My current terminal emulator is Alacritty. One thing I would like is a way to change the colours while the terminal is running. The only way to do so is the edit the configuration file, but doing so by hand can be annoying. There are some scripts out there that let you do it automatically, but all that I have found rely on bloated stuff like having Node.js installed. We can do better by using just what we already have on Unix out of the box.
Free Software is software which respects the user’s freedom. The Four Freedoms ensure that users can run the program for any purpose, study the source code, modify the source, share the software and share modifications of the software. However, what if you are not a programmer? Does this mean Free Software only adds value to people who know how to program, and if you are a non-programmer you might as well use proprietary software? Is it all just the same then? No. In this post I will try to illustrate why Free Software matters even to non-programmers.
Recently Unity announced changes to their pricing model (archive) which have been very poorly received by their users, to put it gently. They have since backtracked (archive2) somewhat, but at this point it would not matter even if they completely scrapped their plans and went back to how things used to be. The trust has been broken and many game developers are waking up to the fact that Unity is effectively holding their project hostage. Switching from one engine to another is akin to a full rewrite, and depending on the size and progress of the project porting might not be a feasible thing to do.
Today FUTO released an application called Grayjay for Android-based mobile phones. Louis Rossmann introduced the application in a video (YouTube link). Grayjay as an application is very promising, but there is one point I take issue with: Grayjay is not an Open Source application. In the video Louis explains FUTO’s reason behind the custom license, and while I do agree with their reason, I strong disagree with their method. In this post I will explain what Open Source means, how Grayjay does not meet the criteria, why this is an issue, and how it can be solved.
I had moved off GitHub back before it was cool, but recently more and more Free and Open Source projects have been migrating off GitHub as well, and with how much of a shitshow the entire service has become I cannot see why anyone would trust the platform at all anymore. Actually no, I do know one reason: its user base. Pretty much everyone is on GitHub. For all its flaws, GitHub is still solving this one major social problem. I am here to give you the good news that you can get the best of both worlds: move off GitHub and still benefit from its social inertia.