I mean, "interesting" but still autocratic. His old ideas were nonsense too; unworkable teenage thought experiments dressed up as serious proposals. His new work just happens to be internally inconsistent as well as bad in all the other ways it always was.
This is broadly a good thing: it will lead to more competition and a more vibrant, diverse internet with a wider array of choices. It does, of course, suck for the companies that are used to being near-monopolies.
Which is not to say that the tariffs are a good thing at all, of course. But if it encourages international communities to build their own stacks and add them to the marketplace, that's a really strong silver lining in my mind.
This adds a nice publish-subscribe model to RSS. Ping the WebSub server when there are changes; subscribing services are easily notified; nobody has to worry about excessive polling. Hooray.
The actual term for a "discovery writer" is a "pantster" - i.e., you're writing by the seat of your pants - and I think that's a reasonable term to adopt here too.
Confession: I'm a pantster in writing both code and prose. In both cases, coming back and writing a spec (an eng spec in the case of code, a synopsis in the case of prose) is a reasonable thing to do. Structure is good, but the point is that it shouldn't get in the way of actually getting started and making some progress.
In what way did what Musk did with Twitter-now-X not work? He bought the platform with the intent to open up the window of allowed discourse to that allowed by the law instead of that demanded by the ideology of the platform owners. This mostly succeeded, the level of censorship on the platform has been radically reduced. You may not like the result because you happened to be ideologically aligned with the previous platform owners but that does not make it invalid, it just means the platform no longer shields you from those who walk different paths.
Does this mean X is a good place to frequent? No, it does not, just like Twitter wasn't a good place to frequent. I only ever used Twitter passively and I only ever use X in the same way. I do not post and I have no interest in doing so, I do however like that X now allows different viewpoints. While I do not like the increased amount of spam, shitposts, crypto scams and other nuisances which came with the opening up of the platform I see this as a temporary problem which can be solved just like spam on email no longer is a problem - I have been self-hosting my mail since the early 90's and saw the rise of spam as well as its current defeat (which may be temporary due to the ascent of generative AI but that is another story for another time) on my own server.
So, yes, X mostly works, at least for me. I only use it by following links in articles, I never use the site directly, only through a self-hosted Nitter [1] instance, I do not log in nor do I respond to anything. Maybe things are different for those who live on the platform but... maybe that is not a good thing to do anyway?
Twitter was trying make money, X is doing much worse at that than Twitter was. Musk may not care about that and may be fine with the significant drop in valuation since his purchase (he may have had other goals).
Is it the case that we want the government to become much less effective at current goals, with the possibility that it transforms to effectively serve other goals? Of course if you just say that the government is bad, it's easy to argue that making it less effective is good, but "it's bad and needs to change" is not an articulation of an interesting argument.
If 'making money' was the objective Twitter was definitely on the wrong path with its radically oversized and underworked staff but let's make one thing clear: it is definitely not making money which is the first measurement to track - that may come later but for now the objective is to make the place live up to its supposed intended purpose of being the 'town square' where everyone can put up posters and notes. Twitter resembled a college campus where any poster or note not abiding to the desired narrative was quickly pulled down or pasted over. Current X is closer to a town square which just so happens to be situated right next to a number of schools with rowdy pupils with an ample supply of posters and buckets of glue. They're half-way there, now they need to keep the shitposters and spammers in check somehow without falling in the same trap that so many other places - this one often among them - have succumbed to: they need to keep the window of allowed discourse as wide as possible while keeping the place navigable. If you've read books like Snow Crash or e.g. Otherland you'll have come across descriptions of 'online markets' where the unprepared visitor is bombarded from all sides by hawkers peddling their goods. The solution to that problem always ends up being some form of 'client-side filtering', i.e. just like what is keeping e-mail useable through the onslaught of spam. Whether this ends up being done through some form of browser extension or a proxy like Nitter (which I use) remains to be seen.
To come back to your original premise it also remains to be seen how X can end up with a sustainable business model. The same was true for Twitter so this is not a new thing. There is an organised advertising boycott against X which was spearheaded by those who are angry that what they considered to be "their" medium was opened up to the "bitter clingers, garbage, deplorables and irredeemables* (to use but a few of the terms bandied about by the old guard when referring to those who do not abide by their ideology) which will eventually peter out so that is one of the potential avenues. Additional revenue streams may be found by extending X - which in itself is a rather simple and low-bandwidth service - with features like video streaming etc.
Will I use such a service? Most likely not, I never used Twitter and I do not use X since I dislike the format. I also prefer decentralised services over centralised ones so I self-host nearly all services I use. Why then do I not support 'Twitter alternatives' like Mastodon or Threads over X? Threads is connected to Metafacebook which I shun like the plague so that is out just like any other service run by that abomination is. Mastodon is a collection of fiefdoms run by petty tyrants who wield the ban hammer like the old Twitter regime dreamed they could do. I do self-host a number of 'fediverse' services (Peertube, Pleroma, Pixelfed, Lemmy - only Peertube sees any real use, the rest is purely experimental) but I do not see these as alternatives due to their limited reach:
person A posts something on fediverse site B which will never be seen by those who use fediverse site C since that site is run by a petty tyrant who bans everyone on fediverse site B because that site *did not ban* fediverse site D where someone once posted something which the petty tyrant running fediverse site B does not like.
My premise was more that success is in the eye of the beholder.
For example, if the transformed government were to fail to reasonably protect the Great Lakes from contamination with industrial byproducts, I would consider the transformation a failure and a bad outcome.
I think comparisons work best when the goalposts remain in place. My response was to the rhetorical question Is this person under the impression somehow that what Elon did to Twitter _did_ work, not whether Musk's strategy will make money or keep the Great Lakes free from contamination or whatever other comparison can be made. Musk set out to 'free' Twitter, seemingly convinced this was necessary when the satirical Babylon Bee was banned and seems to have achieved that purpose. The future will tell us if X remains viable after the advertising boycott finally peters out - probably quite soon given the current zeitgeist.
ProPublica | Senior Engineer, Web and Publishing Products | Remote (US only) | Full-time
ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.
We're looking for a full-stack senior product engineer to lead work on our publishing systems and core website. The right candidate will believe in our mission and thrive in a multifaceted role, contributing both to the long-term product road map and to hands-on development. Our CMS is PHP-based but we extensively use Python and Typescript across our internal systems.
Also, you'll be helping to speak against abuses of power and potentially protecting our democracy. Feeling good about that is a prerequisite to taking the position.
I've built two open source startups, totaling a decade of my life. Take it from me: the only way to do this sustainably is open core.
That means you make the core software open, but you sell the features that businesses will pay for or that allow other people to make money. Think of it as two distinct products for two distinct userbases.
In effect, the open source software becomes lead gen; the closed software is your actual business. They're both integral, and obviously feed into each other, but most of your open source users will never, ever be customers.
How do you handle contributions to the open core? Do you require a CLA?
I've been wondering about this for a project of mine. If one goes for an AGPL license but offers a commercial license for those that can't comply then a CLA is necessary from any contributors.
Odoo is ERP/CRM software that comes to mind when open core is mentioned.
PS Also look into Cesium, they approached it in a smart way as well, by offering a web services tightly coupled wity, but optional from their open source product.
No it doesn't. If you're the sole copyright holder of the code (e.g. it's a project you did by yourself), you can do what you want with it, including switching to a proprietary license. You can't retroactively un-GPL any copies that other people already have, of course, and it probably would look bad to take away older GPL versions from your GitHub page or wherever they're hosted, but you absolutely can make all new versions proprietary if you want.
> You can't retroactively un-GPL any copies that other people already have
That's what I meant when I said that you can't revoke the GPL. Of course with new versions you have more freedom, but what was relased under the GPL remains available under the GPL.
> but what was relased under the GPL remains available under the GPL.
Not necessarily. The copyright holder only has to provide source to those who got it from them under a GPL license. Others may not be able to get a copy, as those who can ask you for it aren’t obliged to give it to them on request (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIDemandACopy)
There also is the issue as to what happens when a license holder dies or is dissolved. I think that’s a gray area. Let’s say company Foo releases a product with a GPL license and later goes bankrupt. If Bar buys the source code from the bankrupt company, I don’t see how they would have to release it under the GPL, or should legally be obliged have to give the source code to those who got a license from Foo, and Foo can’t provide it anymore, as it doesn’t exist.
Similarly, if you only give (or sell) your GPL-licensed software to an individual who later dies, does their estate inherit the right to ask you for the source code?
>> > but what was relased under the GPL remains available under the GPL.
perhaps, in line with what you are saying, t would be better to express this as;
"but what was obtained under the GPL remains obtained under the GPL."
In other words, at a moment in time, a user can request the source of the (GPL) product they are using. They have rights and obligations for that code as it exists then.
It does not give them a right to any later versions of that code. And it does not allow the author to retroactively "deny" the rights they have.
One of the rights they have is to publish that code. (more accurately they can publish something based on the code, and hence by extension pass on the code to more users.)
Nothing says the original author as to keep the GPL version in any kind of public place. And the original author (assuming he has 100% copyright) can of course build on that code himself, and release the new code (or indeed the same code) under a different license.
>The copyright holder only has to provide source to those who got it from them under a GPL license. Others may not be able to get a copy, as those who can ask you for it aren’t obliged to give it to them on request
That's true, but if the software is at all widely distributed, then there's lots of people who have a copy theoretically, and any one of them could distribute their copy. So, in practice, once the cat is out of the bag, it's very hard to get it back in. But if the copyright holder changes the license (even on older versions) and no one still has a copy of those older GPL-licensed versions (or isn't willing to send a copy), then sure, in effect the copyright holder could retroactively un-GPL the whole thing.
You provided some interesting points. But now this discussion is going off-rails, as the potential issues you pointed at don't seem relevant in the case discussed here.
Then that code is under the new license. Yes, you can still use the first version under GPL license. But nothing stops me from granting a new license in addition to GPL. Remember GPL is only a license. It doesnt take away the underlying ownership to the IP. It becomes more problematic of course if the first version isnt 100% written by me. Then I would need any contributors permissions too.
For example, multiple studies have shown that in communities that aren't addressed by a robust local news outlet, local corruption goes up. Having a good newsroom _does_ improve an understanding of what your representatives are up to, and a lack of information _does_ allow them to get up to more behind our backs.
I think the biggest failure of this piece is to make all news equivalent. Yes, cable news is junk; yes, many of the corporate newsrooms that churn out hundreds of articles a day are junk. They use engagement as a metric for success rather than finding ways to align themselves with impact and creating an informed, empowered electorate. That last thing - an informed, empowered electorate - is what it's all about.
Real journalism that is diligently undertaken in the public interest does make a real difference. (Should we know whether Clarence Thomas was taking corrupt bribes? Yes. Should we know how climate change is progressing? Yes. Should we know if the police are killing innocent people? Yes. Should we know that the police at the Uvalde school shooting hung around for over an hour doing nothing? Yes.) Telling people not to pay attention to the world around them results in an electorate who cannot meaningfully vote on real issues.
For those of us who build software, we need to know the factors that impact the lives of the people we're serving. We need to know the trends in the marketplaces and communities where we show up. The news is good for that, too.
Turn off cable news; pay more attention to non-profit news; go for long-form written journalism. Stay informed.
It's absolutely true that we take a psychic hit for doing so. I'd say that's more to do with the world than it is the media overall. Perhaps we should spend more time trying to make it better?
We all have foreign policies. For example, in the US, our government is heavily involved in Gaza and Ukraine. It's far away, but it's also highly relevant to how our representatives work on our behalf.
Should we give aid to other countries? How should we think about global society? Those things are all relevant, too.
That's the relevant differentiation here. Local news are practically relevant and lack the potential for mental abuse that is found with inter/national events and news.
