The main thing I would point to is that Matrix itself only does text; the Element client uses Jitsi to add in audio/video calls and screensharing […]

Matrix VoIP is a thing, and it’s usable for audio & video on many clients, element and fluffychat come to mind, but probably more.

element call is also coming into element (and possibly other clients) for video calls and screensharing

My other gripes are just with the user interface, […] it really doesn’t look like Discord

why does that matter?

why not matrix?

No way, really who could’ve guessed? I’m shocked, I’m telling you shocked…

oh wait, I’m not

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

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

How about using LDAP? It’s a bit complicated to learn but it’s easy to integrate it in a bunch of applications and it allows you to manage user accounts and permissions in one central place.

Maybe try LLDAP which is a modern implementation (haven’t used it myself) which is designed to be simplified and I assume more welcoming to newcomers.

asus’s router webui

Regarding boost, yep my bad! I did not know that when I asked that question.

As for grayjay, it’s source available, that’s fine to me, there is a difference naturally and it’s worth discussing, but I’d rather live in a world where every piece of software is source available and we discuss the merits of source availability vs pure FOSS, than in a world where understanding our software requires days or months of work looking at asm and poking it with a stick

there is nothing wrong to make money from their hard work

I assume you didn’t read my parent comment or perhaps you extrapolated on my beliefs without asking. I even proposed a direct way to ask users to pay.

you cannot and should not force developers to work for free if they don’t want to.

My word, of course not! Where did you get the impression that I want that from? I would NEVER propose something like that, as it stands against everything I believe in; in fact if you read through my history on lemmy I am certain that you’re gonna find plenty of proof of that.

I stand by the original meaning of the word when I say FOSS. It does NOT mean gratis; the misuse of the term FOSS as gratis is my biggest pet peeve. I don’t care how much you charge for your software, if I like the software I will pay for it, exactly how much you’re asking, without a problem.

The F in FOSS stands for Freedom, not price. I have paid for most FOSS software I use on a regular basis and I’m a HUGE proponent of paid FOSS and I have, multiple times, asked FOSS developers that release gratis software to PLEASE open up donations; I do this constantly and I think I may even have done it here on lemmy once or twice.

If you want free software then there are FOSS options out there and nobody forces you to use Boost.

Indeed. My preferred client at the moment is the web ui on desktop and jerboa on mobile. Those are FOSS and developed by the developers of lemmy themselves (to whom I HAVE donated to). But I was thinking about switching client, which is why I asked for the code for Boost to see if it’s software I would be willing to run on my device (and pay for!).

In fact I will even go as far as to say that it is your RESPONSIBILITY as a user of FOSS applications to donate if you can.

To me if software is not FOSS it signals one thing: they are doing something they don’t want me to know about, sometimes this is acceptable (tho never preferred), but that’s the exception, not the rule.

Being able to decide what software runs on your machine should never be a point of contention. Non FOSS software is always a trade off, and for most things (including lemmy clients), it’s not one I’m willing to make, nor should you!

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

is not exactly Google Maps in terms of usability, but it’s a functional map

I would personally say that it’s better than Google Maps. It’s more accurate at least

click the button that says more then add a shortcut to your favorite map service

Their search results constantly impress me and honestly it’s 10 bucks for unlimited searches, it’s worth it even if it’s not a business expense, plus since you’re paying for the service they’re less likely to track you. I wish their code was FOSS, but I’ll take it, still better than google, bing, and all the others I’ve tried.

Also they actively promote the small web and you can even personalize your search results by removing websites you don’t like from the searches (for example I have a lot of big tech websites blocked)

Actually other search engines do much better with Lemmy. Kagi’s search works wonders if you select the filter for Fediverse Forums. And you can assign that filter to a bang, such as !lemmy, so that when you search “!lemmy query here” it’ll search only on the fediverse A few examples:

And this ladies and gentlemen is another reason why we should try to escape big tech’s grasp.

In general I agree with you. I find that most FOSS software is more polished than proprietary software, and it is generally more powerful.

However, I think that one problem that people somehow overlook in my opinion is that the financial side of the issue is also extremely important. I want more people to work on quality FOSS software, and I want it to become socially acceptable to work on FOSS as your main job. For that one thing is needed in my opinion: we as users of FOSS software need to give developers the financial incentives to work on what they love the whole time. In fact I want it to reach the point where immoral, non FOSS companies struggle to find developers because they’re all working on FOSS.

if you program the firmware directly your program can be stored, but it requires you to also buy the firmware writing tool and the FPGA unlocked version of the product (FPGA can be locked after writing it naturally)

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