I’m saddened to think that altruism in software has gone to the gutter

Yeah me too but it’s been a long time coming. Ubuntu started it decades ago by replacing the altruism* with a warm and fuzzy “sense of community” while exploiting the enthusiasm of largely unpaid coders, Google certainly has done this for a long while, and by now it’s just how you do your basic FOSS Kickstarter campaign.

All that really brings is “more customers”, and doG knows that’s not what the whole of GNU/Linux needs.

Over the years I have developed a sense for how projects present themselves before choosing one that suits my needs. Because the sane ones, both feet on the ground types, that do GPL and accept donations (or sometimes offer paid support), those still exist, old and new.

* a form of altruism btw that does not exclude egoism!

Ah, OK. No, of course not. I was thinking more about hobby developers.

But somebody else already pointed it out: MIT makes a project more attractive for investors. Follow the $£€

Maybe there could be another reason why people choose MIT to begin with:

When you start a new repo on github it makes suggestions which license to use, and I bet many people can’t be arsed to think about it and just accept what they’re offered. [My memory is a little patchy since I very rarely use github anymore, but I definitely remember something like this.] And maybe github tends to suggest MIT.

That said, please undestand that many, many git platforms exist and there is no reason at all to choose one of the two that actually have the word git in them.

getting rid of the gpl is the motivation behind e.g. companies sponsoring clang/llvm so hard right now

And there it is. Follow the money.

Avatar checks out.

we could modify the desktop environment and make it waaaaay lighter by getting rid of jpg or png icons and just using pure svg on it

That’s already happening.

You can also change the main color of many SVGs (icons or even desktop backgrounds) with one simple edit, one command, one click.

In web sites, you can assign CSS classes to SVG graphics and thus e.g. change their color according to a theme.

That’s my extent of fiddling with it.

IIRC they also use fonts the same way CSS/HTML does.

BTW, there are situations where an SVG is significantly larger than a corresponding raster image. It depends on the content.

Reddit was already a nieche social media platform.

was niche

Fuck Sam Altmann, the fartsniffer who convinced himself & a few other dumb people that his company really has the leverage to make such demands.

“Oh, but democracy!” - saying that in the US of 2025 is a whole 'nother kind of dumb.
Anyhow, you don’t give a single fuck about democracy, you’re just scared because a chinese company offers what you offer for a fraction of the price/resources.

Your scared for your government money and basically begging for one more handout “to save democracy”.

Yes, I’ve been listening to Ed Zitron.

You are a glass half full sort of person!