I’ve always had a weird feeling about FUTO, but I thought them giving money to open source projects can’t be that bad. Now I hope they don’t fuck up Immich.
Luckily thanks to their licensing model they basically cannot. Immich has according to github as of now 1606 contributors. Changing the license so that there could even be a proprietary fork would require basically the ok by every contributor (that made a relevant code contribution)
And even if they did somehow manage to get permission to switch the license, all previous versions would still be open in perpetuity so a fork would come easily. Immich source isn’t only open, and not only GPL… but AGPL-3.0 which is as copyleft as you can get.
Thank God! That’s a relief. I thought I was going to have to redo my entire photo library hosting stuff.
Wolf also was spouting about how great Trump is and how “woke” shit is ruining society or whatever in January IIRC. I briefly trawled through their social media when I was investigating their keyboard, Grayjay, and Immich and promptly decided to never, ever give them money.
Note that their keyboard doesn’t require network (at least as of now), so if you don’t give them money or promote it to other people, they don’t really benefit.
EDIT: Also, there are claims Rossman has a Kiwi Farms account and is at least somewhat active there. I haven’t investigated those very thoroughly though.
Holy shit wow
Interestingly, according to one of his recent-ish comments, he left FUTO in February.
Yeah, not sure how much he’s distancing himself from FUTO related things though. He brought up grayjay recently, but only specifically to talk about the devs comments on recent Texas app store legislation. Kind of a wash.
Given he is playing politician now, I don’t think he’s going to make a public statement about it. Not only would it hurt his influence but it would probably stall out any ongoing negotiations regarding right to repair. Shit sucks in general.
JFC can there be nothing pure in this world?
what’s kiwifarms and why is it relevant?
Why does every mobile keyboard developer have some controversial shit? I just want to text in peace.
unexpected keyboard is great and i don’t know shit about the dev and i hope it stays that way
Does FlorisBoard have controversial shit too?
Anything on HeliBoard too?
The only thing I dislike of heliboard is their swipe function requires Google binaries. Most FOSS keyboards either lack some feature I use or are immersed in wild controversies.
And the implementation is nowhere as good as gboard.
Futo’s keyboard isn’t much better for slide to type. I find myself switching keyboards back to gboard when I’m not using voice to text or two thumbs.
For the sadist in you there’s always https://f-droid.org/packages/se.nullable.flickboard
Just use Gboard and block any google telemetry
Good luck with that on anything that has a locked boot loader or stock OS.
Just use wireguard and block all connections that aren’t going over VPN. Ezpz
Also if you’re on a stock device then you’re already feeding them plenty of data
Using a VPN does absolutely nothing to protect from their apps scraping up and phoning home telemetry.
It’s still YOUR phone. It’s still YOUR GPS location. It’s still YOUR data connection. A VPN is not a catch-all solution to privacy.
VPN to your box somewhere else with proper filtering.
I figured that was obvious
That’s literally not how VPNs work nor are you aware of what you’re talking about.
Blocking internet access doesn’t magically turn proprietary software into free software.
Son of a BITCH! I’m so fucking tired of this… Everywhere you look you gotta examine EVERYTHING about a company/group because they might be fascists now…I love Grayjay, it was working so great and I loved the proclaimed mission…I was even trying to get FCast to work since I lost casting ability when I moved to Linux…
I’m just gonna take a break over here for a bit.
FUTO is also involved with Immich 🫤
They just bragged with v2 release how they “survived the controversial move to join FUTO” …
I love Immich & use it a lot :(.
Try Ente Photos, I like it more.
They’re openly disdainful of all things Open Source and OSI, and their software is not Open Source.
They’re a fully for-profit company using consumer rights kind of rhetoric to manipulate people in service to FUTO’s own pocketbook. Don’t fall for their use of the
.orgtld or promises to “never abuse customers”.I’ve written many times about what assholes FUTO is. I’m fully convinced they’re way more part of the problem than part of the solution and they’re not to be trusted.
They’ve soured me on Rossman. Back when he was doing coverage of things like the court cases around right to repair and tractors and stuff, I watched a few videos of his and thought he was awesome. And then he got involved with FUTO and started billing Grayjay as “Open Source” and I’ve gotten sufficiently disillusioned with FUTO that I haven’t followed Rossman at all. I’ve got coworkers changing their avatars to Clippy and shit, and I believe their hearts are in the right place, but I can’t in good conscience really get behind anything or anyone associated with FUTO.
Edit: Oh. I honesty didn’t even see this OP was a link to an article. Lol. Now I’m very interested to go read that article.
Edit 2: Shite. I’ve now read the article. I knew FUTO was assholes in a lot of different ways, but now I know how deeply, completely irredeemable they really are.
I’ll take a look at the interviews later tonight.
A few minor items stuck out as a bit disingenuous to me:
The donation page that FUTO used includes this explanation: “This offer is for individuals, and may be available to small organizations on request. Commercial entities wishing to be listed as sponsors should inquire by email.” It’s pretty clear that there are special instructions for institutional donors who wish to receive musl’s endorsement as thanks for their contribution.
It DOES say that, but literally only for the "monthly contribution > 150 section. For a one time grant of 1000 dollars, it doesn’t appear to say anything.
FUTO appears to list efforts it has donated to (and use their name/logo), under the title, “Our sponsored grant programs”. Which to me seems more of a semantic argument of whether they can say they’ve donated to something or not.
The inclusion of a logo without permission is a good critique, nonetheless. Likewise, if they are lying about donating to some of these projects, that is a problem.
- The author makes a point of complaining about a video posted to odysee. There are not many great options for posting videos outside of Youtube. That FUTO would post videos to multiple other youtube alternatives, including odysee and peertube does not seem like a surprise to me. Not saying anything about the video though, until I’ve sat and watched.
So, I’ll start by saying that I think FUTO may have changed their messaging on their website TODAY Regarding this. They now have three split sections,
- what they develop/fund
- “sponsored grants” (logos used)
- “donations, ~60K” (logos not used)
That seems more sensible if they have small donations to OSS efforts or individuals who maintain them. It would be excellent for every group listed to review if they or any developer received donations from FUTO and publically decry falsity (as the 3 in the article mentioned)
Videos:
I don’t know Yarvin, don’t know shit about him. But wikipedia entry on him is not heartwarming. It does seem an odd choice to have the two videos posted by FUTO. The one is fairly mundane, but the interview with Rossman is just strange as hell in general, and disconcerting. rossman mostly just seems uncomfortable as heck. And Yarvin seems like an insufferable know it all who wants to explain everything and not give anybody the chance to complete their thought.
So I’d say endorsing this video is a dark side to FUTO. It should have been easy to stay mostly apolitical and focus on ownership and software. Not conversations about the efficacy of monarchy.
FUTO manifesto/open source:
I can at least palate that a group could think that open source is not working. There are successes and failures. Linux is a great success. Android is becoming less so as it is dominated more by vendors & Google. Talent, resources, time is continually sunk into would-be inferior software at companies. Those softwares that have closed source, harvest our data, and ultimately don’t have our interests in mind - are often more polished, and attractive to the majority of users out there. One or two people primarily heading an open source repo can often make an awesome competitive software, but perhaps not as polished and with the threat of losing time to maintain it, archive the repo, etc. In that regard, offering optional licenses to pay base wages to attract talent while still letting you verify the code you execute - could still be appealing if successful.
I believe in FOSS, and will embrace & use it til I die, but I’m willing to entertain they have a difference in opinion on what will most advance our interests.
FUTO is more or less openly fascists
I had no idea. Now I have to find a new keyboard…
Heliboard
How so? I’m not doubting, I just didn’t see any of that evidence in the article.
Have you read the same article?
The founder hosted a debate with an open fascist then gave him a platform on the FUTO YouTube channel.Do words mean anything anymore? That is an argument for them being fascists. But how are they “openly” fascist? Where is their statement, where they openly state “we are fascists”?
Because they might be, but I don’t think they ever openly said so.
Yeah, because thieves go around making public statements of “we are thieves!”
Exactly my point, and yet the commenter claims FUTO do that, even though they obviously aren’t, because who would.
But if your roommate says he isn’t a thief, however he always hangs around with the local gang and continuously brings used stuff that he has no way of legally acquiring since he doesn’t even have a job. I don’t know man, you have to start asking questions.
Mike is not a nazi, he just goes to the nazi bar because he likes the beer.
says he isn’t a thief
Well that’s the entire issue, isn’t it? If he says he isn’t a thief, then he’s a thief who clearly isn’t open about it. Just like Mike isn’t openly a nazi, he’s just a nazi who’s lying about not being one.
I’m going to stop using good free software because I read a blog post by a sketchy guy saying the guys that wrote the software are sketchy. 🙄
No material harm is described in the post. This is a drama blog.
“good” is subjective but FUTO’s software is non-free. Their attempts to openwash their proprietary license is enough of a red flag.
It’s not a FOSS liscence, but saying it’s proprietary is also disingenuous, it’s source available.
Source availability is necessary but not sufficient for 2 of the 4 freedoms.
Wait is Louis still attached to the project? I thought he left to focus on a new company.
Note the date. This blog post is a few months old. I was expecting new drama on the latest episode of Who Hosted Whom (and does that make them fascist (and does that matter)) until new events but i guess it’s just reruns this week.
Giving tens of thousands of dollars to great orgs that have real free software licenses and ask for nothing in return? I’m glad we have futo.
I’ve heard it said they forced Freenet to stop focusing on anonymization, which caused a fork and name change of the original Freenet to Hyphanet.
Link or didn’t happen
Site doesn’t load. Here’s a link to the article
https://www.hyphanet.org/freenet-renamed-to-hyphanet.html
But it doesn’t say anything about futo
Here’s the toot:
@light The funding by FUTO sadly led to the forced renaming: https://www.hyphanet.org/freenet-renamed-to-hyphanet.html
That new project does not have privacy as a goal.
We (Hyphanet) are fully volunteer-driven now. #Hyphanet has been working pretty well for the past two decades and is continuing to move forward. Features:
- websites
- Microblog (Sone)
- Chat (FLIP: IRC server)
- Forums (FMS)
- decentralized database
⇒ https://www.hyphanet.org/ @caten
There is nothing there about FUTO forcing them to stop focusing on anonymization. I’d be careful to draw such conjecture. Besides, this is one reductive take from one party of a contentious split.
EDIT: Apparently louis left futo some number of months ago, thank you to another user for letting me know in a reply below
This is informative, and unfortunate.
I will be honest, I don’t really expect louis will wade into this issue at all, since he seems to be very uncomfortable with any of the “political” or partisan aspects of the issues he covers.
I can empathize with why one might be that way, but I hope I’m wrong, it would be rather disappointing.
Maybe it’s time for me to open some feature requests on the helicopter repo for futo keyboard features I’d really miss if I left it behind… It’d be good for both projects to be feature rich and competitive anyway
He’s not uncomfortable with it - He hates the cognitive dissonance of being a capitalist and hating the results of it
On the upside, Louis left FUTO last February
Wait, he did? I had no idea
Is that what “fulu” has been about?
I wish my comment included that context for all the people who saw it but I was completely unaware
“FULU” is a consumer rights organization iirc. The name sounds like a spinoff or sister organization to FUTO, but I don’t think there’s an official relationship.
Sorry but this person is treating grapheneos’ attacks on other groups as legitimate which throws the entire article into question. If they are happy to provide a platform for graphene’s founder’s paranoid conspiracies I can’t trust the content.
Seems clear there’s some questionable shit going on, but the only evidence presented is two YouTube videos which isn’t actually a lot. I wouldn’t be surprised based on this to hear there are deeper links, but this article is written by someone who thinks tweets and YouTube comments are evidence.
grapheneos’ attacks on other groups
Where Attack? The worst Graphene ever did was say that they don’t support certain Phones like FP because they are not updating their OS to their liking
Are you gonna go to Qubes OS next and complain that they are attacking laptop manufacturers (don’t officially support Laptops because they don’t have an open source UEFI)?
Maybe Louis Rossman will see this and beat FUTO back into shape? Maybe? Please? I just want one good outcome here!!
He’s literally in it.
He’s literally not.
Yarvin has proclaimed that black people are genetically predisposed to a lower IQ than white people
The second part of that is true, because the IQ test is unreliable. That’s why its banned in California schools for POC
That statement only has one part. Could you clarify what you mean here? I’m not sure I understand.
I think it’s that the statement in question was proclaimed is the “first part”. Or maybe the genetic predisposition is. Unclear.
The first part says people with more melanin in their skin are inferior. This is false.
The second part says people with more melanin in their skin score lower on IQ tests. This is true (because IQ tests are terrible, and its creator said so too)
I think it would help to define the causal relationship you’re referring to. What exactly about skin color changes the outcome of the test?
It doesn’t. The test was designed for white people. It’s the same reason that facial recognition has more false positives for people with more melanin in their skin.
The problem is the test, not the skin. That’s my point.
How does the test tell the difference? Does it come with a color chart?
It’s more about cultural and socioeconomic bias. So you might have questions that have a bias towards middleclass suburban kids vs a poor innercity kid.
You can find examples online, but some can be quite subtle. “Banana is to yellow as Ruby is to ______” Someone who grew up with jewelry would be more likely to know this. This goes against the principle of an IQ test, and older tests were notorious for this.
