Pierre-Yves Lapersonne

Software crafter and digital punker keen on open source, iOS and Android apps. Interested in software ecodesign, privacy and accessibility too. pylapersonne.info

  • 7 Posts
  • 26 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: November 4th, 2023

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  • It is always the same issues in fact. You should consider your threat model before all. Then, consider the Signal app, then your iPhone supposed to be updated, trusted, with ADP enabled, biometric lock with erasure after 10 failures, etc. Then consider your ISP, then your country. Etc, etc. You should also compare the contexts. Is an iPhone “better” than a low or middle ranges Android-powered smartphones? For sure, yes. Is it better than high-range expansive smartphones with Android ? Or Pixel ones? Not that sure. And compared to GrapheneOS or /e/? Pretty sure not that much. You can also compare messaging solutions. Is Signal better than WhatApp? Of course yes. But what about XMPP and Matrix for example?

    And what are your use cases? Remember your threat model. If you are an activist, a journalist or a whistleblower your needs may be different than a “commons citizen worried about its privacy.

    In few words, the only pain point I see is the fact than iOS is proprietary and runs non libre source code and Apple devices than APN. But Android devices are not so much different. It does not mean the solution is not private or efficient, if we succeed in defining a definition of “private or efficient”.

    In a nutshell, it could be considered as good. But not perfect.










  • It depends of the project in fact. You should reach the community and maintainers by joining them in their Discord / Slack / Matrix / whatever. They may be able to help you.

    You can create first an issue, asking for improvements and create a discussion airy the maintainers so as to know which languages are not managed yet and if they are interested in new support. Explains also why you can bring good translations (e.g. native speaker, teacher, etc). It sill help to bring confidence.

    Then create a pull / merge request with the updated files. For example, strings.xml ob Android, .strings in iOS, etc. But beware, localisation is not only a matter of translations. You may have also to support new languages and formats for figures, currencies, or dates for example.

    Do not use translations services. Project maintainers are able to use them, and in plenty of cases the translations are not good at all or loose details.





  • Very interesting topic in fact, I am not sure a unique and perfect solution exists.

    In fact, it depends to how much you earn, how matter does for you the project, how big it is, etc. It is a question of feelings after all.

    For example you may want to donate $20 one time to a useful tool you use, but for an app you enjoy using which match your own values you may want to send each year $50. But for some people it is complicated to give money, they need to satisfy their own needs before and people don’t have all the same incomes.

    FMPOV, if the project is “just a tool” it can be a $20 one shot. If I use the software daily, it can be $50 per year. Maybe more if I feel it will help.

    About the transaction medium, it depends. Projects can use Liberapay, others PayPal or Open Collective, or also in-app purchases. I don’t use cryptocurrencies because of the transactions fees.

    Hope it helps!






  • In software ecosystem indeed there is an issue about the word “free” which can mean “free of charge” or “libre”, that is the reason why the term FOSS should be replaced by FLOSS.

    In this very software world, the OSI defined “open source” by 10 conditions. The FSF defined also since eons the term “free / libre” by 4 liberties. These two things are the base of trust and understanding for every one.

    For several years capitalist companies try to redefine these words because cannot bear to see that communities dislike or hate how they change the licences of their products (e.g. Elastic with BSL, Mongo with SSPL, Terraform with BSL too). They try to get excuse and fake reasons to be allowed to change the definitions but they are not legit at all.

    About your example for a “free and anticapitalist” license, it cannot by “free” because one of the four liberties of the “free” definition is not filled.

    However this is an interesting point because there is a new family of licences which appeared several years ago: the ethical licenses brought by the Organisation for Ethical Source (https://ethicalsource.dev/) which define the term « ethical source » by 7 principles. You can get more details about the anti-capitalist license here: https://anticapitalist.software/).

    In few words, we must keep the OSI, FSF and OES definitions for open source, free and ethical source words because there are meanings, history, facts and fights behind. If they are disturbing for people or if people disagree, they have to create something else. Not change the definition for pure rebranding.