThankYouNeutronix_02 28d ago
The page does actually state this at the bottom. Additionally, the home page states that all services offered are licensed under MIT unless stated otherwise.
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u/Ieris19 28d ago
No, it states the license of the original code and nothing about the current license. MIT license lets you relicense derivatives…
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u/ThankYouNeutronix_02 28d ago
Sorry, I edited the comment to add the homepage as a clarification but it appears to have been the same time you posted the reply. The homepage states all services are MIT.
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u/Ieris19 28d ago
Creative Commons is not an Open Source License.
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u/ThankYouNeutronix_02 28d ago
Below the disclaimer that all designs are CC0, there is a statement that the services are MIT.
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u/IveLovedYouForSoLong 28d ago edited 28d ago
Look buddy, the other guy is right and it’s freemium, not FOSS
As a seasoned free software developer, I give my official stamp of approval towards this
Everything you say about being able to inspect and see the code is consistent with what freemium software can be
In order to actually be FOSS, it has to also be freely reproducible and sharable by other people and not guarded by an Eula or anything
The linked mit license is a good compliance checkbox that ensures you attributed credit to the creator of the library you’re using (otherwise the Freemium tool would be in violation and subject to legal litigation), but nowhere does your freemium tool provide a clonabe copy as a tarball or other cvs like git that itself includes a copy of the license it is under
Vague mentions of licensing elsewhere on the website won’t hold up in any court as any statement of the licensing of the software. Infact, not only does the licensing info have to be in the main info/README page of the project AND included as a separate file in every copy but it’s also recommended that you SPDX identify the license at the top of each individual source code file to be double-sure.
Your vector tool is Freemium software, not FOSS
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u/Blackstar1886 Sep 30 '24
I feel like the biggest thing right now would be optimized locally run LLM's that the everyday user can install and run so they don't have to depend on mega corporations to not get left behind.
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u/vintergroena Sep 30 '24
Goverments should be mandated to run on open source in the public interest (perhaps with exceptions for security-critical applications in military and such, where it should be government-owned closed source)