The Forgotten "F": A Tale of Fedora's Foundations

[Miloslav Trmač]

2014-04-21 22:35 GMT+02:00 Josh Boyer <jwboyer at fedoraproject.org>:

> I think the problem I have with this well-intentioned thread is that
> it's a broad reaction to a specific issue we're trying to sort out
> right now.  Webapps aren't new, the fact that a large portion of them
> aren't FOSS isn't new, and their usage in and interoperability with
> Fedora is not new.


Oh no, all of this *is* actually new.

The change was so smooth and gradual that now, looking back, we see it as
inevitable and natural; but compared to the 1995/2000-time era, it has been
a *drastic* change.


In the old days, everything was a local application, and networks existed
but weren't all that convenient or useful[1]; so, having all local applications
FOSS meant "full freedom" and "full control".

Nowadays, for non-specialist "desktop" users, almost everything is a web
app; besides the browser, only specialists use local applications
(Photoshop, Eclipse, Maya, whatever)[2].  Having all local applications
FOSS no longer makes that much of a difference, most of the software being
executed is proprietary, or even if not proprietary, hosted elsewhere and
therefore not under full control.


If we take "FOSS" as a means to achieve some benefits (freedom from
lock-in, privacy, control) and not a goal in itself, the situation has
changed to such an extent that FOSS is not even close to giving the average
desktop user the expected benefits.

Over the past 10 years, even those of us only installing FOSS have ended up
running an enormous amount of proprietary software.  That's, in retrospect,
a *completely unintuitive, unexpected and undesired result*[3], and keeping
exactly the same means to achieve the desired benefits (again, freedom from
lock-in, privacy, control) seems like sheer folly to me.

(Unfortunately, I don't know what should be the replacement.  We can of
course just keep the same foundations/means and just stop expecting the
benefits, but that's kind of pointless.)
    Mirek


[1] Even in those times, email was tremendously useful, sure, but it was
still a fairly extraordinary thing to use among an exclusive group of
people.
[2] There still are local email clients and photo management programs...
but even those now have web-based competition.
[3] Or, well, perhaps this was all foreseeable and foreseen, and everyone
just choose to ignore it... in which case I'm not sure that the Foundations
or anything else matters all that much.
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