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About the libre things
| Not even that, site hosting that has no pop ups to upgrade because it hasn't upgrades, it's just free. Free hosting, free software, and I'm not talking about theses that have a big red button "BUY PREMIUM", I'm talking about the ones that don't have any way to receive money. All theses devs really do it for fun?
| I think you fundamentally misunderstand the Free Software movement. Free/Libre Software is about providing computer users with the four essential freedoms as defined on https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
It's not about being free of charge. In fact, free software can be sold! There's also no reason for Free sites to not display ads, as long as they don't load malicious (non-free) Javascript. I encourage you to learn more about Free Software. I can explain more if you want.
| >>288166 People contribute money and time to these projects because they believe in them and use the projects, though fun also is one reason.
| Op here
>>288290 i think you're right, i misunderstood the term of libre software, but even after reading the philosophy i have the same question. Usually a dev writes a program and sells it as a piece of work, and i think it's normal. Here selling is not an option because of open source, only donating. But what mostly gives me questions it's all theses projects that are free, and without donations, and with so good quality it seems extremely fishy.
| >>288297 do really so much people make big free projects as a hobby? It seems so great that it seems very unbelievable.
| Companies depend on GNU/Linux and other important Free software. It's in their best interest to contribute back. But indeed there are also people who produce quality Free software for the community free of charge. You might want to look at Red Hat Inc. A billion dollar company specializing in providing FOSS to the enterprise. Oftentimes support, a service or hosting is "sold" instead of the software itself.
And yes OP, it's unbelievably great.
| Also as an example let's take KDE, that made a graphical interface, a lot of software, continued qupzilla as falkon, that's a big amount of work that need a big team. Did they get something in return? If not then for what they do all this? All this seems fishy for me....
| >>288302
>it seems extremely fishy
About that. Since free software grants freedom to study and examine the source code, "Free/Libre" malware is very rare. Certainly much less frequent than with proprietary ecosystems like Windows. Giving freedom to users naturally discourages developers from implementing malicous features.
| >>288307
KDE is a non-profit. It receives donations, sells merch and is sponsored by large companies, see https://www.kde.org/donations
| >>288306 billions dollar company, specializing in foss, i don't really get it
>>288309 in theory you're right, though in reality i don't really think someone really want to study all this... ehm.... But yes, you're right it should happen a lot less.
>>288311
Sponsored by companies? Merchs? So basically it's a team living on everything but not selling? It's... Interesting...
| But thanks for you replies >>f9e17c (and you>>4eb569) , after hearing this my hope for humanity returned :)
| >>288319
>redhat
https://www.redhat.com/en/about
Free software as you know is not developed by one entity. GNU/Linux for example has something like 5000 contributors all over the globe. Systemd has 1000. They at the same time are the ones who ofcourse study the source code, otherwise they couldn't work on it. As for KDE software, not everyone who contributes is a full-timer. It's a bit sad that some people distrust liberating system more than freedom denying, proprietary software.
| >>288334
After having paid software and software like avast that is "free", but in return you get every 5 minutes banners on half of the screen with a big button "upgrade", when discovering the FOSS it just seems unreal. This is why i started this thread. I'm glad i've got some answers. (Btw what libre antivirus would you recommend?)
| >>288348
>libre antivirus
I think there's ClamAV. But with systems such as GNU/Linux and BSDs there's rarely any need for an AV, since your package manager handles software from trusted repositories for you. On Free systems you just don't go to shady websites downloading .exes from random strangers. It's yet another huge benefit over the proprietary third party ecosystem Mac and Windows users are used to.
| >>288348
Actually I'd like to elaborate (or rant) on AVs a little bit more. Alot of them don't do jack shit. The most important thing they "sell" is a feeling. That is, feeling secure. Whether they actually protect you is questionable (since it's proprietary software). Computer Security just is not as easy as clicking a button and having everything nice and lit up green. It requires knowledge and responsibility to maintain a secure system.
| >>288355 i know that i shouldn't download minecraft from notascam.com but it's still better knowing that there's something that can help you out if something happens
| >>288363
I actually trust avtests (or maybe i shouldn't), that's all that can give me that feeling. But I guess you're right about the sad truth of the big green window...
| Open Source is not necessarily free. The source is available and to be taken, but the compiled binaries could well be a selling item. You can take xyz software sources for no charge but it is just normal if some entity charges for providing the same in binary form. Or of course, you just compile it yourself.
This said, it comes down to charging for services. It may be support, subscribed assistance, etc. Someone compiling the source as above, is also a service.
| seeing anything licensed with GPLv2, LGPL or any of the BSD licenses gets me rock hard tbh
| >getting rock hard from BSD licences.
I bet you also love blacked.com, are you?
| >>291477
The BSD license is more relaxed and permissive than the GNU license. In GNU, if you take some source code and modify it, or use it somewhere, you are obliged to give the result back as open source. With BSD there is no such thing, you can do whatever you want with the code.
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| So i lately found out about the libre/foss movement, and the point that I truly don't get is that normaly a site or something ""free"" exists on ads money, and non-free exists on collected money. How on earth can libre/foss live and why is there such a lot of fan art / weird sites with no ads nor collecting anything, so much 'free and open source software' and even games (shitty but still)????