🆕 Software Suggestion | Framasoft

[roshavagarga]

Basic Information

Name: Framasoft Category: A lot URL: https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/list/

Description

Framasoft offer a lot of alternatives to Google, including a metasearch engine, google docs and spreadsheets, etc.

[Mikaela]

Closing in favour of https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/issues/816 as Framasoft is discontinuing most of their services.

Original/official announcement that I haven't read in French: Déframasoftisons Internet!.

2019-10-27: I became aware of the English version at https://framablog.org/2019/09/26/lets-de-frama-tify-the-internet/ (and I am still yet to read it)

[roshavagarga]

@Mikaela Most, but not all? A quick look at the blog you yourself linked shows their intent not to 'touch':

Framadate - Doodle alternative Framapad - Google Docs alternative Framindmap - Bubbl.us alternative Framagenda - Calendar Framadrive - Google Drive alternative Framavox - Group discussion app Framacarte - Google Maps alternative, based on OSM Framatalk - WhatsApp & others alternative

I could argue that some of the other services are a year or two away from closing down at the earliest and are viable alternatives until then, but I do agree with Framasoft's view - it isn't a good idea to centralize services to one provider. I will mention that we have no guarantees that one of the currently provided alternatives by PTIO won't up and disappear without a word.

Thanks for the hard work!

[blacklight447]

@roshavagarga even if their are good alternatives, if we know they will close within two years, then it wont be a good alternative in the long term. People come mostly on ptio to be sure which provider they can use as a replacement for their current provider, often as long term, if we recommend something that will close in two years, then how can they be sure that our other recommendations won't?

[roshavagarga]

@blacklight447-ptio I am not arguing that anything that's on the chopping list should be added. I am saying that there are useful apps, that will not be removed by Framasoft, which should be up for discussion. I wasn't sure if Mikaela hadn't seen that part of the blog, etc etc. Feel free to disregard my comment at the end of my previous reply :)

Anywho, I'd like this to be reopened when possible.

[roshavagarga]

Any chance this will be updated/acted upon soon @Mikaela? It's been almost 5 months and while I understand the concept of a backlog... :/

[Mikaela]

@roshavagarga Could you open a pull request?

[roshavagarga]

@Mikaela Shouldn't that be done after somebody from PTIO has researched said suggestions and given the green light for one or more of them?

[Mikaela]

@roshavagarga I am not able to do that research, please see https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/issues/977#issuecomment-584231923 and I don't know if anyone knows what exactly needs to be researched.

Personally the only thing I can say that I have a good impression of Framasoft and am open to approving a pull request including them.

[roshavagarga]

@Mikaela I said 'somebody from PTIO', not you specifically. My expectations were that:

1. A submission is made, then:
2. Somebody checks whatever they check (privacy policy, code, etc) and: a) the submission is accepted and added to PTIO by its members, or; b) the submission is accepted and a pull request has to be made by the original submission requestee.

B makes little sense since the requestee might be gone by the time the process is over and doing A or B before 2 seems like a waste of time, since if the submission request doesn't pass the checks that's wasted time for the requestee.

[Zenithium]

1. They seem to not have a privacy policy, so most information about data collection and retention and other issues is unknown
2. It is not clear whether their Matomo Analytics are self-hosted
3. Their site generates a cookie with a unique identifier for every user that lasts for 13 months and collects the IP addresses, User Agents, and other data of the user. This data is supposedly "anonymized" and kept for 6 months. User data anonymization techniques are infamously unreliable and can be correlated back to users. They state this data is used only for analytics and is not transferred to third-parties or used for any other purpose. I am still against such long data retention times and user profiling.
4. Analytics are opt-out instead of opt-in
5. Large parts of their site like services and documentation are untranslated and unsuitable for English users. Examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
6. In their Terms of Use they state:

   Framasoft reserves the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.

7. Most of their utilities are just instances of other things: Framatalk is Jitsi, Framacarte is OpenStreetMap, Framapad is Etherpad, etc. . I guess it might be useful for some people that want to have everything in one place but I would be against this kind of centralization and putting trust in Framasoft for not much benefit.

[ian-tedesco]

In their Terms of Use they state:

Framasoft reserves the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.

Most of their utilities are just instances of other things: Framatalk is Jitsi, Framacarte is OpenStreetMap, Framapad is Etherpad, etc. . I guess it might be useful for some people that want to have everything in one place but I would be against this kind of centralization and putting trust in Framasoft for not much benefit.

I don't have anything against these two, since the first is most probably stating that if you are a nazi, for example, and they don't want to provide you with their services they can, and the second one, I don't see what's wrong with hosting instances, they are the only ones who have a free Wallabag instance for people who don't know how to self host, I guess we could expect that they tell us to not use all of their services to not centralize your data but even PTio is working on it just now.