Here is a submission as a result from a conversation I had with mrcoolbp over email.
I want to present the following idea for a regularly-occurring SoylentNews story: a weekly promotion of an open source software project.
The current vision is to have a weekly post on the main page with an open source project presented (I suggest Sunday afternoon EST time, helping fill the slow news day). After a short description of the project and the normal collection of relevant links (homepage, downloads, etc.), the submitter presents the project to the SoylentNews community. This takes the form of an extended post (similar to the SoylentNews meta posts that often have a short blurb for main page and "Read more past the break").
Keep reading 'past the break' for more:
In an effort to provide some independent journalism, the content 'past the break' is loosely defined. This could be a review or description of the software, an interview with the dev team, a story about how the software saved your life, poem, and so on. While I currently have these high and mighty dreams for the feature, I also want to encourage those who aren't as inspired by writing to post; SoylentNews is driven by our submissions, and I would rather read a short blurb than have no post.
When a post is selected, the highlighted project should be made aware, not only because it would be polite (and indirectly promote SoylentNews), but if the article goes live at a convenient time, perhaps the dev team might take part in the comment discussion.
What it will take to implement this idea:
- An "OSS Plug" topic (https://soylentnews.org/topics.pl). It could fall under other categories but it will be much easier to parse submissions with a dedicated topic.
- A decision on the permission required from the parent project. Many "contact us" emails are ignored, so would it be acceptable to make a post without warning the project?
- Submissions. Similar to regular articles, this could go dry if people don't participate.
- A selection process. If the SN team wants to own this or if a different solution is needed (I'm not familiar with what happens now).
A quick example (short as I don't use the software directly myself):
Weekly OSS: Slashcode!
Slashcode is an OSS project used to run news websites, in particular SoylentNews. From the developer's page:
Slash -- Slashdot Like Automated Storytelling Homepage -- is the code that runs Slashdot. More than that, however, Slash is an architecture for putting together web sites. It comes with functionality for posting articles, conducting polls, having discussions, and more; but it can be extended in innumerable ways.
Slash is written in Perl, and is built on top of Apache and mod_perl. It requires a database backend, though the only well-supported database used with it is MySQL (more databases will become well-supported as time goes on; PostgreSQL support is already well on its way). Slash is fast, scalable, and secure (as evidenced by one of the best test cases you could have, running Slashdot itself). Slash was originally written by CmdrTaco and CowboyNeal.
Through a plugin system, developers can add functionality to Slash. Through themes and templates (which are written using Template Toolkit), the look and feel of a Slash site can be customized.
Read more past the break:
For some reason I cannot put my finger on the first time I saw a website running Slashcode. It must have been ten years ago, but that is a big blur in my memory. I do remember the introduction of SoylentNews, the forefront news website running Slashcode.
Slashcode has a sophisticated commenting system for stories posted. What makes it so innovative is the rating system for each comment. This helps off topic comments get weeded out, and for the more insightful comments to be highlighted. This does depend on the community to prevent abuse, however I have seen very few cases of the commenting system fail.
Some improvements have been made to Slashcode in recent history, and the usability has evolved with the development of SoylentNews. I particularly like how gracefully the site fails thanks to the lack of javascript dependencies and the resulting clean interface.
There are also a number of features present that I have yet to use, and I am unsure how well they will integrate into the news website format. Particularly the Journals. Each user may make posts to their own user Journal. Beyond the site admins I see little need for this feature for regular users, and there are many other social media websites that provide similar functions. However, if this is the extent of feature creep I am satisfied with this project.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Monday May 04 2015, @03:06PM
I'd like to see a weekly review of an OSS project. I look at freshmeat and all I see is frob 2.1.3, fard 1.0, etc etc, with no clue as to what these projects are. I've got better things to do than peruse freshmeat for things I might find interesting.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 5, Informative) by middlemen on Monday May 04 2015, @03:12PM
Freshmeat (aka Freecode) is no longer active https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freecode [wikipedia.org]. Dice killed it !
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Monday May 04 2015, @04:28PM
Does dastardly Dice do anything but defile, damage, and destroy?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by VLM on Monday May 04 2015, @04:45PM
A deep deep undercover source revealed to me that the "d" in systemd is short for "Dice". Just sayin. Not a "give her the D" joke or daemon or any of that.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday May 05 2015, @12:49AM
Da, dey Desecrate.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by CoolHand on Monday May 04 2015, @03:13PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday May 04 2015, @03:44PM
You could probably knock five of them out at a time and just let them sit in the queue. It's not like breaking news and hopefully you are pointing us to something that won't self destruct within a month.
(Score: 4, Funny) by janrinok on Monday May 04 2015, @05:15PM
...and so could you, DeathMonkey, so could you :)
(Score: 3, Funny) by Tork on Monday May 04 2015, @09:59PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hannibal on Monday May 04 2015, @03:25PM
As someone who works outside the tech sector and has a small child, I don't get the chance to browse much in the way of OSS and one of my favourite moments is when I find something new and exciting on Soylent (or even, The Other House). I look forward to coming across some gems.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Monday May 04 2015, @03:25PM
So basically Randal Schwartz's FLOSS Weekly podcast from the twit network, which I subscribe to, but done here on SN. OK its timely, topical, and usually pretty interesting, so our text clone would likely have the same characteristics, which is cool.
You MIGHT have some fun reflecting off FLOSS weekly. So that week they had the Russian dude from nginx on, you MIGHT want to make this compare and contrast week with nginx vs apache or something. Maybe. On the bad side you'd be chained (occasionally) to FW on the good side if you have no idea what to do / workload issues then just "weekly FLOSS weekly commentary thread" gets slapped up.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by dmbasso on Monday May 04 2015, @03:37PM
I like the idea. Asking the project's lead first would be nice, since that could avoid wasted publicity just before a release.
`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Monday May 04 2015, @05:36PM
This. Definitely!
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @03:41PM
Not "my collection of perl scripts that I posted on github, that nobody seems to be interested in".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Covalent on Monday May 04 2015, @03:45PM
Yeah, +1 to this. I came here to say the same thing. I love this idea, but preferably for projects that actually have more than 2 users, one of which is not your mom (heyo)
I'd also love to see projects that have volunteer needs that non-coding nerds might be able to fulfill (translation, donation, proofreading, etc.)
You can't rationally argue somebody out of a position they didn't rationally get into.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Monday May 04 2015, @04:43PM
I'd also love to see projects that have volunteer needs that non-coding nerds might be able to fulfill (translation, donation, proofreading, etc.)
Isn't that all of them?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by richtopia on Monday May 04 2015, @05:12PM
I agree that projects that have reached a certain level of maturity are desired. However, part of the goal is to feature projects that aren't big names (eg. Ubuntu is a big name), so chances are some immature projects will crop up.
I'm not too scared of obscure projects being selected; the person writing the article would need to have some motivation to present the project to the SN community. Yes, it could be a fishing attempt for more developers or downloads of the project, but I hope that the SN community is stronger than that. The submission also has to make it through the selection process which should further weed out projects that aren't fit for featuring.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Monday May 04 2015, @09:48PM
While I agree that there might be thinks I do not want to see here (I think MikeUSA's collection of perl games is a great example), I would not be to quick with discarding some small projects.
Big projects we all know about, its the small projects that do ingenious things that are often not even packaged in distro's that I find interesting (I was quite happy I found a set of CRC reverse engineer scripts a while ago while trying to RE some equipment comm protocol).
So this set of perl scripts on github that nobody knows about might actually be interesting (of course someone has to judge whether that is true or not).
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday May 05 2015, @03:40PM
Yeah, if there's one thing we DON'T need, it's yet another review of the latest KDE release or whatever.
I think we ought to look more at the quality of the project than how many developers or users it may have. If we're only covering big-name projects many of us already knows about, what's the point? Sure, we don't want stuff like the CLI Frogger I coded up when I was bored in highschool comp sci. But if one of our members has been working on some code for themselves for the past few years, decides to release it publicly, and wants to start by posting it here (ie, it currently has one developer, and one user, and they're the same person)...that seems fine to me. As long as the software is decent quality and does something useful.
Would hope to not get too deep into niche products either though. We don't need code for doing calculations for offshore oil drilling :)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @03:47PM
After all open source is nothing but a marketing campaign for free software.
https://gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html [gnu.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mtrycz on Monday May 04 2015, @05:12PM
GNU GPL is my favourite free licence, but it's not the only one around, and there are alternatives for open source projects, and your proposal would have to leave out non-GPL (BSD, Apache, Eclipse, ...) projects.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Monday May 04 2015, @05:39PM
The parent has a very good point IMO, I wouldn't want to see plugs for "open core" software, where there's a huge business behind it with the purpose of making money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @06:33PM
You're confusing free software with copyleft.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by GlennC on Monday May 04 2015, @04:14PM
Put on what you want. If I like it, I'll read it. If not, I'll move on.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by lentilla on Monday May 04 2015, @04:18PM
When we talk about "open source" what exactly do we mean?
Personally, that term makes me uncomfortable. Although the Open Source Initiative's [opensource.org] definition is fairly benign, not all "open source" licences are. To put it bluntly, I'd be less than amused if SoylentNews advertised a product where you could read the source ("open" source) but denied you other rights.
There is also the subtle but important differences in intent - is the software we help to advertise ethical, or is it merely practically expedient? Here is a discussion [gnu.org] on that topic.
Please understand I have no wish to start a flame war - I simply want us to be very careful with the terminology we use. If we indeed mean "Open Source" (per the OSI definition) when we say "open source", then go for it. If however we mean software that respects users' freedom then I'd prefer us to use the term "Free Software" or "Libre Software".
I only mention this because the submission uses the terms "open" and "OSS" six times and "free" not once. I strongly suspect even the submitter probably is thinking of the "libre" philosophy when he says "open". Even the featured example; Slashcode; is itself an example of Free Software (it has a GPL licence).
Again, no flame wars please. Just give a thought or two to what the terminology means when we are having discussions.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Monday May 04 2015, @04:41PM
Could dance around the FOSS vs FLOSS vs OSS by just saying DFSG is mandatory.
https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines [debian.org]
Technically I think its still possible to offend RMS using the DFSG, but its pretty darn close to being perfect.
I'm sure systemd will insert its embrace extend extinguish tentacles into the DFSG soon enough by adding a clause that the software must somehow use or connect to systemd in order to be considered "free", but for now, the DFSG is pretty good.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday May 04 2015, @05:28PM
I like the Debian Free Software Guidelines; it is human legible, reasonable guidelines.
Naturally, IANAL, and for this SN article I would phrase it as "strong preference to DFSG compatible projects". We want to encourage free software, but I don't want a submitter to get hung up identifying the license. For example I think the MPL may fail the DFSG, while the nature of the Mozilla team is promoting a more open internet (please don't read too far into that statement... I know this is not an ideal example).
Lastly, I apologize for the nomenclature in the original post; I am aware of the free as in beer/speech debate but never really paid attention to names and OSS just rolls of my tongue so easily.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 05 2015, @12:34PM
Your mozilla example is actually pretty good... mozilla / firefox has a problem changing things around yet calling it the trademarked name. Probably scared microsoft will release "Firefox 99.9" which is actually just a bash script containing "rm -Rf /" Thats a pretty good reason for a distro to get pissed off and start contemplating name changes "iceweasel" and all that.
However, its not an issue for a journalism site. If MS wants to release a FF version 99.9 thats just a "rm -Rf /" bomb then thats a very interesting discussion "OSS" discussion topic, even if distros can't / won't touch it with a 10 foot pole.
Another example I came up with is patents. If you had some software that implicitly and intentionally violated a patent then Debian would ban it under the DFSG but it would still make a pretty cool discussion topic.
So I think you're right the DFSG as a definition is a too limiting.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @07:49PM
"Open source" is a better term when dealing with the general public than "Free software". If you talk to some random Windows user about "free software", they're going to think you're just talking about freeware, software which doesn't cost anything. When you say "open source", this might make sense to them, and if not, it's easy to explain what this means in terms they can understand, and then they'll remember the term "open source" easily. No, it isn't perfect, as Free software is preferable, however "Free software" has a lot of problems with it:
1) There is no way to differentiate "Free" and "free" in colloquial speech. And if you start saying "capital-F free software", you're going to look weird.
2) The word "free" is ambiguous in English, since it can mean either libre or gratis. And you can't use those words with the general public because they're too uneducated to know what they mean since they aren't English and most Americans don't know any languages besides English (and never took any foreign languages in school).
Lots of people seem to have a basic understanding what "source code" is, that someone who has access to it can easily make changes. But when you use the term "free software", they're not going to make that connection.
To put it bluntly, I'd be less than amused if SoylentNews advertised a product where you could read the source ("open" source) but denied you other rights.
Yes, and how many times have you actually seen anything called "open source" which had a license like that? I've only heard of that with Microsoft, and even there they used the "Shared Source" term.
"Libre Software"
You can't use that term with the general public in America. They won't understand it, because it's not English.
However, I do think you can use these terms with the appropriate audience, like among people one sites like this who are well-versed in such things, but there's a good reason the "open source" term took off and "Free software" did not, and it's because one makes much more sense to the general public than the other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @09:47PM
"Open source" is a better term
Not with Redmond's latest tactic of doing everything they can to distort that meme.
With their "open" apps, MSFT includes a PATENTS.TXT file [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [github.com]
which makes it clear that
- you cannot alter their code
- you cannot reuse their code
- you cannot redistribute their code
...yet they still want you to believe that, because you can -look- at it, that software is "open".
.
...and the OP's use of "OSS" was not good either as that is the moniker of one specific existing protocol. [wikipedia.org]
.
I generally just say "FOSS"; sometimes "gratis and libre"[1].
When I want to make it abundantly clear, I say Free(dom) Software.
[1] If you receive the blank look that you get from your dog, just educate the monolingual individual^W^W USAian.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday May 04 2015, @04:33PM
Are there any efforts going on to make a mobile version of Slashcode that doesn't require hacks like AvantSlash [avantslash.org]?
And are there any hosting providers that specialize in Slashcode?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Monday May 04 2015, @11:44PM
We could do this technically now as a theme, and change the theme on UA detection. Someone would have to actually rework the HTML to make it happen. I looked at adventslash, and I remember there was a reason why we didn't host our own instance of it, but I can't remember it off the top of my head.
Still always moving
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:43AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Interesting) by WillAdams on Monday May 04 2015, @05:14PM
I'd probably submit the Shapeoko, recently updated to v3: http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/Shapeoko_3 [shapeoko.com]
Had a lot of fun doing the instructions for the SO2: http://docs.shapeoko.com/ [shapeoko.com] --- esp. the interactive diagrams: http://docs.shapeoko.com/content/tPictures/PS20028-100.svg [shapeoko.com] (click on the part numbers/names to highlight the matching part in the diagram).
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @05:19PM
I'm going to take the opposite stance and say that this is a terrible idea. This site really isn't that much different than Slashdot, and has most of the same demographic. So as such, it's full of Microsoft fanboys and open-source/free-software haters.
This would be a great idea if we had a site that was exclusively focused on FOSS software, but this isn't that site. Slashdot is even worse: you can't post anything at all there about FOSS without getting tons of responses about how FOSS is all shit, MS software is the best, comments about RMS's hygiene, etc.
Here's a better idea: take your weekly OSS plug and post it on the appropriate Reddit forum instead. You don't see a lot of FOSS haters on /r/linux, for instance.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by fliptop on Monday May 04 2015, @06:08PM
Get rid of the "Disagree" mod. It was used twice in this thread and there were no follow-up arguments.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @07:29PM
That isn't going to help anything. People, when they have mod points, are going to down-vote anything they disagree with. If you eliminate the "Disagree" selection, they'll just use "Troll" or "Flamebait" or "Overrated".
The only way to fix moderation of this problem is to give mod points to everyone, not just to some lucky random people who abstain from commenting. Personally, I never moderate here or on Slashdot, and haven't for years, because the stupid mod system won't let me make comments if I do so (it undoes my mods). So, I simply abstain from moderation. If you want me to moderate, then you have to let me comment as well. I refuse to be an unbiased observer.
This is one reason Reddit is such a great platform: it doesn't have this idiotic moderation system. It's just up or down, and anyone can do it, not just some random person lucky enough to be blessed with mod points, and who also abstains from commenting. Yes, you get bad moderating sometimes, but it's outdone by the sheer number of people who are allowed to mod, and do so. And yes, it basically makes it a popularity contest, but that's what you get when you make something democratic. If you want everything carefully vetted, then you need a dedicated panel of moderators, and that means you need to carefully select such people and then employ them full-time in this capacity. Good luck funding that.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sudo rm -rf on Monday May 04 2015, @08:17PM
I think everybody gets mod points here on SN on a daily basis (although there could be some restrictions, I haven't followed the relevant threads very closely..) And also I think Disagree gives +0, so no point-loss. And you *can* comment and moderate in the same thread.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Monday May 04 2015, @09:48PM
That isn't going to help anything. People, when they have mod points, are going to down-vote anything they disagree with. If you eliminate the "Disagree" selection, they'll just use "Troll" or "Flamebait" or "Overrated".
Truth. And since most everyone here knows Disagree is basically a no-op mod, a handful still resort to the others to lower score on things just for disagreement. I got marked Troll recently for saying that I don't think MS failing as a company would be a good thing because Apple or Google would likely fill its place and be worse. No arguments about why they thought I was wrong, just mark troll. And they waited a day or so after the story posting so nobody would go back and upmod me, too.
The only way to fix moderation of this problem is to give mod points to everyone, not just to some lucky random people who abstain from commenting.
You get mod points every day here. It even says it in the sidebar: "You get 5 points per day, given out at 00:10 UTC. "
Personally, I never moderate here or on Slashdot, and haven't for years, because the stupid mod system won't let me make comments if I do so (it undoes my mods). So, I simply abstain from moderation. If you want me to moderate, then you have to let me comment as well. I refuse to be an unbiased observer.
SN hasn't had mod-or-post since the first couple months. It was one of the first things on SN to deviate from the Slashdot way of doing things. The system has been tweaked twice so far, the first allowed you to mod-then-post (no more moderation after posting), and the current is mod-and-post (you can post before and after moderation, just not on your own comments).
You wrote two paragraphs denigrating the mod system while showing you don't even know anything about how it works here. Sure, it's still true about Slashdot -- the site's basically stagnant and unlikely to improve -- but if you paid more attention here you might find you like some of the new features the devs here are adding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @10:02PM
You should make sure that you read the stories that appear Re: S/N's updates to Slash/Slashcode (and the comments therein).
You are way behind the curve.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday May 05 2015, @08:57AM
I agree with your comments about "disagree" though. The other down mod options are still very much being used as "disagree" currently anyway, which is a shame. I'm a big fan of "disagree" as it's honest. 3 disonest tossers without the wits to form a counter-argument just "trolled" one of my recent posts simply because I said something that clashed with their worldview, when it was clear that "-1 disagree" or "-1 because I feel butthurt" would have been more honest. That reminded me of the existence of the old /. metamod system, which we've not adopted here. No system's perfect, certainly.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday May 04 2015, @07:00PM
Use Reddit and help a company that employs Ellen Pao? No thanks.
We could use some weekend traffic, as it seems everyone visits here from their work. In fact the weekend is the perfect time for this sort of not-quite-main-page material.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @07:35PM
You dislike a website because their CEO filed a gender-discrimination lawsuit against someone? Are you a chauvinist or something? Have you looked into this site's management and whether any of them have been involved in lawsuits?
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Monday May 04 2015, @09:36PM
Had she won I wouldn't be against their corporate empire for that reason but some other equally bogus one.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday May 05 2015, @03:50PM
I usually read the weekend stores on the following Monday, but even then this is a good choice. Because this is something that won't be stale two or three days later when I finally get around to it. Might even be able to keep discussions up for a few days, especially if some of the actual developers decide to pop in.
Also might start bringing me to Soylent outside of work, as pretty soon we'd be building up a pretty nice repository of lesser-known software. I use the Linux Action Show for this sometimes -- if I'm building a new system I'll remember them talking about some potentially useful software for that a few weeks back. But digging through their shownotes is a huge pain, and looking for something out of the hour or two of video is even worse. Even if we covered the same stuff I'd be more likely to look here first because I could actually search the text or skim the titles.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday May 04 2015, @08:57PM
So as such, it's full of Microsoft fanboys and open-source/free-software haters.So as such, it's full of Microsoft fanboys...
Admittedly I've been out of the Slashdot loop for over two years so maybe my information is out of date, but is this statement really true? I ask because Slashdot spent over a decade presenting articles that were blatantly bashing Microsoft, sometimes even to the point of flat out lying about the details. Eventually people started started actually reading the MS articles and responding to the BS that was being fed to them. These people were labeled 'Fanboys', not because they forgave anything MS did, but because they didn't want to jump on the blind-hate-bandwagon.
... and open-source/free-software haters.
Who hates free software? Are you sure you're not counting people who prefer the commercial version of an OSS app because it better suits their needs? I've seen that counted a lot that way, but it's not actually hate.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 04 2015, @09:21PM
Admittedly I've been out of the Slashdot loop for over two years so maybe my information is out of date,
This is probably your problem. Slashdot seems to be completely filled with MS shills these days. I don't mean people who just don't want to jump on the "blind-hate-bandwagon", or people who prefer particular commercial software for utilitarian reasons, I mean outright shills.
When someone says FOSS app X isn't good enough because it doesn't have features A, B, and C, that's understandable. When someone says "Linux is written by amateurs", "go suck on Stallman's cock", etc., that's either a shill or a fanboy. Slashdot is mostly populated by the latter these days.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday May 04 2015, @09:35PM
"...go suck on Stallman's cock", etc., that's either a shill or a fanboy. Slashdot is mostly populated by the latter these days.
Every time I've seen that the preceding comment used words like "windoze" or referred to problems dating back to the Win9x line.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Touché) by moondrake on Monday May 04 2015, @09:41PM
Wait a second...almost everybody who posted here likes it but you do not like it because you assert we have too many people who will not like it.....
and then in a sibling post you complain about moderating problems this site does not have anymore.
Maybe tell us what you are smoking?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Monday May 04 2015, @10:17PM
I'm going to take the opposite stance and say that this is a terrible idea. This site really isn't that much different than Slashdot, and has most of the same demographic. So as such, it's full of Microsoft fanboys and open-source/free-software haters.
Even if that's true here -- and I'm not so sure it is -- why should that be reason to not do it? Is there some kind of "no Windows lusers allowed" requirement to have your software considered FOSS? Open source software tends to be cross-platform, so even Windows users can benefit from learning about it. Sure, some projects are BSD/Linix only, but there's also OS X-only or even even Windows-only open source software, too. Until recently, Open Broadcaster Software [obsproject.com] was Windows-only (it's cross-platform now), and it's GPL software, for example.
Slashdot is even worse: you can't post anything at all there about FOSS without getting tons of responses about how FOSS is all shit, MS software is the best, comments about RMS's hygiene, etc.
This isn't Slashdot. Why do you keep complaining about the behaviour and problems of Slashdot as justification for how things should be here?
Here's a better idea: take your weekly OSS plug and post it on the appropriate Reddit forum instead. You don't see a lot of FOSS haters on /r/linux, for instance.
Great idea, everybody should go post to an echo chamber instead of risking having anti-Linux taint touch the hallowed FOSS projects.
There are some really good projects out there that could use more exposure, and most of them don't care what OS you use. Bringing things like Krita [krita.org], Synfig Studio [synfig.org], Zim [zim-wiki.org], or any number of other free software projects to the attention of more people is a good thing.
There are also some interesting language projects like Mirah [mirah.org], Crystal [crystal-lang.org], and Red [red-lang.org] that might attract much-needed developers via the exposure. Why limit it to just Linux users?
Occasionally having non-portable stuff like niche window managers (Notion [sourceforge.net], for example), less-common shells (fish [fishshell.com]), or maybe even a review of a niche OS like Syllable [syllable.org] could be fun once in a while. Info about FOSS mobile apps could be useful to readers, too; f-droid is nice, but lacks screenshots or reviews, so it's hard to tell if something on it is good.
(For anybody interested: there you go, ten potential write-ups for this feature. Have fun)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 05 2015, @01:08AM
Even if that's true here -- and I'm not so sure it is -- why should that be reason to not do it? Is there some kind of "no Windows lusers allowed" requirement to have your software considered FOSS?
It has nothing to do with Windows users or FOSS software running on Windows (or Macs), it has to do with MS shills and sycophants who spend all their time bashing FOSS (regardless of what platform it runs on).
Why is this a problem? Simple: who wants to try to have a rational discussion in the presence of an overwhelming number of nasty, bashing messages? It becomes so tiresome that all the quality contributors simply leave.
This isn't Slashdot
It isn't much better. It's mostly the same crowd.
Great idea, everybody should go post to an echo chamber
Not wanting to see countless posts making fun of FOSS users and bashing FOSS as "amateur" is not what I consider an "echo chamber".
(Score: 2) by Marand on Tuesday May 05 2015, @02:51AM
it has to do with MS shills and sycophants who spend all their time bashing FOSS (regardless of what platform it runs on).
Why is this a problem? Simple: who wants to try to have a rational discussion in the presence of an overwhelming number of nasty, bashing messages? It becomes so tiresome that all the quality contributors simply leave
So, what, we're not supposed to discuss anything because somebody might start trolling? Don't feed the damn trolls, that's been internet rule #1 for a long time. Downmod the people. If it's the same people, set them to enemy and give enemies -6 so they're permanently in mod-hell for you.
For what it's worth, the only hardcore MS sycophant here seems to be Hairyfeet, at least that I've noticed. Though I wouldn't be surprised if a few anti-MS extremists here would count me as one -- despite not even using Windows -- because I'm more "meh, don't care" than "omg screw you" about MS these days. There is a fair share of AC trolling, but it seems to just be the same few people trolling for the hell of it, like the "systemd troll" and MikeeUSA.
If anything, the general tone here is heavily slanted toward Linux/BSDs and FOSS, rather than against. I've noticed that even saying something neutral about MS tends to attract downmods, and the responses to this summary have been overwhelmingly positive. I'm not sure where you're getting the impression you've got, but it seems way off base in my experience.
It isn't much better. It's mostly the same crowd.
I have to disagree. I still check Slashdot articles and the general discussion here, especially on topic overlap, is far more civil and generally more tolerant of dissenting opinion, at least on tech topics. The politics stories are a minefield, but they always are.
The big exception is MikeeUSA hovering around the edges, posting AC. He's doing it on Slashdot too -- I've seen the same posts show up in both places -- but gets drowned out by the volume of people there, whereas here he gets noticed more. He might be why you think there's a large "MS shill" problem here, actually, because he's got a personal vendetta against Debian and "contributes" to discussions by trashing it (and systemd, lately) any chance he gets.
Not wanting to see countless posts making fun of FOSS users and bashing FOSS as "amateur" is not what I consider an "echo chamber".
Suggesting talk of FOSS be restricted to FOSS-only sites and "appropriate" reddit forums because you "don't see a lot of FOSS haters" there is suggesting that discussion only be conducted in an echo chamber.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Monday May 04 2015, @05:42PM
This smells like sourceforge's project of the month/week. I like it. :)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by goodie on Monday May 04 2015, @06:01PM
I like this idea. It would be nice if the submission/discussion also included some concrete things that the project may lack and that SN users may be incited to contribute to. For instance, if I am told clearly that the priority for project X is ABC from its owner or somebody who is close to the project I'm more willing to see if I can help than if I have to read through the code and look for /* TODO: IMPLEMENT THIS SOMETIME */
This could be a good way to boost some projects that are in need of contributors.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Monday May 04 2015, @09:45PM
It might also be a good way to offer contributions to interesting projects, something that is not always obvious.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @08:32PM
A monthly schedule would be better to start with until we have enough in the queue and regular submissions of this type to know it won't burn-out.
Interviews or AskSoylent with the developers would be preferred.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday May 05 2015, @02:56AM
I like the idea of getting the developers more directly involved, but I think at least a few links to good quality reviews by third parties would also be good, and most importantly, start with a nice concise summary of what the software is, and why I might be interested in using it.
(Score: 1) by Drake_Edgewater on Monday May 04 2015, @08:57PM
Good idea! I fully support it.
As far as I remember, more people read SN from Monday to Friday than during the weekend. Therefore, I suggest to post these reviews every Friday, so I can procrastinate a bit before leaving work ;)
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 05 2015, @02:30AM
It's not like I can't fill the time with other things to read. If there's less to report. Then report less, it's simple and efficient. It's not like we have to keep a constant blabbering up.
The problem is indicated right here "promotion". It's pro something you didn't ask for. Like being informed of excellent cheese slicers when you looking for a wrench. The cheese slicers may be excellent. But also irrelevant and the sender will in most cases guess badly.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Tuesday May 05 2015, @05:57AM
Maybe SN should make use of sections (Slashcode obviously supports them; there's a field in the preferences devoted to them, that currently is rather useless); then people could just filter out the sort of stuff they don't want to see.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.