Re: youtube-dl DMCA takedown on GitHub is risk for all GNU/Linux distributions

[Jean Louis]

* Pedro Lucas Porcellis <porcellis@eletrotupi.com> [2020-11-03 19:19]:
> On Tue, Nov 03, 2020 at 11:03:07AM +0300, Jean Louis wrote:
> > Mastodon, GNU Social, Pleroma or any federated social network can
> > become centralized with a lot of money. Once user base is gained, the
> > network can be centralized. Both Google and Facebook users could
> > communicate back in time through their chat. They have used the XMPP
> > in first time. Facebook user could send email to Google user. Google
> > user could send email to Facebook user. They could chat between
> > networks. People who did not subscribe neither to Google or to
> > Facebook could chat to both of them by using XMPP network.
> > 
> > So those large social networks DID start as pretty much federalized
> > networks! If I remember well their pages were also pretty much open,
> > and not closed to non-members.
> 
> That centralization exists today. https://mastodon.social is the bigger
> instance, filled with people all around the world and basically the
> "default" instance people sign up for.

> The thing is, ActivityPub (i.e.  the protocol) is a standard under
> the W3C. Also, most of the implementations are licensed under AGPL
> (Pleroma, Mastodon, PeerTube).  So that sort of centralization
> doesn't have much impact today.

Not because of of activity pub or standards. It is because Fediverse
is not (yet) commercialized to gather larger user base.

Fediverse is also full of problems, they distribute among
administrators on how to block specific instances. I do not agree with
that. Exactly that path is leading again to whatever censorships and
new centralizations. For example many instances want to block gab.com
instance.

On the other hand if we get many users in the Fediverse maybe this
becomes significant for proprietary centralized networks and maybe
they also start opening themselves.

> > Exactly same thing can take place with Fediverse network. Any company
> > is free to advertise and gain user base, once they gain large user
> > base it becomes familiar to others and your friends and family will be
> > telling you about that website. You will then listen to friends and
> > family and despite having your fediverse account somewhere else, you
> > may sign up for this or other special feature or reason on their
> > network. And so will do millions of others. Sooner or later the
> > company may block the outside Fediverse and centralize its users.
> 
> Again, that can't happen. Even if a company so desire to enter the
> competition, we're in a federated network, therefore I *can* use my
> instance to talk with that company's instance. *That's*  wy federation
> is a really good take on those sort of problems.

Some instances are blocking other instances that is open way to
centralize.

Then I gave example of Facebook using email, it happened that they
abolished email. There was example with XMPP for Facebook and Google,
both abolished XMPP.

If Mastodon apps can start blocking some instance for nonsense
reasons, then it can also happen that instance centralizes and block
other instances. Even to change the protocol. Software is free, right?

Finally those protocols were not specifically made for federation,
they allow closed networks. I have been installing few
instances. There are options for closed networks or for public
networks.

When company large enough gathers large user base they may decide to
do what they want and large user base will remain with that
company. Some will go, majority will stay. Facebook is good example
and Google, although I think Google is failing with social
networking.

> > If company would be providing free software messenger and hosting free
> > software servers with the transparent and safe peer to peer
> > encryption, without abusing users' privacy and selling their
> > information, I do not think that centralization itself would be
> > problem there.
> 
> A company would not do that. It's not profitable. And a basic thing for
> a company to operate is to have some sort of profit.

Profit would be from provision of service. Just as from provision of
email and website hosting there are profits. Hosting companies are
free to employ such let us say XMPP accounts or Fediverse accounts or
anything. If demand becomes high you will see that taking place.

They sell for example Wordpress, why? It became so popular that people
are asking for it, hosting companies are following what became
popular. They sell emails traditionally and webmail services.

Before just few years it was not possible to open up VPS instance with
major providers by providing my own image. Now it is possible, many
providers allow us to upload any operating system we want. This is
because people were asking for that.

> There is only free software politics for GNU and no other
> Any movement is somewhere down the line, political itself. The GNU
> project cannot be apolitical, because it is confronting the common sense
> and therefore posing questions that it doesn't exist or didn't matter
> until them. Politics is way more than "regular good-old liberal
> politics". It envolves acting, thinking, questioning, being critical
> about what is being throw at us.
> 
> What I'm trying to say is that the Free Software Mov. is a entrance to
> question deeper and beyond. De-centralization *and* free software is bad
> for companies that want to exploit users. They're holding hands, not
> apart.

To clarify it for GNU better, see:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/kind-communication.html

where it says:

Please don't raise unrelated political issues in GNU Project
discussions, because they are off-topic. The only political positions
that the GNU Project endorses are (1) that users should have control
of their own computing (for instance, through free software) and (2)
supporting basic human rights in computing. We don't require you as a
contributor to agree with these two points, but you do need to accept
that our decisions will be based on them.

and

The GNU Project encourages contributions from anyone who wishes to
advance the development of the GNU system, regardless of gender, race,
ethnic group, physical appearance, religion, cultural background, and
any other demographic characteristics, as well as personal political
views.

If GNU project would discuss politics beyond free software we would be
dividing people for no good reason.

That is beauty of it.

Beyond GNU project there are sets of groups of free software and they
may do different politics. I just give reference for GNU project.

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