Author here. I don't expect people to pay me for anything. My main motivation was (and still is) to just give back, since I profit from free information and software created by others as well. I fully expect this temporary increase in traffic to net exactly what it has netted before: almost nothing. And you know what? I'm fine with that. Donations are not the reason this little project exists.
What I am is struggling to make ends meet for some time. A new laptop is near the bottom of my priorities right now. Money will run out around the beginning of February. It makes me sad to read cynical comments like this. That's all I have to say.
May I recommend Berkeley Mono (https://berkeleygraphics.com/typefaces/berkeley-mono/). It's a paid font but well worth it, given you're spending hours every day looking at it. I have found it to be excellent for the shell and editors.
If the TLD didn’t already somewhat give it away, the fact that one of the panoramas is titled „Buero of David Sarif“ is just so very “German” – confidently using the entirely wrong expression.
That’s what I meant with digital services being a decade behind here. I attribute it to extreme conservatism to preserve jobs that aren’t in fact necessary. Bureaucracy is incapable of seeing beyond itself, just like so many other areas are as well.
I believe the author’s point to be that due to no English translation available, the already involved process in Germany becomes unnecessarily hard for a non-native speaker. As a native speaker I can attest to lots of gobbledygook official documents I had to deal with in my lifetime. The amount of paper you have to deal with when running a business is truly staggering.
Bureaucracy is indeed a rampant runaway force in Germany. Every attempt at reducing it will inevitably create more of it, because, in the bureaucratic mind, you now have to create an oversight committee to control the adherence to the decree of reduction.
I believe this to be a universal constant: you cannot task bureaucracy to with making itself superfluous. Digital services are a decade behind here, since most bureaucrats fight tooth and nail against them, for fear of losing their job.
I believe the main point to be the common thread of increasingly infantile behavior in all of society that appears to be amplified by Twitter’s “engagement” circus.
I thought we were discussing GitHub stars' correlation (or lack thereof) to donations. I don't see how usefulness for many people should be limited to software only. Anyway, I've said what I wanted to say.
You know, let them. Whatever I decide to share with the world, I do for reasons of giving back. If some grab, run and foul-mouth, that’s their issue.
The main idea of free culture is building on each other, not maximum extractive consumption. I believe the idea to be further ahead than our economic systems and accompanying incentives though.
I have done exactly this, after being fed up with GitHub. Surprising no one, if you set out to build the “social media but for code”, that’s what you get.
I’m using a combination of cgit, Gitolite and Nginx. Once set up, it’s easy to use and rock solid. Gitolite configures through a Git repository. I’m not going back.
Regarding your GitHub account, I suggest to simply replace the content you moved with a notice to the new URL and then archiving the repo, making interaction impossible. Even if you’re looking at deleting everything, maybe keep the account itself around, it’s free and you may need it later.
GitHub stars are a useless metric. It’s basically a bookmark count. If there was any correlation between them and donations, my combined projects of 35k+ stars should make me at least a couple of bucks each month.
Instead, lifetime total of ~7 years is ~300 EUR, which includes donations to a NGO I forwarded, which account for most of it.
Most people will not pay voluntarily for something they can get for free. That’s just how it is.
While it's certainly nice that those options exist, they are also entirely unsuitable for any kind of professional work. I assume the target user you're thinking of is looking to do some occasional, light-weight editing. And even this user will be frustrated with the irritating UI and workflow of software like (and in particular) The Gimp.
For me, it's close to unusable — and I am someone whose first computer was a TI44/4A. I'm a die-hard terminal shell user. Even Adobe Illustrator didn't really click for me. The Affinity suite made immediate sense.
There used to be a time when Apple hard- and software delighted me. It was expensive but the cost could be justified.
Today, Apple hardware gets ever more expensive while adding ever less value for me. With the recent push towards growing service revenue, I fear Apple is going to betray parts of their original DNA.
I usually never invoke this, but in this context it feels justified: this would have been impossible with Steve Jobs alive. He would have shut this shit down with a vengeance.
Despite being a capitalist with every fibre of his being, he knew where not to go, which line not to cross. If done anyway, in error, he reversed course immediately. I don’t see even a faint shadow of this in Tim Cook.
Thanks for the details, of which most I already figured. However, your response does not address the issue of solving content disappearing once the instance goes away. It doesn’t matter if the network itself is alive when the content itself can disappear at any time without warning.
If I am correct in this assessment, I can really see no upside besides minutiae regarding an illusion of control to established social media. In this regard, a website with a comment section would serve much the same purpose.
What I am is struggling to make ends meet for some time. A new laptop is near the bottom of my priorities right now. Money will run out around the beginning of February. It makes me sad to read cynical comments like this. That's all I have to say.