@Badri Sunderarajan ok that sounds good.

If you are happy with the current draft, open a poll. I think 1 or 2 weeks voting period is fine (we spend time on it during drafting already).

I'm a little confused - I'm able to edit this post? Is that supposed to be possible? 🤔

Anyway, @Pirate Praveen there were some parts where I wasn't sure what you meant, I hope I've deduced your intent correctly.

@fugata thread context is like a wiki, you can see edit history.

@Pirate Praveen that's cool! I didn't know that. Good design of Loomio 👍👍

We were discussing something similar at JoinJabber (for an XMPP based forum-like discussion room). Good to know the design idea has already been thought of and implemented in practice. Anyway, I will stop going off-topic now 🙃

@Badri Sunderarajan However, the author of that edited text is still the person who started the thread, unlike a wiki.

@Ravi Dwivedi yeah. Would be good if it could show multiple authors

It looks good. However, in the third challenge, I didn't understand who is relying on LLMs for what. I didn't understand the line:
> Reliance on data or other prerequisites that are impossible to procure

And how will FSCI fix that?

@Ravi Dwivedi LLMs need huge amount of data and computing power for training. LLMs like Microsoft's co pilot ignores Free Software licenses when gathering data. We can support projects like publicai.co that addresses some of the concerns (like bias/control from big corporations/proprietary algorithms - publicai.co uses Free Software and the infrastructure is managed as public good through collaboration between different entities). Though the concern about energy usage of these systems is still present.

I am not sure if manifestos cite examples in general, but some of the points do need examples to set the context if we intend to share it widely (later).

For example, I understand why Signal being centralized compromises software freedom (as in GNU's four freedoms) - if you modify the Signal client or make your own client, you cannot connect with the Signal server. That takes away the freedom to modify the software. But it may not be obvious to others.

Another example we can add is Fedora removing X11 support and shipping with Wayland only, without caring about artists such as Raghu. This can be helpful to illustrate developers ignoring users if the users are not part of the decision-making.

@Ravi Dwivedi A manifesto doesnt need to be elaborate. imo cyberpunk manifesto is a good reference point

@pirate king I couldn't make out which cyberpunk manifesto you meant. Is it this one?

https://gofoss.net/origins/a_cyberpunk_manifesto/

@Ravi Dwivedi I think it's okay to have the manifesto be general and give examples outside of the manifesto. Still a good idea to collect examples though.

The reason I'm saying not to keep them in the manifesto is that they could change and get outdated more, as well as not to bulk it up. But if we find examples that we think are stable maybe that's fine; I'm not sure as I haven't thought about it much. Will defer to others on that

@pirate king @Badri Sunderarajan I understand if we do not want to add examples to the manifesto. But we need to add them somewhere.

@Ravi Dwivedi agreed. Let's keep collecting ideas in the thread. We can later put them together and use them as material for explanations or even blog posts.

Actually, if people want to include examples in italics or at the bottom of the topic, maybe we can do that too. Having examples would help clarify what we want to put in the manifesto even if we aren't going to include the examples themselves. For example (🙃) with examples people might get a better idea and be able to suggest ways to rephrase some parts.

By the way, as mentioned elsewhere I am unable to contribute to this more concretely for a few days. When I'm back from Devsprint (this Saturday) I'll start going through this properly, now keeping examples in mind 🙂

@Badri Sunderarajan I see the manifesto already cites examples, such as Prav and DEPHCOM.

@Ravi Dwivedi the basic goal is for people to understand what we stand for, what we are against, other things are secondary - we don't necessarily have to follow a format, as long as we can effectively communicate our ideas clearly.

What do we stand for, what we are against might be a good addition to a manifesto.

Should I include Ubuntu under design? It is what made Linux installation simple for the masses a decade or two ago.

Also, does it make sense under platform dependency to include that besides being designed only for specific OSes they also tend to assume a certain amount of resources, etc.? Basically, no effort put into low resource usage due to the assumption that "devices are getting more powerful anyway" and maybe low-key encouraged by manufacturers wanting to sell more devices. Or maybe that should be a separate point, but I don't want to add too many points either 🤔

@Badri Sunderarajan What Ubuntu did differently was shipping free cds when internet bandwidth was costly. So people had access to the cds. No other distro could match Ubuntu in this aspect, so they had a huge advantage over other distros. This was possible because Mark Shuttleworth had that kind of money.

@Pirate Praveen besides that, didn't they also make the installation process easier by putting more work in the graphical installer and also the option to try out live CDs? I may be wrong as I didn't know much about other distros at the time but I remember hearing that Ubuntu helped bring Linux forward in terms of usability for non-technical users.

Some people still have a concept of Linux being "complicated" and "hard to use". This is because it was less intuitive in the past, though that is no longer the case.

@Badri Sunderarajan knoppix were making live cds much earlier than Ubuntu. They did make live installer and Unity. At that time Suse and Madriva also had good installers. (Unrelated to current topic, but about what they developed. They took everything from Debian, but kept a core component they wrote proprietary). Because Ubuntu got a fresh start and did not have the bad history of earlier distros - no one associated the issues already fixed by Debian with Ubuntu, but Debian still had those bad experiences associated with it. With free cds available, this was the most likely distro anyone could get their hands on without additional cost/effort. In my view, the biggest contribution of Ubuntu was making CDs available easily. It also had nice packaging compared to writing on plain moserbaer or sony cds. I started using GNU/Linux before Ubuntu started.

@Pirate Praveen so who was responsible for making desktop Linux easy to use (even without command line knowledge)? Was there one project primarily driving it forward or was it just a general movement by all the different projects?

@Badri Sunderarajan In my view, it was a shared effort between many projects - in my view Ubuntu's contribution was making sure people have access to the CDs, that was a significant contribution at that point in time.

Under locked-down hardware, I could point out that we are now at a point where a printer can refuse to run unless it connects to the Internet to make sure you haven't used your quota of ink (regardless of what is there in the cartridges) or a car can refuse to unlock its door because you didn't pay the subscription fee.

A developer from Collabora told me during the LibreOffice conference 2025 in Hungary that every new developer modifying software has to get used to the codebase from scratch. Let's say a developer takes up the task of adding a feature to the software. They may not be able to complete the task even after trying, and they don't know beforehand that they can do it. Therefore, the developer is taking a risk - if they are not able to add the feature, they won't get paid.

Furthermore, he told me that he himself would not take such a task of modifying a software as a one-time earning opportunity (as Prav or DEPHCOM advertise) due to the above-mentioned risk. Although, Prav does have dedicated developers for now who know the codebase, but what if a new entity wants to add a feature.

I asked how companies handle it, and he told me that the companies take the risk even if the developer could not do it. So, the developer gets their salary, and they are not worried that they won't get paid if they are not able to add a feature.

I asked them to share their concern with us, as they could have explained it better than me.

@Ravi Dwivedi this makes sense. Even I was (am) hesitant to contribute to Dino under a DEPHCON fund as I'm not confident of being able to do it in a reasonable amount of time. My solution was (will be) to try a smaller task first to get the hang of it and make sure I know the codebase, before I even try to commit to pushing the main task forward. This works for me as I'm reasonably sure that I will anyway want to contribute to Dino at some point.

@Badri Sunderarajan So, you are willing to take time to understand (get used to) Dino's codebase even if you do not get paid. And your case is different from someone like Softrate developing the custom username feature for Prav (as they are during it purely for funds).

But this is an overhead for every new entity trying to make a code contribution to Prav. I think discussing it in Prav channels would be better, as that project emphasizes this part of raising funds and hiring developers.

@Ravi Dwivedi exactly.

@Badri Sunderarajan What about having funds to understand the codebase😉

@Ravi Dwivedi This also depends on the software and the specific feature. Some features would be sufficiently independent or generic and may need modifying only part of the code base. Like we added Twilio v2 API support successfully, we rebranded Prav on both Android and iOS. People already develop such focused features as part of programs like Google Summer of Code and Outreachy.

@Ravi Dwivedi This point about time and risk in comprehending codebases is not spoken about enough.

I think the software components approach went nowhere, splintering between unused CORBA and proprietary COM, Blackbox, etc. although Blackbox was open-sourced later. Gnome Bonobo was free software but GUI-only, I guess. If free software gets built as software components, contributors would only need to comprehend the interface to implement.

@Badri Sunderarajan

"In other words, our evaluation of initiatives will be based not solely on technical merits, but also, to the extent appropriate, on the politics behind them and the community around them."

How does slightly rephrasing to the following sound?

In other words, our evaluation of technical merits of initiatives will include, to the extent appropriate, the politics behind them and the community around them. Conversely, we will articulate our own ideas, philosophies, and motivations on the projects we initiate.

@Akshay looks good; I've added it!

@Badri Sunderarajan how about changing

If we are present or bridged to such platforms, the primary goal should be to promote Free Software and decentralized replacements.

to

If we are present or bridged to such platforms, the primary goal should be to bring people to Free Software and decentralized replacements, this would involve limited promotion of proprietary platforms in our online presence like website or fedi handles. So proprietary presence should prominently advertise and encourage people to move to our preferred replacements, but our preferred channels should not advertise the proprietary options.

@Pirate Praveen I didn't write that section but it looks good so I have updated it (with minor changes)

Unfortunately, I summed up my thoughts in two sentences 😕

@Ravi Dwivedi then your vote is invalid! Please rephrase or expand to use three sentences.

You can try making the part in parentheses into a separate sentence.

@Badri Sunderarajan Recasted my vote.

I think the draft is finalised except for the LLM section which @fugata wanted to add to and which I also think needs to be clarified more. I've started a discussion on this in the group chat and will report back here on Thursday.