Draft version 0.0.1

[shaedrich]

Addressing feedback from my LinkedIn comments: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7159220314223099904?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A7159220314223099904%2C7171353238628093952%29&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_comment%3A%287171353238628093952%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7159220314223099904%29

[shaedrich]

The Freedom 0: to Study and Change the Source Code, A Cornerstone

https://github.com/Open-Source-Economy/blog/blob/93b0df561c4b6bafb34e830e89fa4d1082de55e1/blog-posts/new-free-software-principles.md?plain=1#L78-L88

@laurianemollier Well, the 1980s were indeed "a different technological era" and therefore, we might start with a change in definition that might or might not be needed: The article considers running a web application locally on one's computer (preferably offline?). But is this the only/a reasonable interpretation? Wouldn't a better contemporary equivalent be a decentralized web-based solution (e.g. https://docs.piped.video/, https://invidious.io/, https://joinpeertube.org/en_US)?

"The ability to study and modify a program […]" hints at the very principle of open-source software: Publishing the code on a VCS platform, that offers issues/discussion as well as pull requests/merge request would enable users to have a debate about wanted changes and experts of parts of the software can transparently submit improvements and fixes.

[shaedrich]

The Freedom 1: Clear and Up-To-Date Documentation

https://github.com/Open-Source-Economy/blog/blob/93b0df561c4b6bafb34e830e89fa4d1082de55e1/blog-posts/new-free-software-principles.md?plain=1#L90-L96

@laurianemollier The entire source code? Well, yeah, today, this is indeed a lifetime task for big software. But a step in that direction would be customization (Piped currently tries to do just that: https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped/issues/1391).

Additionally, the code of such big platforms might not be hosted as a monorepository but separated into several smaller ones. This also enables experts to join dedicated teams to focus on specific parts of the software.

[shaedrich]

The Freedom 3: to Distribute Modified Versions

https://github.com/Open-Source-Economy/blog/blob/93b0df561c4b6bafb34e830e89fa4d1082de55e1/blog-posts/new-free-software-principles.md?plain=1#L108-L114 @laurianemollier Well, yes and no. Even though, it's usually discussed as one thing, we need to discuss this issue as two separate topics:

• video streaming (Piped, Invidious): Using videos from external sources (like YouTube)—this is fairly simple: Users can switch there without loosing much, this is essentially just a client (granted, with some server-side processing necessary)
• content creation (PeerTube): Actually uploading videos becomes a little trickier

→ addressed in https://github.com/Open-Source-Economy/blog/pull/1/commits/af8d49e446320bda433b0df768c96d480d6a8818

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The "Decentralized Competitive Business Model" is actually a thing, I highly disagree with in its core assumption. I think, it already has a very limited/misleading starting point. It makes the assumption that free software HAS to be proprietary to succeed and if it is not, platforms with more money will INEVITABLY be BETTER. Myth 1: For years, YouTube has proven that it indeed hasn't been improved much over the years (despite increased tracking), but still has a de facto monopoly. So, money doesn't equal quality but merely power. The power to control advertising and public perception in one's favor. Myth 2: A platform wouldn't necessarily lose money if they embrace free software and open source practices—unless their business practices are ethically questionable in the first place. But this can't be the measurement, then, can it?

However, that leads to my next point:

By rephrasing the discussion in this post up to this point: Are free software and open source principles even compatible with for-profit software? And my answer is: Actually, hardly ever. Capitalism is mostly driven by greed, and it's its very own self-preservation drive will lead it to act hostile to the user to generate money in some shape or form more often than not.

This, in return, leads to the question, which lets us come full-circle in a way:

Can YouTube be transformed into a platform that embraces both Stallman’s principles as well as the additional values from this article? While the article seems to tend towards an affirmative assessment, I tend towards the opposite. Since YouTube is for-profit and Google/Alphabet will under no circumstances change that business model anyway, this is mere wishful thinking in the way of "I can change him", observed in toxic relationships. So the approach of "reform from within" is a hopeless endeavor.