Tell HN: There are now FOSS/H alternatives to major BigTech products

1 points by iris-digital 159 days ago | 6 comments

It's been a difficult two decades for those of us who expect technology to respect our freedom and privacy. We have been so marginalized by the mobile revolution, that we'd nearly given up looking for options.

While commiserating recently, we realized that several important missing pieces of the puzzle have neatly dropped into place under our noses!

What are they? Oh, the Fairphone6 w/eOS, Furilabs FLX1s, Starlite tablet, new Framework laptops, OpenWRT One, and a number of others. Software options are plentiful as well, maybe even a bit too plentiful.

Of course, these products are not perfect. Right now you're probably counting their flaws, or about to post better alternatives. But we feel there's a better way to look at the situation. The long-term view is that these open, freedom, and privacy-respecting options are now good enough for the vast majority of folks, and they'll only get better (if further invested in).

(Not to mention, how about the daily tug-of-wars with Windows or dumbing-down of MacOS? Are those products perfect? No, and arguably getting worse as the screws are turned.)

TL;DR—A full suite of respectful, ethical products is available. The catch? One needs to wrangle dozens of products from almost as many companies. That's not gonna work; it's too complicated, even for geeks. Our first idea to tackle the issue is this:

- Build a united storefront, on something like shopify (easy).

- Get numerous vendors to let us sell, integrate, and support their products (probably hard). Anyone out there know how to build such relationships?

If we can help these products sell, they'll be further invested in, and we'll move forward even faster. Full details are at "The Ethical Computing Initiative," at https://aol.codeberg.page/eci/

- Product Status Page at: https://aol.codeberg.page/eci/status.html

JohnFen 159 days ago |

> it's too complicated, even for geeks

I could see it being too complicated for normal people, but for geeks? It's certainly not to complicated for me and my geek friends -- that's what we've been doing for years.

mixmastamyk 159 days ago | |

Hmm, well personally I prefer doing business with only a few companies. After a dozen or so I start to lose track. Not to mention my data is now spread out at many rinky-dink outfits instead of a single trustworthy place with an Apple-like product line.

Maybe suboptimal is a better word.

JohnFen 159 days ago | | |

I thought we were talking about FOSS here, though.

I don't "do business" with companies to use FOSS. Whether or not I interact with the devs, and whether or not I give them any data, is independent of my using the software. That disconnect is one of the huge advantages to FOSS.