Notices by Dave Lane (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)

So much YES to this! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/amsterdam-doughnut-model-mend-post-coronavirus-economy

Note to NZ gov't on the proposed phone "tracking app": if it's proprietary, it won't go on my phone. And I'll actively encourage others to similarly refuse it.

As I, as usual, watch tech startups immediately, reflexively outsourcing biz-critical capabilities to Github, Trello, Slack, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Salesforce, et al., I'm struck by the fact that, in 2 years time, almost all of them will, without a shred of irony, be bemoaning the lack of support for small, plucky local NZ companies like theirs by NZ gov't and other NZ businesses...

If you're using proprietary software services (i.e. most of those advertised to you, and household names), even if they aren't surveilling you now (they probably are), they will be in the future, guaranteed. Best thing to do is look beyond the marketing now. There are better solutions available, and, amazingly, they cost less, too. https://tech.oeru.org/working-home - and if you want to understand the marketing issue: https://davelane.nz/marketing

@nolan I wrote this resource to point those running open communities towards when they make discordant/dissonant decision like adopting Slack, Discord, or a variety of lesser proprietary collaboration tools towards: https://davelane.nz/why-slack-better-and-why-open-communities-shouldnt-use-it Perhaps it'd be useful for you?

It's well understood that big pharma has no incentive to cure diseases: they make more money by developing unique, patentable chemicals rather than using existing (unpatentable) natural compounds & remedies. Also, they seldom seek a *cure* - they make far more money from a lifelong treatment, ideally one with side-effects requiring further treatment.

The software industry is precisely the same - they want to sell you a treatment you pay for every month, not "buy once, problem solved".

Pro tip: if something is actively marketed to you (you see it advertised somewhere) that should be interpreted as follows:
a) I almost certainly don't need that thing.
b) if you want that thing, it indicates that there's almost certainly a better one at a lower price that's not being marketed (because marketing costs money) so have a bit of a look around before gratifying the marketers.

I continue to feel imposed upon whenever anyone sends me a DOCX/XLSX file, based on the (incorrect as it happens) assumption that I, like them (or their employer), have sold out my personal sovereignty to the Redmond borg. Makes me feel sad the the level of awareness of "fully compromised personal liberty" is so breathtakingly low. In addition to the impending climate catastrophe, there're at least a couple more elephants in this room, people.

When I hear people talking about the "importance of IP" in business, especially folks working for gov't investment agencies, I always think a) they've bought into a bunch of flawed concepts, and b) they have little idea of what "IP" means. There, I've said it.

So... we're designing our new house... and I'm planning to make is a corporate-free smart-home... https://iot.mozilla.org/ thanks to Kathy Giori of Mozilla who introduced it to me at $LCA2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEHL3ZYS790

Yeah, everyone following me on Mastodon and Twitter, I encourage you to review this most enjoyable and informative reflection on anthroprogenic climate change. https://xkcd.com/1732/

Sweet! Just imported all my personal (and work-related) Bitbucket repos into our @OERuniversitas Gitlab - was easy peasy! Took about 5 minutes total. We're now free of proprietary repository providers. So we're open first, proprietary second. Anyone wanting to work with us can do so without having to sign up to proprietary cloud service Ts&Cs. But they can still use those other repos services as well...

This is so cool - and check the archive - videos of a bunch of really interesting talks! https://wossat.nz/

@radionz@twitter.com I note that you often interview lawyers on air, and often they give their opinions. Lawyers, in addition to being people, are great actors on behalf of their paying clients... and in many cases will assert things they don't personally agree with believe in support of their client's position. I've never heard an RNZ interviewer ask a lawyer to disclose whether a stated position is their own or on behalf of a client. We need to get better at highlighting conflicts of interest.

After a fairly involved discussion on Twitter regarding Slack and the many #FOSS alternatives, I've finally got my act together and published a blog post I've been sitting on for ages: https://davelane.nz/why-slack-better-and-why-open-communities-shouldnt-use-it