Please don't use epithets like this on HN, regardless of whether they're in the discussion here. The first words in the “In Comments” section of the guidelines are “Be Kind”. Please take care to do that in all comments on HN.
The guy asking if it's FOSS has never contributed to the project, I wouldn't read too much into it. Also, F-Droid uses Cloudflare and other non-FOSS stuff for mirrors, so I doubt they would care too much about their free monitoring not being FOSS.
> is it FOSS? I don't see any evidence that it is
Sounds like he thinks they said Oh Dear is FOSS but they just provide free accounts for Open Source projects.
Or is he talking about F-Droid?
F-Droid is on a free tier of an open core, but not fully FOSS product. A product that is publicly listed on the stock exchange, at that!
They're throwing stones in a glass house.
It's not like their purity gets them anywhere. Google is kicking open software (already hidden and scare walled) off their platform soon and nobody will have F-Droid without permission from Google.
It's better to be pragmatic and focus on the battles that matter. Like the one against Google.
ehh i think it's different when they're offering an otherwise paid service specifically for open-source projects. like Cloudflare with Project Alexandria
Being entirely based on FOSS is the #1 overarching priority of the entire F-Droid project and always has been. The person who blatantly didn't even bother to check the organization they're talking to, and offered up unsolicited spam for a pointless service... is the one engaging in snobbery.
I didn't know FDroid used entirely FOSS services. Strong disagree that when offering up something free to help with a problem that's clearly being had one must first do a deep dive on the org. This conversation could be as simple as "hey we like FDroid and would happily help support it by providing our service for free to make sure this doesn't happen again", "No thanks, we only use FOSS'.
I think for a service that hosts only FOSS mobile apps, it's a pretty reasonable goal to also try to host and monitor the service using only open source tools. They may not be able to be able to do that 100%, but it's fair to ask.
It's funny, because I had the opposite reaction: I found it a little bit distasteful that, while I'm sure the guy had a genuine desire to help, he's also using F-Droid's issue tracker as a means of advertising his product, as presumably there are other people who might see that issue report and have need for it, and become a paying customer.
(To be fair, this isn't brazen spam; the "ad" is targeted and offered in the spirit of help, and if they offer perpetual free usage for open source products, he's not trying to extract money from F-Droid. But still.)
> Why would you even both responding except to declare "I am better than thou?"
Maybe don't take the most uncharitable interpretation of something said by a random person on the internet who you don't know? Someone who at least has the bona-fide of volunteering their time to help keep a valuable open source project online? Perhaps the F-Droid project does actually have a stated policy of using open source hosting/monitoring tools, and he was genuinely asking in case he missed something, and would actually like to use that service if it is indeed open source.
I think it's pretty weird to assume good faith with the Oh Dear guy's advertisement, but assume the unpaid volunteer helping run F-Droid is a holier-than-thou prat. But hey, of course, capitalism and hustle are the most important things!
tomhow|6 months ago
Please don't use epithets like this on HN, regardless of whether they're in the discussion here. The first words in the “In Comments” section of the guidelines are “Be Kind”. Please take care to do that in all comments on HN.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
SillyUsername|6 months ago
avree|6 months ago
croes|6 months ago
tomsmeding|6 months ago
echelon|6 months ago
They're throwing stones in a glass house.
It's not like their purity gets them anywhere. Google is kicking open software (already hidden and scare walled) off their platform soon and nobody will have F-Droid without permission from Google.
It's better to be pragmatic and focus on the battles that matter. Like the one against Google.
unknown|6 months ago
[deleted]
bstsb|6 months ago
creatonez|6 months ago
Volundr|6 months ago
kelnos|6 months ago
It's funny, because I had the opposite reaction: I found it a little bit distasteful that, while I'm sure the guy had a genuine desire to help, he's also using F-Droid's issue tracker as a means of advertising his product, as presumably there are other people who might see that issue report and have need for it, and become a paying customer.
(To be fair, this isn't brazen spam; the "ad" is targeted and offered in the spirit of help, and if they offer perpetual free usage for open source products, he's not trying to extract money from F-Droid. But still.)
> Why would you even both responding except to declare "I am better than thou?"
Maybe don't take the most uncharitable interpretation of something said by a random person on the internet who you don't know? Someone who at least has the bona-fide of volunteering their time to help keep a valuable open source project online? Perhaps the F-Droid project does actually have a stated policy of using open source hosting/monitoring tools, and he was genuinely asking in case he missed something, and would actually like to use that service if it is indeed open source.
I think it's pretty weird to assume good faith with the Oh Dear guy's advertisement, but assume the unpaid volunteer helping run F-Droid is a holier-than-thou prat. But hey, of course, capitalism and hustle are the most important things!