way too specific… is this the plot to a book? if so what’s it called?

Those tests are worth more than four years of college?

Yes a test to figure out if you can perform your job is significantly more valuable than a collage degree, this doesn’t mean that college has no value, mind you, it just means that knowing how to do the job and knowing that you fit in with the company culture is vastly more important.

Go get a bunch of I.T. certifications. Get your CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+ Get a Microsoft MCP or MCSA

Those certifications are useless, they look good on your resume because managers love showcasing their staff’s “certifications”, as many companies that don’t understand IT put value on the certifications more than anything else, but they don’t actually provide you any value in of themselves. Sure it might be interesting how many network switches you can daisy chain according to the standards, but it has no real value most of the time, if that’s information you need in your job it’s something you can just look up, HOWEVER, asking you random questions that pertain to the job during the interview IS a good way to understand if you’re a good candidate, and, often, the actual response doesn’t matter as much as your reasoning for getting to that response.

When an interviewer at google asks you how many pennys it would take to make a structure as tall as the empire state building, it doesn’t matter what the answer is, truly, even if you got the exact number of pennys, just saying the number would mean you don’t pass the interview, your answer would be worth less than an answer that gets it wrong by 75% but is well reasoned, what they care about is how you come up to the conclusion that you come up with, the solution is useless.

how would you know

wouldn’t it have been easier to just read the source code? (not that GNU’s code is easy to read, but still)

That’s not the issue. You can attempt as many passwords as you want in actually secure password managers as well. KeepassXC for instance IS secure, you can still brute force the password, but because of the hashing algorithm they use it’s extremely hard. With PKZIP if you know some of the words in the file, you can easily guess the password in just a few hours because the encryption algorithm it uses isn’t secure

It is

EDIT: I’m wrong, I don’t know what I was thinking, I misremembered hearing something apparently. Thank you for the corrections

Thank you! More people should do this. It may seem like $5 is nothing, but it’s actually great help. Even $1 helps out FOSS projects, as if even just 1% of the users of such projects donated $1 each month that’d be able to make a good income,

Someone really should maintain a list like that, hosted on multiple non big tech git hosts.

This recent Anti-FOSS propaganda needs to stop

Seconded, and added Haier to my mental list of companies to never buy from.

The UK has a data protection agency? Does the UK know? Have they been asleep for the past 20 years?

Pretty clear you either haven’t read the bill or grossly misunderstood it. What you describe is not proposed legislation - it’s the current reality that individuals and independent repair shops already live with.

The 2024 variant of the bill isn’t actually publicly available online, but here’s last year’s WIP text:

https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2023R1/Downloads/MeasureDocument/SB542

Absolutely, the bill you mentioned is the one I was referring to. It does state that manufacturers must provide documentation, tools, and parts to both independent repairers and owners under fair terms. However, the real issue lies in how “fair and reasonable terms” are interpreted and applied in practice.

Here’s a quote from Google’s actual response:

User safety should be a top priority. Improper repair can be dangerous—especially if individuals use faulty parts or are unfamiliar with safety critical components, such as lithium ion batteries.** Legislation should acknowledge the risks borne by unskilled repairers and allow original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to provide parts assemblies rather than individual components to reduce the risk of injury.**

Doesn’t scream right to repair to me, let’s continue.

Right to Repair regulation should focus on: Devices that are repaired by an OEM’s existing repair offerings3 Right to Repair legislation in the United States is focused on leveling the playing field between OEM repair and independent repair offerings and putting consumers first, which we fully support

So, if they don’t repair their devices and only replace assemblies, they’re not required to do anything for RTR, how convenient!

Right to Repair regulation should focus on: Parts that are provided by an OEM’s existing repair operations

Hmm… So the easiest way to comply with the law is to not do anything

Policies should encourage repairers and recycling centers to recycle or to dispose of e-waste responsibly. We believe repair can be an important mechanism to reduce the large and growing problem of e-waste

Classic corporate green washing, this doesn’t mean recycling, it means break products, into as many parts as possible and dispose of them.

This is what recycling means to big tech:

Those are icloud locked iphone mainboards that have had their chips drilled through (this is "recycling). Some extremely smart people have figured out how to scrap them for parts, but that’s the ingenuity of actual repair people, not Big tech’s recycling.

Yes, it basically just reinforces the usual “Authorized Service Providers” spiel, i.e. it’s not a real right to repair bill.

Special Access for ASPs: manufacturers have to share repair manuals, tools, and parts ONLY with ASPs under “fair and reasonable terms”.

This means if you’re not part of their club and haven’t signed their agreements to become an ASP you may not be allowed to purchase parts. And to be clear, becoming an ASP can restrict you in the kinds of repairs you can provide, and the kinds of information you can tell your customers, under legal threat, and may require you to hit impossible sales quotas.

Parts and Conditions: It gets trickier with parts. Manufacturers aren’t actually forced to give you, the little guy, access to individual parts. What they’re obligated to do is to provide full assemblies to ASPs. So, if you need just a tiny part for a fix, tough luck – they can legally turn you away or make you buy a whole assembly, which is neither practical nor cost-effective.

Do you have a license for that?: It’s like asking, “Do you have a permit for that fishing rod?” before you even get to the lake. The bill implies that if you want to repair these devices, you better have some sort of certification or license. This could be a huge barrier for independent repair shops, especially those who don’t have the best relations with the company they repair devices of, or even DIY fixers. You want to repair something? First, prove that you’re qualified according to their standards, which can be pretty steep or even unrealistic for many. It’s another way of keeping the repair circle closed and controlled while pretending to be the moral authorities of social and environmental justice.

“Can’t you see just how great a company we are? We’re allowing you to repair YOUR device, (assuming that we like you, that is), aren’t we such good people? After all you’re our dear cust---------”

ERROR: CONSUMER ACCOUNT NR. 48570 TERMINATED FOR INAPPROVED WRONGSPEAK. PLEASE INSERT CREDIT CARD TO CONTINUE READING MESSAGE.

Thank you for buying from Google, we support you, we love 😍 right to repair, we love 💚 the environment and we 💕 you, dear consumer 😘… errr… customer

I don’t think Boost is open source

oh, so that’s why it has ads, they don’t care about their users… alright… I’m not interested in this conversation anymore

I’m not a boost user, but why does boost have ads exactly? Why don’t you just ask users to buy a license a la grayjay? Make it 0.99 or less. This has a few advantages:

• You’ll make more per user than you ever will with ads
• Users won’t be tracked endlessly
• It’s good PR for the app

Also quick question, where is the source code for Boost? I can’t seem to find it

No they will not.

That’s a shitty article by a “journalist” that hasn’t read the bill otherwise they would know that it’s NOT right to repair, but rather it’s a bill disguised as right to repair that actually gives even more monopolistic powers to big tech.

what FOSS library do you maintain?

The concept of competition among tech companies has done a complete 180 on its original meaning. It’s no longer predominantly about crafting superior products; rather, it’s become a race to secure the largest amount of investor funding.

In this transformed landscape, the product itself and revenue generation often take a backseat, or at best, hold a tertiary importance. The heart of customer-centric ethos, especially crucial elements like data security, are now distressingly overlooked. What matters is getting the next investment to become the next “unicorn” and be acquired for billions of dollars. Silicon Valley Companies want the easy way out, do only a fraction of the work for an exponential amount of the benefits.

Don’t get me wrong, there are reasons to seek investment, getting a good product built is actually complex and you actually need a lot of different people working on it. The alternative is losing years of your life on a sisyphean ordeal of soul-crushing, hundred-hour work weeks (and that’s real work, not “let me check twitter” work), making you question your life choices and whether you should just throw it all away, abandon technology, become a hermit and move to a shed in the mountains.

The problem is that the EXPECTATION today is that you’re gonna build a third of a product, care about 1% of the actual business behind it and then pivoting exclusively to the pursuit of investment, letting everything else rot

To be fair, the allegations haven’t been proven and allegedly he was 13 at the time… not that it makes it any better, but context matters

it was a pun, this lemmy instance is called beehaw, bee nice

I can give my two cents on it, as one of those people you’re talking about.

I’m very in touch with the FOSS community. I have used more FOSS software than you can think of (and yes, that is with your definition of FOSS). What I am NOT however is a stallmanist or a purist who dogmatically sticks to one narrow definition of what FOSS should be. While I wholly understand the importance of not diluting the meaning of FOSS, I think it’s critical to step back and see the broader picture here. The dogma around FOSS can sometimes be counterproductive, stifling the very innovation and freedom it aims to foster.

Firstly, if I had to choose, I’d certainly prefer to have a software landscape filled with “source-available” applications over one dominated by entirely proprietary systems. Source-available projects, even if not fully meeting the stringent FOSS criteria, still provide transparency and offer opportunities for auditing and modification, which is what we all want! It’s a step towards wresting control from Big Tech and their walled gardens.

Secondly, I aim to push for a new industry standard where, at the very least, source-available software becomes the norm. However, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Thirdly, we have to be realistic about sustaining FOSS projects. The developers behind these initiatives should absolutely be compensated for their contributions. It’s essential to acknowledge that people have livelihoods to maintain. And if a FOSS project (or a source-available one) truly provides value, its creators deserve not just recognition but overwhelming financial success. This is the only way to incentivize more high-quality projects and thereby fundamentally change the software industry for the better.

Lastly, concerning the GPL, while the GPL has played a monumental role in the growth and popularity of FOSS, it’s not without its flaws. For one, it can sometimes discourage commercial adoption, which, whether you like it or not, is a powerful driver for widespread change.

While I’m way more invested in FOSS than most people, I don’t consider myself a purist; I don’t consider myself a Stallmanist and as much as I respect his contributions to software I would rather the world not have his dogmatic and “religious” beliefs in Software.

I believe in a pragmatic approach that not only seeks to amplify the tenets of FOSS but also recognizes the realities of the world we inhabit. Being inflexible in our definitions and approach can only improve our situation.