🕘 December 2009: Maybe you were upgrading your computer to the new Windows 7, or checking out Ubuntu 9.10. Perhaps you were pouring all your free time into Valve’s ridiculously fun survival shooter Left 4 Dead 2. And maybe, just maybe, you were eagerly anticipating installing Thunderbird 3.0…

Step back into the Thunderbird Time Machine as Jason looks at what made this such a landmark release!

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/04/thunderbird-time-machine-thunderbird-3-0/

#FOSS #Thunderbird #Retro

Thunderbird Time Machine: Was Thunderbird 3.0 Worth The Wait?

After a 2-year development cycle, Thunderbird 3.0 finally released late 2009 with a bunch of new feature milestones. Was it worth the wait?

^{Jason Evangelho (The Thunderbird Blog)}

Do you work in open source? Do you think it has a funding problem? If so, please take my 10 minute survey at https://opensource.study. By participating, you can help provide an understanding of what has worked and what hasn’t in the ecosystem.

This survey is part of a research project at ASU and is completely voluntary. If you have any questions about participation, please reach out to me here.

#OpenSource #FOSS #OpenScience #OpenData #PublicInterestTech #FreeSoftware

My old e-reader had some problems and needed to be replaced. I ended up exploring the hell that is DRM (copy protection) on e-books and tried to break the restraints so I can read my own legally acquired books with FOSS software. I wrote a blog post on it that describes my frustrations (another ideological rant) but hopefully also helps others in a similar position with some practical guidance: https://proycon.anaproy.nl/posts/do-not-restrict-me/

#drm #defectivebydesign #ebooks #foss

Do not Restrict Me! How copy protection (DRM) on e-books harms our freedom and what to do about it

In this post I argue against copy protection (DRM) on e-books (and in general) and how it harms interoperability, software freedom, fair use and consumer privacy. I also show that DRM can be broken because the technology is defective by design.

^{Proycon's website}

#Audacity now provides "AI" effects to do a bunch of interesting stuff:

https://www.audacityteam.org/blog/openvino-ai-effects/

The Music Separation feature seems to be quite similar to what Deezer developed back in the days:

https://github.com/deezer/spleeter

I still haven't taken the time to try this yet, but having this feature baked directly in Audacity is really nice!

#FOSS #FLOSS #OpenVINO

GitHub - deezer/spleeter: Deezer source separation library including pretrained models.

Deezer source separation library including pretrained models. - GitHub - deezer/spleeter: Deezer source separation library including pretrained models.

^GitHub

“Monopolistic centralized video platforms can only be sustained by surveillance capitalism.

We wanted small groups (…) to be able to afford to emancipate themselves from Big Tech’s platforms (…). We needed to develop a tool to democratize videohosting, so it had to be designed with radically different values in mind.

And that is what we did. We build PeerTube to empower people, not databases or shareholders.”

Brilliant article! 😍

https://framablog.org/2023/12/12/mobile-app-redesign-new-dev-promotion-lets-build-a-bright-future-for-peertube/

#FLOSS #FOSS #PeerTube

Mobile App, redesign, new dev, promotion… let’s build a bright future for PeerTube !

Developing an ethical and emancipating alternative to YouTube, Twitch or Vimeo without Surveillance Capitalism's means is a huge undertaking. Especially for a small French not-for-profit that...

^Framablog