How to get people to use open source services (in an ethical way)?

[perflyst]

Today I asked in the Matrix Channel about an idea on how to get new users to the open source way.

A short summary of the idea:
As a hoster we wanna provide a sub-community for gaming. A lot of people play games and most of them use unfree operating system or chat software like Discord or Teamspeak.
What we wanna try is to get new people through this channel to open source services. Of course this is not possible with open source things, so we first need to use closed source applications and services.
It is nearly impossible to get new people to the open source way without using closed source applications first.

The question is now, is this okay in terms of a Librehoster?

An example: What if we announce a gaming tournament for game XY via Mastodon? The game is probably not open source. But what if we meet someone during the tournament, talk a bit, and get this person to switch from Teamspeak to Mumble? Or at least he uses Mumble next to Teamspeak? What if he uses Framapoll instead of Strawpoll for his next game voting?

Speaking for myself: Yes! From the ethical side this is fully okay for me. Trying to get new people to the open source side through closed source channels is the best and often only way.

What do you think?

/edit: Of course we will NOT host any non-free services!

[agnez]

I would like to have more focus in our exchanges about how the LH can help making a change in society, to get more people away from surveillance capitalism and gain back some freedom through free tools.
We have to put a lot of effort into explaining and helping to find ethical services. That’s why I think that every libre hoster should have maximum 50% technical staff, the other half should do information, communication and technical emancipation work.

[Wiox]

But how do we talk with people about free software without going to them first?

[how]

Why wouldn’t you announce a gaming tournament that actually is a free software game, using Mumble and Framapoll, instead of taking lukewarm measures? Maybe that’s why I have so much difficulty reading “to use open source services (in an ethical way)?”: you have to insist on ethics in parenthesis, instead of clearly stating your intention by using the term free software. Because free software is ethical, and open-source is not, you don’t have to mention it, especially in parenthesis.

Now if your idea is to convert existing gamers of existing non-free games, I’m not sure they’re interested at all in using a sub-quality free software game instead of a multi-million dollars blockbuster game.

There’s research towards high-quality free games, just to mention a few:

• Khaganat https://khaganat.net/ is a collaborative 3D immersive world
• Jeu Vide-a https://ps.zoethical.org/c/ps/jeu-vide-a is a research (in French so far) to explore video gaming from a feminist perspective
• Of course there are existing GPL games: https://itch.io/games/code-gpl3

[vini]

People that are playing GPL games, are already using Linux/BSD and certain FOSS. The whole thing is about getting to people that aren’t. No one wants to host non-free services, no one wants to promote them either.

To make people even consider switching to ethical ways, we have to go where those people are. This means by actually having events surrounding those games, we might be able to talk to those people.

Those games would be handpicked, so only games that have actual Linux support (no WINE) will be played.

[Amolith]

Strictly in terms of a librehoster, I don’t think it would be fitting. In my opinion, member organisations shouldn’t promote the use of non-free software even if it’s as an avenue to FLOSS. As an individual or a separate organisation, definitely. I’m all for that and would certainly participate.

I’m organising a gaming party for people from the Fediverse and, while we have the most people wanting to play SuperTuxKart, there are also a few that want to play games like Borderlands 2, Guns of Icarus, etc. We’ll be using my Mumble instance for voice chat so it’s pretty much exactly like what you’re talking about putting together.

Pad with more information

Poll to decide dates

[lelux]

chat software like Discord or Teamspeak

Mumble is identical to Teamspeak in my experience.

[anap]

This is a brilliant idea. A suggestion for all members! Let’s
Because I don’t see that what I am referring to is clear, here goes:

“We have to put a lot of effort into explaining and helping to find ethical services. That’s why I think that every libre hoster should have maximum 50% technical staff, the other half should do information, communication and technical emancipation work.”

[kominoshja]

Hey all!

Just wanted to share our experience on this when dealing with migrations (Keep in mind that we mostly work with SMEs, and less with individuals, but some lessons might apply on both cases).

There are a few points users consider whenever switching to the ethical hosting side.

First of, you should figure out the answer to the question “Are people aware of the reasons behind owning your data?”. This has to do with the fact that, most people are still new to the battle, and they might be unaware of what actually happens to their privacy when using Big Tech(FAMAG). Latest scandals (Cambrige analytica & more) and the Snowden effect might have helped but most of the masses are still not aware about what happens (John Oliver’s interview with Snowden might give some insight to that)…

One other important point has to do with being independent from everyone. This is something akin to the arguments used when talking about document freedom with entities such as governments, municipalities and so on. The argument goes that when you use a proprietary document editing platform, the developer of that platform & format can put in a policy that forces you to pay them 10, 100, 1000$ per document, rendering that entity’s work useless. Using proprietary platforms, puts you in that same position.

We should also keep in mind that people want to still keep their data, and don’t want to invest a lot in learning a new thing from 0. This is, in my opinion, why Nextcloud is very popular. They help to replace G Suite (Drive, Calendar, Contacts, Webmail, Document Editing and so on). Although this might seem obvious, it’s more important than we expected.

Last but not least, of course when the floss platforms have more features than the proprietary competitives and better usability , that also impacts the decision to switch. (For example, Federation in the case of Nextcloud, Funkwhale and so on)

I hope some of these help you out whenever the situation to convince people to abandon Big Tech

[how]

@kominoshja

One other important point has to do with being independent from everyone.

Although I mostly agree with you @kominoshja, there’s one area that we’re fighting with since the beginning and it’s the actual networking infrastructure: datacenters and the cables. Early in the process of getting together librehosters realized that more than 80% of our servers sit in Hetzner’s datacenters, and of course we’re using a lot of peering infrastructure that belongs to big tech. So yes, with regard to software, the argument is sound and pertinent, but when looking at the hardware, we still have so much difficulty “being independent from everyone” – and even, is that an objective when interdependence seems to be the rule?

[juh]

We at Hostsharing are independent from other peoples servers as we own our servers. We would love to own a data center too, but to achieve this we have to grow.

As all this is about scale the first thing that came to my mind when I heard of Librehoster was: let’s pool resources in a data center. We are currently buying new servers. We could buy more if anyone of you would be willing to join us. As a cooperative we are open to enterprises as well as to other cooperatives.

Pooling resources and joining efforts are the best way to get more traction and to offer better services.

[how]

@juh

we are open to enterprises as well as to other cooperatives.

Does this include non-profits? What about informal collectives: how could this play?
And where are you putting your servers? I know a bunch of people in Brussels who are trying to pool people to bring up a 42U bay in a data center in the European capital. Maybe dispatching a few units there could be helpful.

[juh]

Every natural and legal person can join us.

Most likely our server will be in Berlin, but this will be decided in the next few weeks.

[xinomilo]

concerning infra, one major (or possibly only) drawback for us, as a coop living/working in our local reality, are monthly prices (= equipment costs)… eg. at our current status, we can’t afford a -descent- dedicated server for over 50€/month, without dropping wages (=already too low…) or raising services prices (wouldn’t want that). that’s probably the only reason we’re sticking with hetzner’s -auctioned- servers, atm. “at least” it’s not aws (helping a trillionaire+nsa…), or gcloud (helping evil+nsa), or mazure (helping proprietary+nsa), or … ( keep telling myself this, since i don’t know much about hetzner’s status.(?) )

but we’d be interested in a talk where we can discuss and possibly workaround this economic aspect and move to “our own ethical infra”, somehow.

[juh]

As we are in a business of scale, it is always a good idea to pool resources. We welcome every initiative that starts hosting their services on our common hardware. I think it is a win-win-situation if you host on collectively owned hardware – for the single member and for all other members of the cooperative.

I am well aware of the wages/prices problem; prices depend heavily on what you offer. Our hardware is tailored to be high-available as many of our members are highly risk-averse. They need high performance and high availability systems. If you keep that in mind our prices are low.

With our new hardware we will be able to grow at a higher pace. We want to reach a volume that allows us to pay good wages and offer the best possible services at a fair price.

[rskikuli]

Would love to see an open discussion about this during LibreHosters Festival Libre hosters conf 2020

R.S