@knowprose@mastodon.social
@knowprose@mastodon.social avatar

knowprose

@knowprose@mastodon.social

Author, Writer, Software Engineer. Eclectic Interests... centered around technology and humanity. A neo-generalist who has a depth of knowledge on many topics, but not enough. It's never enough.

I like being wrong because I learn something.

Privacy advocate, human rights advocate, sensible technology advocate.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

andrew, to opensource
@andrew@esq.social avatar

I was thinking specifically of the Utils incident when I wrote this weeks column calling for an tax credit for developers.

“A 2024 Harvard study valued [open source software] at $8.8 trillion.

A software project may be initially undertaken by a single developer as a hobbyist project, but … maintenance and security updates require long-term commitments, often by an entire community of developers.”

@floss @law

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tax-insights-and-commentary/open-source-tax-credit-would-better-compensate-tech-developers

knowprose,
@knowprose@mastodon.social avatar

@andrew @floss @law it's not a bad idea. The trouble with tax credits is that you can't trade them in for pizza and beer.

It would be more helpful if entities using the project contributed directly. I have a friend doing a years long project... Maybe even a decade... Who has had to pitch in on dependencies he uses (sweat equity) because things have been abandoned.

I think your idea is a good first pass at the issue. Every project is different, as are all the developers involved.

knowprose,
@knowprose@mastodon.social avatar

@andrew @floss @law very true. However, it's important to remember that some projects aren't done by American developers.

Companies do have a habit of taking a FOSS project for granted. Good SCM, a staple of software engineering, should be an indicator to companies of their dependencies. It's unfortunate they aren't using that as much, apparently.

Definitely something to consider. We can solve parts.

knowprose,
@knowprose@mastodon.social avatar

@andrew @floss @law further thought: volunteers simply don't scale as fast as enterprise. Ever.

ErikJonker, to ai
@ErikJonker@mastodon.social avatar

Great article about the quest around data all the bigtech platforms need for their AI development. (giftlink)
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/technology/tech-giants-harvest-data-artificial-intelligence.html?unlocked_article_code=1.iU0._ftM.iQ4sm_o18rb3&smid=url-share

knowprose,
@knowprose@mastodon.social avatar

@ErikJonker the synthetic data is a bit troublesome. It's a very well written yet dense article. What it does hint at is what those tech companies agree on.

A bit troublesome, this future they hold by taking our past.

lauren, to mastodon
@lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org avatar

Matt Blaze, a respected computer scientist whom I've known pretty much forever, just told me to "Fck off" (without the '') and blocked me here on .

I think you may find the reason why interesting.

While I have frequently stood up for him when he's the subject of unfair comments of one sort of another, I still call issues as I see them.

Earlier today, without any prompting, Matt noted here that he just cancelled a bunch of reservations he'd made to help assure he could get a "cloud free" viewing experience of the eclipse.

In response to my comment that this seemed to be rather obnoxious behavior, given how tightly rooms have been booked, he suggested that people could just use the reservations now. I noted that not everyone can do last minute planning and sometimes it takes weeks for many to plan such trips.

He "apologized" for not meeting my "personal standards". I noted that I felt they were pretty basic standards and wondered how many reservations he had made.

At that point, he threw the invective and blocked me.

What's interesting here is that Matt openly made a point of publicly saying he had made multiple reservations only to cancel all but one. Why he made that post in the first place I can't imagine.

But I stand by my analysis of that post.

Just wanted you to know why I apparently won't be interacting with Matt any more here on Mastodon at least.

I welcome alternative points of view regarding this dialogue.

Best, -L

knowprose,
@knowprose@mastodon.social avatar

@lauren when a person tells you who they are, listen.

andrew, to ai
@andrew@esq.social avatar

I once again make the argument for an (don't call it a tax) to compensate society for the use of our collective creative works. is going to continue to argue that negotiating individual licensing agreements with creators is impossible -- and now, it probably is -- but let's not let them get off scot free because they moved quickly and infringed on things.

@law

https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewleahey/2024/04/05/licensing-fees-for-ai-training-data-is-impractical-ai-tax-is-workable/?sh=f6e2f49704ba

knowprose,
@knowprose@mastodon.social avatar

@andrew @law But which country collects the tax? That's the problem. Then there's a further issue of dependency on developing nations as well as nations of foreign languages, etc.

I mean, I like the idea in the broad strokes, but it doesn't really seem to scale globally.

dangillmor, (edited ) to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

Until the fediverse (Mastodon in particular) comes up with a workable "Share to Mastodon" (or the like) button like the ubiquitous Twitter, Facebook, etc. buttons, this place will be lacking a vital capability.

Update: The comments below indicate that there's a lot of progress in this area already.

knowprose,
@knowprose@mastodon.social avatar

@dangillmor I dunno. When they got added in it may have actually degraded things.

Copying and pasting a link is not hard and it is also hard enough where people are less likely to share crappy links.

"should I copy and paste a link? Is it worth the effort?"

VS.

Impulse sharing that is not unlike where you see the National Enquirer.

knowprose,
@knowprose@mastodon.social avatar

@shoq @dangillmor @actors exactly. Impulse sharing is a load.

sergio_101, to RaspberryPi

I have a #raspberrypi 5 coming in this week. I am going to be setting up an instance of #Mastodon on there.

I will have lots of room left.

I am gonna look at any other interesting #fediverse apps to run.

knowprose,
@knowprose@mastodon.social avatar

@sergio_101 I'm curious what you'll end up figuring out. Following. 🙂

knowprose,
@knowprose@mastodon.social avatar

@sergio_101 cool. I don't have dependable enough internet service to pull it off. It's a very interesting project!

knowprose,
@knowprose@mastodon.social avatar

@sergio_101 you could probably have the same cron job update the dns server automatically. It could message attempt, confirmation/failure.

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