The room might stink, but nobody intentionally shat on the floor.

I like this figure of speech a lot, stealing it 😁

Free google play credit, I usually get an email every year for it

But I do pay for Plex, despite Jellyfin being a thing. If I like something and it’s worth it to me personally, why not 🤷‍♂️… but you will never find me defending their kinda crappy decisions like the new Discover feature, removal of “All Songs” from the plex apps in favor of moving people to Plexamp, removing the Gallery sync a few years ago etc.

Some people want their software to be 100% FOSS all-eyes-on-the-codebase, others just do a balancing act based on their personal values.

I value my software to be “transparent enough” in how it operates, “just work”, and hackable to some extent - if I really wanted to I can swap out the ffmpeg binary that Plex uses for transcoding to something else (doesn’t remove the Plex Pass limitation for those curious), I can hook into the server API to change ambient lighting colour based on the cover/background of whatever media is playing, I can create speakers running a Linux board to cast Plex media to, etc. But once that hackable ship sails, then I will look to FOSS alternatives.

For Niagara, everything “just worked”. No noticeable bugs, fast search, consistent feel and design, useful contextual info (e.g. next calendar event shows under the clock), and gestures that made sense for its overall UX. Using it felt less like you were using a “launcher”. The yearly sub was cheap enough that I wouldn’t mind covering for it if I didn’t get credits, and having a single person working on software usually comes with a high level of attention to detail (particularly in performance and UX) but it does have the downside that the experience may be more opinionated and closed compared to if it was a community-driven FOSS project instead IMO.

Alas, google didn’t send credits this year, Niagara made less sense for value/worth-it compared to Kvaesitso, so I abandoned it.

For me, Kvaesitso does everything in a slightly different, much more customizable way, and being FOSS was one of the things that made it particularly attractive as a replacement

Both were minor annoyances for me at first lol, thankfully the widget button can be removed (Settings, Home Screen, Edit button - toggle off)

The favorites box is an interesting one, I was originally puzzled with it being empty until I started opening and pinning apps. Now settled on using it as an overflow for my home screen, where 5 of the most used are shown under the clock (with music permanently pinned), and the rest sit in the favorites box.

I did notice some stutter on the apps menu which only occurs while the keyboard is open, but goes away completely when the keyboard disappears. For others it seems like the entire app drawer is stuttery (noticed a long discussion on GitHub with some potential solutions: https://github.com/MM2-0/Kvaesitso/issues/257 )

My response might be a hot take 🥲

Personally:

• OSS: source available
• FOSS: Free (freedom) open source, copyleft

I just learned today about “Grayjay,” a video streaming service client app created by Louis Rossmann. Various aticles out there are billing it as “Open Source” or “FOSS”. It’s not. Grayjay’s license doesn’t allowe commercial redistribution or derivative works. Its source code is available to the general public, but that’s far from sufficient to qualify as “Open Source.” (That article even claims “GrayJay is an open-source app, which means that users are free to alter it to meet their specific needs,” but Grayjay’s license grants no license to create modified versions at all.)

I had a look through the license at launch, and also watched the entirety of Louis’ video, in both of which I didn’t come across any restrictions imposed on an end user to modify the app for their own needs or redistribution - just no commercial redistribution or redistribution with ill intent. I keep seeing the restrictions mentioned though and genuinely cannot find anything to back them up…

In the original launch video Louis does explicitly state that the app is not free, but he does erroneously refer to it as open source. Mainstream tech outlets conflating foss/source-available is likely down to journalists just not aware of the distinction, or just taking his word for it

IMO since the app is Louis’ project that is primarily being financed by donating his personal money to FUTO (AFAICT) it would be immediately obvious to a follower of his that the app is not going to be open source as per the OSI definition. Looking at what happened with NewPipe clones when he mentioned it on his channel, and bad actors in local governments sabotaging his attempts to get a bulletproof R2R passed in many states, his overall trust level is probably pretty low - the last thing someone like that would want on a personal project is loads of strangers contributing, bad actors ripping it off trying to make a quick buck, or even worse redistributing it with malware.

Leaving the OSS conflation aspect for a second, Grayjay is a very big and complex app, with integrated dev tools and a comprehensive plugin system (each are individually GPL licensed if i’m not mistaken). IMO chances are if someone wants to modify the app, they should be looking at a GPL plugin to introduce their functionality in, rather than modifying the source - as would be required with something like NewPipe. They have a whole youtube video going through how to develop a plugin, and how it’s architected.

If/when Grayjay is transitioned to FOSS, I imagine it’ll be difficult for the community to maintain it due to the complexity… It’ll probably need to be broken down into several smaller manageable parts, such as projects like Home Assistant, LibreOffice, and Node-Red. Something like NewPipe, which is literally just the Android app and extractor library, would be much easier for unpaid volunteer contributors to maintain IMO.

I personally disagree slightly with the current definition of “open source”, because it hides so much nuance that isn’t readily evident to someone unfamiliar with the community. A lot of people do not make the connection of “open source” = OSI, they think “open source” = source is out in the open. FOSS and FLOSS are way more explicit in meaning from my perspective

For all of the above, except 🏴‍☠️🚢

Take the A train like the rest of us.

This! Instead of burning the money on useless garbage, put it towards the existing underfunded infrastructure which would benefit way more people!

No GIMP 😮. Will definitely be taking a look at Inkscape the next time I’m doing vector art work though…

That’ll probably evolve into s🥚🥚

I’m going to be unreasonable because I don’t like the ethics behind Pharma companies.

They should eat the loss; their research was healthily subsidised by the taxpayer

In fact it’s the first time the government will be able to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies!

Yes! That’s a great start 👌 especially if the negotiator is NOT getting a kickback from Pharma for negotiating a high price

I’m the opposite lol, I pretend I don’t know anything at all, even if it’s something I’m fairly familiar/comfortable with

Ubuntu saw my Brother network printer and I printed what I needed.

I love how easily printers work on Linux. Visited my parents for a day last week, and within seconds of joining their wlan I got a notification that their Brother network printer was found and ready for printing

Was this during the sync thing?

To be honest as a mod or admin I would personally get sick of reading the same things over and over again, with sync fans attacking staunch FOSSers and staunch FOSSers attacking sync fans. It only served to get both sides upset for literally no reason, and fracture the community even more.

Their inboxes would have also likely been flooded out to death during that time with both sides reporting each other over petty remarks

Doesn’t make it right, however I can see why it happened. Probably another reason behind the “dont report something unless its against the terms” rule.

We could do this for any group of people we don’t like IMO… Doesn’t make it right, regardless of how disgusting their actions may be ☹️

I like my pineapple pizzas with a bbq base 🤪 don’t come after me 😂

Ooohh, we on the same instance 😁👋

Who asked for this, and why?

It exists to reduce dependence on YouTube.

There are bad things to say about Google all day, yet consumers will still line right back up to use Google’s video service without fail. Having that content mixed in with other sites reduces dependence on YouTube over time, as creators consider decentralizing their media presence and posting content on Patreon, Nebula etc, instead of Youtube’s walled garden of Communities, Memberships and of course the channel itself.

IMO right now this app is really for people who want to support OR already are supporting creators, and are displeased with the amount of apps, bad UX and poor integration this experience entails when done outside of Youtube’s platform

If that’s not for you, then maybe the privacy aspect of Grayjay is of interest, where the YouTube integration allows you to control what data is associated with your Google account. Aside from those, most people should probably stick with their existing YouTube client. This app is targeting a specific kind of audience, and fits right in with Rossmann’s

If you take over a project of this scale you need to make this your job and thus get paid. There’s a good reason Louis hasn’t just pushed this out as his hobby project but hired developers.

Thank you!

The bits that the community can contribute to (the addins to add support for more sites) are GPL licensed anyway 👍

A lot of the opinions and perspectives I’ve been seeing appear more on the principled side, rather than set in reality.

Without a vision or leader for the project e.g. Mickay driving Graphene, Cassidy driving elementaryOS, they can’t move substantially forward regardless of how libre and free they are. Graphene will remain ahead because nothing challenges it, but elementaryOS has already fallen so far behind Gnome in such little time…

The last time I was even excited about Android was JB and KitKat

I remember how pissed everyone was when an update dropped on the Galaxy S4 which changed the lockscreen wallpaper while listening to music… it was a sad, sad day.

I think this is pretty much the best solution available to OP here, aside from them getting a new device