zottel

2016-01-20 23:52:01

The next time you find yourself using Microsoft or Facebook or Apple (...) products, ask yourself if there isn't an open source alternative - and if there is, go check it out. Most commercial software has readily available alternatives that were developed in the open source community.

If you talk to somebody about using open source products, they'll usually start talking about the different meanings of the word 'free'; e.g. free as in beer, free as in freedom, etc. At the same time, many will try to push products on you with licenses written by lawyers which dictate exactly what you can and cannot do with your 'free as in freedom' software. [I always found this amusing.]

But I think they are all missing the point. I develop and use open source software - and my reasons for using it have very little to do with 'free'; and have everything to do with the fact that open source is developed by definition in an environment that is open and transparent. I know a bit about software, and I also know that you can bury manipulative and deceptive algorithms inside software in order to control and influence the software "users". During my years of employment in the industry, I've been asked to create software with manipulative and deceptive intentions, and I've also been affected by manipulative and deceptive algorithms which were created by other companies to stifle competition by the very companies I worked for. You don't see these algorithms because they are tucked away behind a curtain and a veil of secrecy. But let's summarise: software tends to embody within itself the values and motives of the organisations who create it, both good and bad.

So I use open source software because ultimately it is an ethical and "trust" decision. I tend to put more trust into things which are open and transparent and developed by people and organisations who embody those values than things which are closed and manipulative and developed by people and organisations that embody those values.

Thank you for your time. Have a nice day.

Tobias

2015-02-04 09:29:54

Translations
We have the next big release of friendica scheduled for April 1st, 2015 and I'd love to see more translations of the core, the addons and the documentation materials in it. So if you are a friendica user who wants to contribute to the project but you are not a coder, maybe this one is something for you? Translation works is mostly done at Transifex, where you can contribute to the translation of the core UI and the addons. Just head over there, make an account, join the language team you feel capable of translating (which must not neccessaroly be your mother tongue) and start contributing. Transifex offers a online tool for the translations. You can look for untranslated strings and search for those you found a mistake in. Once you are done, you can let us take over putting it into the repositories or do it yourself.

Currently CS, DE, IT and RO are doing really well with something around the 97% translation work done. And BG, CA, EO, ES, FR, IS, NL, NO, PL, PT-BR, RU and ZH-CN having the core translated to something above 75%.

I know I'm behind including the addon translations into the repository, for the big release I promise the strings will be in.

Thanks for all the work so far!

There is another translation project for friendica going on outside of Transifex, which is the translation of the /help files. Currently they are in English and the German translation needs some work to catch the current state of the English once.

They are written in Markdown and located in the /doc directory of the friendica repository. All you need to do is to grab a copy of the code and a text editor. Best one that supports syntax highlighting of Markdown.

Again, you don't have to deal with git if you don't want to. Just contact me and we'll find a way to get your work into the repositories.

@Friendica Support @Friendica Developers