ive been a huge advocate for free software when i was a young corvo, i remember being 17/18 and going crazy over the notion of free computing; the concept of true privacy has always fascinated me, not because i had something to hide but because i could create my very own safe space where i wouldnt be judged by people or by bigger entities. i vividly remember one time getting called off by stallman during one of his talks he did here in italy because i had a lumia smartphone (all i could afford at the time, it was a cheap lumia 520) and goddamn did it make me feel bad about it, mostly cause i knew i had a device made in collaboration with microsoft, of all companies. but its not like i had any alternatives back in the day. with time i lost that dedication, i started migrating my computing from fsf-approved gnu/linux distros to traditional gnu/linux distros up until i co-founded my startup and had to get a macbook which i still own and use every day. at the end of the day no one can escape the big 4s anymore, they have created a closed system where even if you are running a 100% free distro they can still get access to your data via social medias, heck even by just using a search engine: and no, duckduckgo is NOT a solution. it definitely is better than google, but it is still a shady company in my eyes. i just came to a conclusion that, if i wanted to be an actual functioning social life-having human being i had to comform, i had to get some social media accounts, i had to be part of the closed system but i tried to do it in a smart (dumb) way; that being trusting my data to one company: Apple. all my passwords, all my contacts, all my messages, computing, anything is powered by Apple products, thats cause i believe that its better to be tied to a single company rather than 10. i dont want microsoft to have access to my work documents, samsung to be able to read my messages, huawei to have access to my health informations. i would put my trust into a single company.
thats until yesterday when i found out about siri listening to private convos and Apple has now settled for a 95 million dollars fine. as a developer, i know it was probably just a bug, but still: im not so sure i can trust Apple with my data now. good thing is: it shouldnt be hard to move my digital life from a device to another, its all in their ecosystem and my original plan is working as intended — jump the ship when things smells bad. the bad thing is: i feel way too comfortable with the ecosystem to move on, ive also spent a huge amount of money on the products ive bought from them. it literally feels like im trapped in a golden cage.
and here is where free software falls flat: convenience. there isnt a SINGLE alternative to an apple ecosystem that is as easy to use and full-featured. if i wanted to sync my notes, have a cloud storage, continuity between devices, and so on so forth, id have to not only use different softwares to achieve that, but also set everything up; why would i trust my cat pics to a nextcloud provider of which i dont know nothing of? why would i spend hours setting everything up? why cant convenience and free software coexist?
as i said in a previous post, im tired of big companies, i find being on the internet exhausting. i do appreciate what the EU has done up until now to try and fix the situation, but they only made it worse in some cases (do we want to talk about the huge ass pop ups telling us to accept cookies?)
im gonna be 30 this september, ive been a professional developer for almost 9 years now and i think its time to try and contribute something to free software, to help it be more user-friendly and convenient — at least for the computers nerds like me who can work their way around software; targeting the average joe is no longer an available option, never was in the first place but its impossible nowadays.
i’ll be making announcements later this year.