> Why should I as an end user care about open source software?

Every Stallman's essay explains practical reasons for that. For example, with FLOSS tools, you are protected from enshittification (see numerous topics here about the software quality crisis of Apple and Microsoft).

Hey, appreciate your response! Now, my hn post was actually longer than 4000 and that's why I had to trim otherwise I would've had maybe explained the question but I will try to write a short answer in here.

> Why should they care? What does open source give you?

Open source gives people complete freedom, the freedom that a software can run for posterity, can be modified towards your liking, and the most important thing which I failed to mention: peace of mind

Most open source software can be run with peace of mind. No subscriptions. No update that enshittens it. If it works and you like it, its yours. No spying on you. No showing you ads which will try to radicalize you or sell you some scammy course as an example. Its just there... saying hi to you, saying how's your day, oh you want to use me, fine, how can I help you today.

And it expects nothing back in return. Its just there waiting to be used.

People should care because of this, for peace of mind. its almost always worth it in my opinion. I genuinely think that although I didn't mention but even small steps like using f-droid and then transitioning to linux to then transition to mastodon/bluesky as an example can definitely help reducing the reliance on algorithms as well, it can stop spying on us via using things like signal.

I'd recommend you to check out the clippy movement by louis rousman. I sort of resonate with the same statement and I agree with the right to repair as well, sure I am not much of a hardware tinkering person but the fact that I can go to a mechanic who can repair easily or have an ability to learn it myself via repair friendly systems is always nice to have and I agree with that thing too. I hope that the clippy movement can sort of bring both the things together which I think it already does.

Clippy movement is great actually & explains the reason why people should care, but I have also tried to give some of my own rationale behind it as well.

Personally, the reason I got into open source was because of privacy. I started learning more and more about privacy and uh, the final straw on the camel's back for me was when I learnt valorant was installed kernel level and there's no way you can 100% guarantee its removed without deleting the whole system.

Downloaded linux and kind of never moved back and got into a rabbit hole. (The only time I used windows was in a vm/winboat app to run a tool which could root my phone but that company's otp server didn't work or anything and so my phone can't be rooted but yeah:<)

I like linux but I think that there are so many low hanging fruits like f-droid and signal that people don't even use them man. I would talk about linux/cli tools then when people show the initiative of having f-droid/signal. I think that we need to first educate people about these tools because they are genuinely better than their alternatives and just so good that its almost always worth it to have them on your phone/systems

And BigBro is Torvalds, Linux kernel devs belong to the Inner Party, Rust is Newspeak etc.. (reality >> fiction in some sense)

We've always been at war with Cupertino

> Most people have enough drama in their life and find ads and sitting on hold with tech support to be preferable.

What if I told ya that facebook allegedly detected when teen girls deleted selfies so it could serve them beauty ads.

Did you know that? Do most population know how deeply privacy invasive ads are.

Yes, we might be vocal about it but that's because we care. We care enough for the world to not want it to be a privacy nightmare dystopia and we are advocating it in ways we can take action in. There are people on the political side of things too which are taking action on stronger regulation but I deeply think that politics is so bundled with corruption all across the world that instead of us relying on politics to fix these companies, we need to use open source/stop watching closed algorithmic things and use things like mastodon to slowly get more normal so that we can then discuss things and fix politics/politicians to remove corruption.

How can we do this if the world has created a divide between two parties all across the world and its only fueled by the proprietory algorithmic worlds? How can people care about it if they can't even care about open source in general. I think that if people care about open source/privacy it can be gateway to a better future for us all & this is why we share it.

> If you want to change people you have to be willing to be changed by them.

Like, okay but we change people through logic and reasoning and discussion. Everyone gets changed by a good discussion, you take in more perspectives, I took from this conversation that open source is a chicken and egg problem. People want good UI/UX and support but how many people donate to open source so that either it can get to that state or just have more people willing to open source instead of making yet another saas... not many

Now, that being said, we can reason about things, maybe I can convince you, maybe not.

I just believe this notion to be a little anti-scientific really in the sense, that the mere idea of me wanting to change them shouldn't make me change myself, but that I am always willing to be changed if they can provide reason but from a bird's eye view, I am pretty comfortable that my logic doesn't have much gaps, I have thought about it for atleast a month straight. But I am more than willing to correct myself but the way you word it makes me feel like you want me to change more than be willing to change yourself as well and you might feel the same for me but we are both so convinced by two different realities that we live in. But if you put that aside and genuinely just want a discussion, not wanting to change me or change you but this notion of should we even change people or how can we change people, I am more than willing to discuss. And also maybe change isn't that bad after all :)

Okay. I agree.

Now I for one like that it doesn't have a gui. I can script with it/tinker it with more.

But lets for the sake of general population agree that yes, most people want a good gui.

So lets go to the operating system that general population has. Android.

Now they can install termux and then go be one of us but then again not gui/cognitive load.

So there is f-droid. Also, its not that hard finding some genuinely cool foss stuff

I wanted a pdf reader on android and I searched open source pdf editor and tried 2-3 and some had poor UX and UI but then I found MJPdf (as an example) https://github.com/mudlej/mj_pdf/ and I found it to be the most superior UI/UX I have seen for a pdf editor.

Same goes for my browser. Zen-browser has the best UI/UX for browser based system. Its just so cool. I love it with Ublock origin.

I can give you some software I can personally vouch for the good UI/UX and compile a list but would that really matter?

I just thought of this idea, also another idea for a good gui is that its kind of hard and requires a language like dart/kotlin which I am not familiar with/ don't actively like (I haven't tried them)

I want to make good android apps in golang but I know I sort of can't make it or its a bunch of hacks/(not worth it?) but there are apps which do that too.

Also I am not sure how you can have marketing for open source apps when the devs sometimes if the app is a service run them at a loss financially and invest their time into it. If we can't expect donations to be made to them, I don't think we can expect this as well, can we?

The incentives system for foss is broken imo but I am not sure how changing it can happen.

> So yeah, stop selling the "license". Nobody cares about the license. If you like Postgres then evangelize that. The license is completely irrelevant.

People care about the license because if the license is, let's say source available and a commercial license on the side, then the problem is that the software stops being permanent and relies on that company.

Why so? Because if the company let's say enshittens the project in one version, and the community starts using the last version that wasn't enshittened, they inevitably lose out on bug fixes / qol updates etc.

now you might say that people should fork it. But nobody really likes forking a repository with source available license either because of the license or because the company itself would benefit more from the code updates that they write and use it themselves or sell their version as well due to the commerical offerings or the dev's would simply be less willing to due to all of such things.

I am not a license purist. I like https://anticapitalist.software/ (Acap license) the most, its because I don't like some commercial usage which would've just taken my labour for it is and not donate to me if I write some software

In general, the ACSL is a good match for software that would have otherwise been permissively licensed under MIT, ISC, or BSD but with restrictions against corporate usage. Here is an excerpt from ACSL:

The ACSL is right for you if you want your code to empower students, artists, hobbyists, collectives, cooperatives and nonprofits to survive under capitalism while not contributing free labor to corporations.

The ACSL is right for you if you reject the status quo, believe better things are possible, and want to act on your beliefs.

The ACSL is right for you if you carry a new world in your heart, and in your code.

That being said, I don't mind licenses that much, source available can be fine too for a peace of mind at-least. If there is any source available license which requires a one time license or something,I think its okay. So I am not sure how somebody is selling the license. The license is a little important, but the battle is against proprietory vs source-code available. The battle is between complete black box vs something you can look inside and have peace of mind.

Yes but something like signal or f-droid just works. I get it. Some open source might be inferior to others because of lack of donation etc. but that doesn't mean that we should basket all of open source because of it.

I think that we should expose more people to the idea of open source through something easier/practical like signal/f-droid/flatpak as I had mentioned in the comment.

Yes it was a little overwhelming in the start for me as well but its soo worth it imo. You feel comfortable with technology of sorts once you go all in, knowing you can always change things to your liking and you have the uttermost freedom, that is truly... liberating.

The true freedom in this day and age. I always appreciated the idea of freedom, the freedom of doing a job that you might like (financial freedom) etc..

There is very little danger of your fork advertising you, or your spoon selling your data to the highest bidder. Using non-free software involves a ton of trust in the companies that produce them. Using free software without auditing it also involves trust, but less (because at least it's possible to audit!)

This really helped plus all the other comments as well. I am still going to advocate software since that's something I am passionate about but I might actually reconsider writing all of my software open source.

Like I wonder if sometimes writing a software and then publishing it and then donating the money could be more beneficial of sorts and advocating for source and helping anyone to learn anything they want/help them along the way as well.

(Side note but I will create some articles about some stuff as well, will need to do work on my writing!)

What are your thoughts?

There are millions of things in the world today that I’m not “curious” about. I’m sure a car mechanic could wonder why people aren’t interested in rebuilding a motor or a construction worker would wonder why people aren’t interested in doing their own major renovations - actually no they wouldn’t.

Only geeks seem to elevate a computer to some type of religious thing that should be more than just a tool. This is coming from someone who started coding in assembly in the 6th grade in 1986.

But in the year of our lord 2025 at 51, the computer and technology is just an enablement tool for me to accomplish something else or a means for me to trade my labor for money to support my addiction to food and shelter. I have a dozen things I would rather be doing after I get off of work than futz around with technology.

100% agree that most people aren't curious about it.

but still, that is why I mentioned some priorities in sharing open source. If I share some niche golang/rust tool, I am sure most people wouldn't care but if I share something like f-droid/signal. I feel like that can help out a lot of people instead.

The result of data harvesting is not a breach. but the whole system that it is right now, for all such data harvesting imo, the most common fraction seems to be hate which gets the most engagement which is why to me most social media feels hateful off the start and why its linked to some of the issues we have right now. Its definitely escalated.

There are some genuine problems in economies all around the world yet if those nations leaders try to scapegoat, trying to create a us vs them, its not a good fix and shit might break and we would all be too invested in watching yt shorts.

What I am advocating with foss is also federation/curated social media with no algorithms but that is the step two imo. The step one to mass adoption for such things might be to have people more familiar/comfortable with open source.

Overall, we need to fight on both fronts if we want change. Both algorithmic and open source apps based. Some open source apps are predatory, they will charge you recurring and hope you forget. Some cheap/quickly built games which can be open source for android for all purposes aren't open source right now and they exploit children's lack of financial knowledge in that sense(scams of sorts).

I think people will create 10$ subscriptions to a local text editor in this world. I just wish instead of people spending those 10$ there or somewhere else, why can't we donate to open source as a society so that the software can be more complete/helpful to even more people and so on and so on...

What are your thoughts?

> they either get told to use a bizarre workaround or get a snarky response about submitting a PR or something.

Generally, those sort of responses are given to people who didn't pay or contribute in any way, and want something for nothing. OSS developers don't work for you; they're generally solving problems that they're having, and if you happen to be having the same problems, then they may get attention. If you'd like some piece of open source software changed, you are free to change it or to hire someone to change it; that's the deal. Expecting work for nothing is ridiculous.