For the past couple of weeks, a community of developers who use the programming language Ruby have been closely following a dramatic change in ownership of some of the most essential tools in its ecosystem with far reaching impacts for the worldwide web.
If you’re not familiar with Ruby or the open source development community, you probably haven’t heard about any of this, but the tools in question serve as critical infrastructure for gigantic internet services like GitHub, Shopify, and others, so any disruption to them would be catastrophic to those companies, their users, and vast swaths of the internet.
On September 19, Ruby Central, a nonprofit organization that manages RubyGems.org, a platform for sharing Ruby code and libraries, asserted control over several GitHub repositories for Ruby Gems as well as other critical Ruby open source projects that the rest of the Ruby development community relies on. A group of open source developers who had contributed to those projects and maintained them for years had their permissions suddenly revoked. When these developers announced on social media that their access was taken away, many Ruby developers saw the decision as a betrayal of their years-long contributions to the Ruby ecosystem and open source principles more generally. Others accused Ruby Central of succumbing to corporate pressure from companies like Shopify, which they claimed wanted more control over the project.
In some ways, this whole affair is an example of why this stuff gets really messy when people start getting paid
I’ve spent the last week talking to people who had direct involvement with Ruby Central’s decision, the contributors who were ousted, and developers in the Ruby community. I’ve heard accusations of greed, toxic personalities, and stories about years-long feuds between people, at times in open disagreement, who ultimately govern some of these important open source tools.
RubyGems.org and other critical Ruby tools have so far not been interrupted during this transition, but the incident sheds light on a basic truth about the internet and open source development: Much of the technology we use every day and take for granted is being maintained by a small number of developers who are not compensated for that work or get paid very little when compared to salaries at big tech companies. Open source development continues to make much of the internet possible, but as some of these tools become more important and financially valuable, they’re subject to more scrutiny and pressure from the community, organizations, and companies that rely on them.
“In some ways, this whole affair is an example of why this stuff gets really messy when people start getting paid, and once you start introducing formal organizations and employees and nonprofits and lawyers and all this kind of complexity,” Mike McQuaid, developer of the popular package manager Homebrew, which is built with Ruby, told me. McQuaid has talked to and offered to mediate between Ruby Central and the ousted maintainers. “This is a textbook case of what happens when there's this conflict between what companies want, what nonprofit individuals want, how much responsibility people have when they take money, who gets control and when. How much democracy versus just ‘I have the power to do something, therefore I'm going to do it.’”
With Ruby developers can download and use self-contained packages of code that add different functionalities to a Ruby project. These packages are called gems, and are distributed primarily via RubyGems.org, where developers can upload gems they’ve developed or download gems from other developers.
The ability to download gems and plug them into different projects is very useful and convenient for Ruby developers, but can create complications. Different gems are developed by different teams and are updated at different times with bug fixes and new features, and might not necessarily be compatible or play well with one another as they evolve.
This is where Bundler comes in. As its website explains, “Bundler provides a consistent environment for Ruby projects by tracking and installing the exact gems and versions that are needed.” So, for example, if a developer is building a Ruby project and wants to use gems X, Y, and Z, Bundler will pull the versions of those gems that are compatible with one another, providing developers an easy solution for what Bundler describes as “dependency hell.”
Bundler is an open source project that was initially developed by Yehuda Katz, but the GitHub repository for the project was created and was administrated by André Arko. In 2015, Arko also founded a nonprofit trade organization named Ruby Together, which raised funds from developers and companies that use Ruby in order to maintain Bundler and other open source tools.
I will not mince words here: This was a hostile takeover
RubyGems.org, the site and service, is governed by Ruby Central, a nonprofit founded in 2001, which also organizes several Ruby conferences like RubyConf and RailsConf. In 2022, Arko’s Ruby Together and Ruby Central merged, “uniting the Ruby community’s leading events and infrastructure under one roof,” according to Ruby Central’s site. Bundler’s and RubyGems.org’s work often overlapped both in their goals and the developers who worked on them, but operated across two different GitHub organizations, each with its own repositories. To streamline development of these open source projects, Bundler also joined the Ruby Gems GitHub organization in 2022.
In 2023, Ruby Central established the Open Source Software Committee, which according to its site oversees RubyGems, Bundler, and RubyGems.org, focusing on infrastructure stability, security, and sustainability.
A confusing and central point of disagreement between Ruby Central and the maintainers it ousted on September 19 is rooted in the merging of Ruby Together and Ruby Central and the difference between Rubygems.org the service, essentially an implementation of the Ruby Gems codebase on an AWS instance, which both parties agree Ruby Central owns and operates, and the Ruby Gems the codebase that lives in the same GitHub organization as Bundler.
According to a recording of a mid-September Zoom meeting which I obtained between Marty Haught, Ruby Central’s Director of Open Source, Arko, and the other ousted contributors, Ruby Central maintains that the codebase and GitHub organization became its responsibility when Ruby Central merged with Ruby Together in 2022. The ousted contributors’ position is that members of Ruby Central, like Haught, can be owners of the GitHub organization, but that ownership of the RubyGems codebase and other projects in the GitHub organization belong to the contributors, who don’t have a detailed governance model but historically have governed by consensus.
Arko made this argument to me in a recent interview, but also outlined that argument in a blog post, where he also shared the merger agreement between Ruby Central and Ruby Together. It shows that Ruby Together would dissolve and that Ruby Central would be in charge of raising and allocating funds for development, but does not explicitly say Ruby Central takes ownership of the RubyGems and Bundler projects or the GitHub organization.
To make matters even more complicated, Arko was at once a contributor to these open source projects, a contributor to RubyGems.org the service, an owner of the GitHub organization, and an advisor to Ruby Central’s Open Source Software Committee.
In May, Arko resigned his position as an advisor to Ruby Central’s Open Source Software Committee, but continued his work as a contributor. Arko told me he resigned his advisory role because of Ruby Central’s last minute invitation of David Heinemeier Hansson, better known online as DHH, as a keynote speaker at RailsConf.
Arko told me he objected to that decision because of DHH’s “horrifying, racist, misogynist, politics” and DHH’s “personal vendetta” against him. In 2021, back at Motherboard, we reported that many employees at DHH’s company, Basecamp, quit afterhis decision to ban any discussion of politics at work, which many employees saw as squashing discussion about race, bias, and diversity. Arko told me that DHH’s “personal vendetta” against him stemmed from Arko not wanting to support a certain feature DHH wanted added to Bundler, after which DHH demanded Arko be removed from the Ruby Together board.
The current controversy erupted on social media on September 19, when one contributor to the open source projects in the RubyGems and Bundler GitHub organization, Ellen Dash, announced that Haught, Ruby Central’s Director of Open Source, revoked GitHub organization membership for all admins on the RubyGems, Bundler, and RubyGems.org maintainer teams. At that moment, their permissions and access to the GitHub organization were revoked, meaning they could no longer make any changes or contributions to the code, and Haught, representing Ruby Central, took control.
“I will not mince words here: This was a hostile takeover,” Dash said in a public “goodbye” letter they shared online. “I consider Ruby Central’s behavior a threat to the Ruby community as a whole. The forceful removal of those who maintained RubyGems and Bundler for over a decade is inherently a hostile action. Ruby Central crossed a line by doing this.”
The news was seen by many developers in the Ruby and open source community as betraying the dedication and labor that Dash, Arko, and other maintainers put into these tools for years.
Ruby Central, meanwhile, describes the move as one centered around security.
“With the recent increase of software supply chain attacks, we are taking proactive steps to safeguard the Ruby gem ecosystem end-to-end,” Ruby Central said in an explanation of its decision. “To strengthen supply chain security, we are taking important steps to ensure that administrative access to the RubyGems.org, RubyGems, and Bundler is securely managed. This includes both our production systems and GitHub repositories. In the near term we will temporarily hold administrative access to these projects while we finalize new policies that limit commit and organization access rights. This decision was made and approved by the Ruby Central Board as part of our fiduciary responsibility. In the interim, we have a strong on-call rotation in place to ensure continuity and reliability while we advance this work. These changes are designed to protect critical infrastructure that power the Ruby ecosystem, whether you are a developer downloading gems to your local machine [or] a small or large team who rely on the safety and availability of these tools.”
404 Media has covered the kind of recent supply chain attackstargeting open source projects that Ruby Central is referring to. Earlier this month, a critical JavaScript development tool Node Package Manager (NPM), was targeted by a similar supply chain attack. But not everyone in the Ruby development community bought the explanation that security was at the heart of the recent moves. One reason for that is a public statement from a Ruby Central board member and treasurer Freedom Dumlao.
On Substack, Dumlao apologized for the sudden change and how it was communicated.
“If Ruby Central made a critical mistake, it's here,” he wrote. “Could these conversations have been happening in public? Could the concerns we were hearing from companies, users and sponsors have been made more apparent? Probably. But I remind you we don't have a ‘communications team’, no real PR mechanism, we are all just engineers who (like many of you I'm sure) go heads down on a problem until it's solved.”
Dumlao reiterated that RubyGems and Bundler are critical infrastructure that are now increasingly under the threat of supply chain attacks, and said that the companies that rely on them “count” on Ruby Central do everything it can to keep them and their users safe.
However, Dumlao also said that Ruby Central was under “deadline” to make this change.
“Either Ruby Central puts controls in place to ensure the safety and stability of the infrastructure we are responsible for, or lose the funding that we use to keep those things online and going,” Dumlao wrote.
In a September 22 video message in response to criticism about its decision to remove maintainers, Ruby Central’s executive director Shan Cureton described a similar dynamic. She said “sponsors and companies who depend on Ruby tooling came to us with supply chain concerns” and that “Our funding and sponsorships are directly tied to our ability to demonstrate strong operational standards. Without those standards in place, it becomes harder to secure the support needed to keep maintainers paid, organize events, and provide resources for developers at every stage of their journey.”
Since Shopify is one of the primary sponsors and funders of Ruby Central, this led some in the Ruby community to believe that Shopify was exerting pressure on Ruby Central to make this change.
“That is not how it happened, and I wish I had been more careful with my wording in that blog post,” Dumlao told me in a Linkedin message when I asked him if Ruby Central was under pressure from Shopify to make these changes.
I just don't think that there's any other plausible explanation than Shopify demanded this.
After I gave Dumlao my number so we could do a phone interview, I got an email from Cindi Sutera, who was recently brought on as a spokesperson for Ruby Central.
"Ruby Central’s mission is to keep the infrastructure that Rubyists rely on stable, safe, and trustworthy,” she told me. “As part of a routine review following organizational changes, we identified a small number of accounts whose privileges no longer matched current role requirements. The Board voted that it was imperative to align access with our privilege policy to keep the infrastructure that the Ruby community depends on stable. This is our mission.”
Sutera said that the board approved “a temporary administrative hold on certain elevated permissions” while it finalized operator agreements and governance roles.
“To move quickly and transparently, we imposed a clear deadline to complete operator agreements and close gaps,” she said. “We could have communicated earlier that we felt it necessary to move quickly and wish we could have given the community more time to prepare for this action. And now, here we are committed to completing this transition for the stability and security of the Ruby Gems supply chain. More updates are coming as we work through security protocols and stabilization efforts.”
“There’s literally only one company providing the money that is keeping Ruby Central open, and it is Shopify,” Arko told me. “And so I just don't think that there's any other plausible explanation than Shopify demanded this.”
When I asked Arko why he thought Ruby Central removed him, if it wasn’t for security reasons, Arko said: “totally unprovable speculation is Shopify’s CEO is best friends with DHH, who hates me.” DHH is also a Shopify board member.
“Thanks for the invitation, but not my place to weigh in a lot on this while they're working through these changes,” DHH told me in an email when reached for comment. “But I support them taking steps to secure and professionalize the supply chain work they're doing.”
Shopify did not reply to a request for comment.
As this episode spread on social media, I talked to several people associated with Ruby Central who told me the board was acting in the interest of the RubyGems and the Ruby community. Two sources who asked for anonymity for fear of retaliation said that Arko was difficult to work with, questioned how he used funds raised by Ruby Together, and claimed that a new Ruby version manager he’s working on, rv, means he has a conflict of interest with his work on RubyGems and Bundler.
Arko acknowledged to me he heard he’s been difficult to work with in the past. He said that sometimes he’s been able to reach out to people directly and resolve any issues, and that sometimes he hasn’t. He rejected the other allegations, and said that Ruby Together’s financials have always been public.
“It has always been fully public, and the amount has been fixed at $150 an hour for 10 years,” he said, referring to the amount contributors got paid to work on Bundler. Arko added that nobody has ever been paid for more than 20 hours a week, and that the most he’s been able to raise in a single year is $300,000 to pay eight different contributors. “Nobody has gotten a raise for 10 years.”
"As a matter of policy, we don’t discuss individual personnel,” Sutera, the Ruby Central spokesperson, said when I asked if Arko was removed from the GitHub organization because of his previous behavior. “Our recent actions were organization-wide governance measures aimed at aligning access with policy. Our priority is maintaining a stable and secure Ruby Gems supply chain."
McQuaid, the developer of Homebrew and who followed the controversy, told me that even Arko’s harshest critics wouldn’t deny the contributions he’s made to the Ruby community over the years.
Regarding Arko’s blog post about his removal, McQuaid told me it’s good that Arko is crediting other people for their contribution and that he’s following open source principles of community and transparency, but that “his ‘transparency’ here has been selective to things that benefit him/his narrative, he seems unwilling or unable to admit that he failed as a leader in being unwilling or unable to introduce a formal governance process long before this all went down or appoint a meaningful successor and step down amicably.”
The fundamental disagreement here is about who “owns” the GitHub organization that houses Bundler and RubyGems. Technically, Ruby Central was able to assert control because Hiroshi Shibata, a member of the Ruby core team and one of the contributors who has owner-level permissions on the GitHub, made Haught, who revoked the others’ access, an owner as well. Any owner can add or remove any other owner, but when Ruby Central’s board voted to make this change Haught acted immediately and removed Arko, Dash, and others.
However, Arko fundamentally disagrees with the premise that Ruby Central has the right to govern the GitHub organization in any way, and believes that it has always belonged to the group of contributors who had access up until September 19.
Arko said that even if Ruby Central gave him his permissions back, he would not consider the matter resolved until Ruby Central stopped claiming it owns Bundler “but I am definitely not going to hold my breath for that one.”
“When people really care, they're passionate and they're enthusiastic and they argue, and that often looks like drama,” McQuaid, the developer of Homebrew, said when I asked what he thinks this entire affair says about the state of open source development. “But if I had to pick between having the enthusiasm and the drama or losing both, then I'd probably pick the enthusiasm and the drama, because in some ways, the system is somewhat self correcting. Even the stuff that's going on right now, people are having essentially a very public debate about what role do large companies or nonprofits or individual maintainers have in open source. To what extent does someone's level of contribution matter versus what type of person they are? I think these are valuable discussions to be having, and we're having them in the open, whereas if it was in a company, this would all be in a meeting room or with an HR department or in a leadership offsite or whatever.”
But as photos and social media posts surfaced showing Sanford in a camouflage Trump 2020 shirt that read “Make Liberals Cry Again,” and a Trump-Pence sign still visible on his front lawn just months ago, the political implications became harder to ignore.
As the nation reels from another devastating mass shooting—this time at a Mormon church in suburban Michigan—Republican leaders have remained notably silent following revelations that the gunman was a devoted Trump supporter who once proudly wore the…
For the past couple of weeks, a community of developers who use the programming language Ruby have been closely following a dramatic change in ownership of some of the most essential tools in its ecosystem with far reaching impacts for the worldwide web.
If you’re not familiar with Ruby or the open source development community, you probably haven’t heard about any of this, but the tools in question serve as critical infrastructure for gigantic internet services like GitHub, Shopify, and others, so any disruption to them would be catastrophic to those companies, their users, and vast swaths of the internet.
On September 19, Ruby Central, a nonprofit organization that manages RubyGems.org, a platform for sharing Ruby code and libraries, asserted control over several GitHub repositories for Ruby Gems as well as other critical Ruby open source projects that the rest of the Ruby development community relies on. A group of open source developers who had contributed to those projects and maintained them for years had their permissions suddenly revoked. When these developers announced on social media that their access was taken away, many Ruby developers saw the decision as a betrayal of their years-long contributions to the Ruby ecosystem and open source principles more generally. Others accused Ruby Central of succumbing to corporate pressure from companies like Shopify, which they claimed wanted more control over the project.
In some ways, this whole affair is an example of why this stuff gets really messy when people start getting paid
I’ve spent the last week talking to people who had direct involvement with Ruby Central’s decision, the contributors who were ousted, and developers in the Ruby community. I’ve heard accusations of greed, toxic personalities, and stories about years-long feuds between people, at times in open disagreement, who ultimately govern some of these important open source tools.
RubyGems.org and other critical Ruby tools have so far not been interrupted during this transition, but the incident sheds light on a basic truth about the internet and open source development: Much of the technology we use every day and take for granted is being maintained by a small number of developers who are not compensated for that work or get paid very little when compared to salaries at big tech companies. Open source development continues to make much of the internet possible, but as some of these tools become more important and financially valuable, they’re subject to more scrutiny and pressure from the community, organizations, and companies that rely on them.
“In some ways, this whole affair is an example of why this stuff gets really messy when people start getting paid, and once you start introducing formal organizations and employees and nonprofits and lawyers and all this kind of complexity,” Mike McQuaid, developer of the popular package manager Homebrew, which is built with Ruby, told me. McQuaid has talked to and offered to mediate between Ruby Central and the ousted maintainers. “This is a textbook case of what happens when there's this conflict between what companies want, what nonprofit individuals want, how much responsibility people have when they take money, who gets control and when. How much democracy versus just ‘I have the power to do something, therefore I'm going to do it.’”
With Ruby developers can download and use self-contained packages of code that add different functionalities to a Ruby project. These packages are called gems, and are distributed primarily via RubyGems.org, where developers can upload gems they’ve developed or download gems from other developers.
The ability to download gems and plug them into different projects is very useful and convenient for Ruby developers, but can create complications. Different gems are developed by different teams and are updated at different times with bug fixes and new features, and might not necessarily be compatible or play well with one another as they evolve.
This is where Bundler comes in. As its website explains, “Bundler provides a consistent environment for Ruby projects by tracking and installing the exact gems and versions that are needed.” So, for example, if a developer is building a Ruby project and wants to use gems X, Y, and Z, Bundler will pull the versions of those gems that are compatible with one another, providing developers an easy solution for what Bundler describes as “dependency hell.”
Bundler is an open source project that was initially developed by Yehuda Katz, but the GitHub repository for the project was created and was administrated by André Arko. In 2015, Arko also founded a nonprofit trade organization named Ruby Together, which raised funds from developers and companies that use Ruby in order to maintain Bundler and other open source tools.
I will not mince words here: This was a hostile takeover
RubyGems.org, the site and service, is governed by Ruby Central, a nonprofit founded in 2001, which also organizes several Ruby conferences like RubyConf and RailsConf. In 2022, Arko’s Ruby Together and Ruby Central merged, “uniting the Ruby community’s leading events and infrastructure under one roof,” according to Ruby Central’s site. Bundler’s and RubyGems.org’s work often overlapped both in their goals and the developers who worked on them, but operated across two different GitHub organizations, each with its own repositories. To streamline development of these open source projects, Bundler also joined the Ruby Gems GitHub organization in 2022.
In 2023, Ruby Central established the Open Source Software Committee, which according to its site oversees RubyGems, Bundler, and RubyGems.org, focusing on infrastructure stability, security, and sustainability.
A confusing and central point of disagreement between Ruby Central and the maintainers it ousted on September 19 is rooted in the merging of Ruby Together and Ruby Central and the difference between Rubygems.org the service, essentially an implementation of the Ruby Gems codebase on an AWS instance, which both parties agree Ruby Central owns and operates, and the Ruby Gems the codebase that lives in the same GitHub organization as Bundler.
According to a recording of a mid-September Zoom meeting which I obtained between Marty Haught, Ruby Central’s Director of Open Source, Arko, and the other ousted contributors, Ruby Central maintains that the codebase and GitHub organization became its responsibility when Ruby Central merged with Ruby Together in 2022. The ousted contributors’ position is that members of Ruby Central, like Haught, can be owners of the GitHub organization, but that ownership of the RubyGems codebase and other projects in the GitHub organization belong to the contributors, who don’t have a detailed governance model but historically have governed by consensus.
Arko made this argument to me in a recent interview, but also outlined that argument in a blog post, where he also shared the merger agreement between Ruby Central and Ruby Together. It shows that Ruby Together would dissolve and that Ruby Central would be in charge of raising and allocating funds for development, but does not explicitly say Ruby Central takes ownership of the RubyGems and Bundler projects or the GitHub organization.
To make matters even more complicated, Arko was at once a contributor to these open source projects, a contributor to RubyGems.org the service, an owner of the GitHub organization, and an advisor to Ruby Central’s Open Source Software Committee.
In May, Arko resigned his position as an advisor to Ruby Central’s Open Source Software Committee, but continued his work as a contributor. Arko told me he resigned his advisory role because of Ruby Central’s last minute invitation of David Heinemeier Hansson, better known online as DHH, as a keynote speaker at RailsConf.
Arko told me he objected to that decision because of DHH’s “horrifying, racist, misogynist, politics” and DHH’s “personal vendetta” against him. In 2021, back at Motherboard, we reported that many employees at DHH’s company, Basecamp, quit afterhis decision to ban any discussion of politics at work, which many employees saw as squashing discussion about race, bias, and diversity. Arko told me that DHH’s “personal vendetta” against him stemmed from Arko not wanting to support a certain feature DHH wanted added to Bundler, after which DHH demanded Arko be removed from the Ruby Together board.
The current controversy erupted on social media on September 19, when one contributor to the open source projects in the RubyGems and Bundler GitHub organization, Ellen Dash, announced that Haught, Ruby Central’s Director of Open Source, revoked GitHub organization membership for all admins on the RubyGems, Bundler, and RubyGems.org maintainer teams. At that moment, their permissions and access to the GitHub organization were revoked, meaning they could no longer make any changes or contributions to the code, and Haught, representing Ruby Central, took control.
“I will not mince words here: This was a hostile takeover,” Dash said in a public “goodbye” letter they shared online. “I consider Ruby Central’s behavior a threat to the Ruby community as a whole. The forceful removal of those who maintained RubyGems and Bundler for over a decade is inherently a hostile action. Ruby Central crossed a line by doing this.”
The news was seen by many developers in the Ruby and open source community as betraying the dedication and labor that Dash, Arko, and other maintainers put into these tools for years.
Ruby Central, meanwhile, describes the move as one centered around security.
“With the recent increase of software supply chain attacks, we are taking proactive steps to safeguard the Ruby gem ecosystem end-to-end,” Ruby Central said in an explanation of its decision. “To strengthen supply chain security, we are taking important steps to ensure that administrative access to the RubyGems.org, RubyGems, and Bundler is securely managed. This includes both our production systems and GitHub repositories. In the near term we will temporarily hold administrative access to these projects while we finalize new policies that limit commit and organization access rights. This decision was made and approved by the Ruby Central Board as part of our fiduciary responsibility. In the interim, we have a strong on-call rotation in place to ensure continuity and reliability while we advance this work. These changes are designed to protect critical infrastructure that power the Ruby ecosystem, whether you are a developer downloading gems to your local machine [or] a small or large team who rely on the safety and availability of these tools.”
404 Media has covered the kind of recent supply chain attackstargeting open source projects that Ruby Central is referring to. Earlier this month, a critical JavaScript development tool Node Package Manager (NPM), was targeted by a similar supply chain attack. But not everyone in the Ruby development community bought the explanation that security was at the heart of the recent moves. One reason for that is a public statement from a Ruby Central board member and treasurer Freedom Dumlao.
On Substack, Dumlao apologized for the sudden change and how it was communicated.
“If Ruby Central made a critical mistake, it's here,” he wrote. “Could these conversations have been happening in public? Could the concerns we were hearing from companies, users and sponsors have been made more apparent? Probably. But I remind you we don't have a ‘communications team’, no real PR mechanism, we are all just engineers who (like many of you I'm sure) go heads down on a problem until it's solved.”
Dumlao reiterated that RubyGems and Bundler are critical infrastructure that are now increasingly under the threat of supply chain attacks, and said that the companies that rely on them “count” on Ruby Central do everything it can to keep them and their users safe.
However, Dumlao also said that Ruby Central was under “deadline” to make this change.
“Either Ruby Central puts controls in place to ensure the safety and stability of the infrastructure we are responsible for, or lose the funding that we use to keep those things online and going,” Dumlao wrote.
In a September 22 video message in response to criticism about its decision to remove maintainers, Ruby Central’s executive director Shan Cureton described a similar dynamic. She said “sponsors and companies who depend on Ruby tooling came to us with supply chain concerns” and that “Our funding and sponsorships are directly tied to our ability to demonstrate strong operational standards. Without those standards in place, it becomes harder to secure the support needed to keep maintainers paid, organize events, and provide resources for developers at every stage of their journey.”
Since Shopify is one of the primary sponsors and funders of Ruby Central, this led some in the Ruby community to believe that Shopify was exerting pressure on Ruby Central to make this change.
“That is not how it happened, and I wish I had been more careful with my wording in that blog post,” Dumlao told me in a Linkedin message when I asked him if Ruby Central was under pressure from Shopify to make these changes.
I just don't think that there's any other plausible explanation than Shopify demanded this.
After I gave Dumlao my number so we could do a phone interview, I got an email from Cindi Sutera, who was recently brought on as a spokesperson for Ruby Central.
"Ruby Central’s mission is to keep the infrastructure that Rubyists rely on stable, safe, and trustworthy,” she told me. “As part of a routine review following organizational changes, we identified a small number of accounts whose privileges no longer matched current role requirements. The Board voted that it was imperative to align access with our privilege policy to keep the infrastructure that the Ruby community depends on stable. This is our mission.”
Sutera said that the board approved “a temporary administrative hold on certain elevated permissions” while it finalized operator agreements and governance roles.
“To move quickly and transparently, we imposed a clear deadline to complete operator agreements and close gaps,” she said. “We could have communicated earlier that we felt it necessary to move quickly and wish we could have given the community more time to prepare for this action. And now, here we are committed to completing this transition for the stability and security of the Ruby Gems supply chain. More updates are coming as we work through security protocols and stabilization efforts.”
“There’s literally only one company providing the money that is keeping Ruby Central open, and it is Shopify,” Arko told me. “And so I just don't think that there's any other plausible explanation than Shopify demanded this.”
When I asked Arko why he thought Ruby Central removed him, if it wasn’t for security reasons, Arko said: “totally unprovable speculation is Shopify’s CEO is best friends with DHH, who hates me.” DHH is also a Shopify board member.
“Thanks for the invitation, but not my place to weigh in a lot on this while they're working through these changes,” DHH told me in an email when reached for comment. “But I support them taking steps to secure and professionalize the supply chain work they're doing.”
Shopify did not reply to a request for comment.
As this episode spread on social media, I talked to several people associated with Ruby Central who told me the board was acting in the interest of the RubyGems and the Ruby community. Two sources who asked for anonymity for fear of retaliation said that Arko was difficult to work with, questioned how he used funds raised by Ruby Together, and claimed that a new Ruby version manager he’s working on, rv, means he has a conflict of interest with his work on RubyGems and Bundler.
Arko acknowledged to me he heard he’s been difficult to work with in the past. He said that sometimes he’s been able to reach out to people directly and resolve any issues, and that sometimes he hasn’t. He rejected the other allegations, and said that Ruby Together’s financials have always been public.
“It has always been fully public, and the amount has been fixed at $150 an hour for 10 years,” he said, referring to the amount contributors got paid to work on Bundler. Arko added that nobody has ever been paid for more than 20 hours a week, and that the most he’s been able to raise in a single year is $300,000 to pay eight different contributors. “Nobody has gotten a raise for 10 years.”
"As a matter of policy, we don’t discuss individual personnel,” Sutera, the Ruby Central spokesperson, said when I asked if Arko was removed from the GitHub organization because of his previous behavior. “Our recent actions were organization-wide governance measures aimed at aligning access with policy. Our priority is maintaining a stable and secure Ruby Gems supply chain."
McQuaid, the developer of Homebrew and who followed the controversy, told me that even Arko’s harshest critics wouldn’t deny the contributions he’s made to the Ruby community over the years.
Regarding Arko’s blog post about his removal, McQuaid told me it’s good that Arko is crediting other people for their contribution and that he’s following open source principles of community and transparency, but that “his ‘transparency’ here has been selective to things that benefit him/his narrative, he seems unwilling or unable to admit that he failed as a leader in being unwilling or unable to introduce a formal governance process long before this all went down or appoint a meaningful successor and step down amicably.”
The fundamental disagreement here is about who “owns” the GitHub organization that houses Bundler and RubyGems. Technically, Ruby Central was able to assert control because Hiroshi Shibata, a member of the Ruby core team and one of the contributors who has owner-level permissions on the GitHub, made Haught, who revoked the others’ access, an owner as well. Any owner can add or remove any other owner, but when Ruby Central’s board voted to make this change Haught acted immediately and removed Arko, Dash, and others.
However, Arko fundamentally disagrees with the premise that Ruby Central has the right to govern the GitHub organization in any way, and believes that it has always belonged to the group of contributors who had access up until September 19.
Arko said that even if Ruby Central gave him his permissions back, he would not consider the matter resolved until Ruby Central stopped claiming it owns Bundler “but I am definitely not going to hold my breath for that one.”
“When people really care, they're passionate and they're enthusiastic and they argue, and that often looks like drama,” McQuaid, the developer of Homebrew, said when I asked what he thinks this entire affair says about the state of open source development. “But if I had to pick between having the enthusiasm and the drama or losing both, then I'd probably pick the enthusiasm and the drama, because in some ways, the system is somewhat self correcting. Even the stuff that's going on right now, people are having essentially a very public debate about what role do large companies or nonprofits or individual maintainers have in open source. To what extent does someone's level of contribution matter versus what type of person they are? I think these are valuable discussions to be having, and we're having them in the open, whereas if it was in a company, this would all be in a meeting room or with an HR department or in a leadership offsite or whatever.”
While I agree on amassing capital, begging is something I could never justify. It's usually a result of many poor decisions and capitalism has little to do with it
The new effort, which includes opening 13.1 million acres of federal land for mining and eliminating pollution limits, aims to save an industry that has been declining for decades.
Hungary blocked 12 Ukrainian media outlets in response to Kyiv's earlier ban on several foreign publications over Russian narratives, Hungarian Cabinet Minister Gergely Gulyas said on Sept. 29.
Several Hungarian media outlets were among those temporarily restricted in Ukraine by an order by the State Special Communications Service on Sept. 8
According to Gulyas, Ukraine blocked the Hungarian outlets Origo and Demokrata because they "dared to write critically about the policy of sanctions against Russia, Ukraine's armed support, and portray the EU and NATO as fragmented and ineffective organizations."
Gulyas described the ban on Hungarian outlets in Ukraine as "a completely unjustified attack."
The list of 12 banned Ukrainian media outlets in Hungary includes several popular sources such as Ukrainska Pravda, European Pravda, NV, hromadske and TSN.
"With Ukraine's accession, the EU would only become more fragmented," Gulyas wrote on Facebok.
The news marks the most recent point of tension amid strained relations between Kyiv and Budapest.
Hungary is broadly seen as the most Kremlin-friendly government in the EU and NATO. The country has consistently obstructed aid to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia throughout the full-scale war.
Ukraine applied for EU membership shortly after Russia launched its war in 2022 and was granted candidate status within months.
As an EU member, Hungary has veto power over further progress.
Last week, reconnaissance drones likely belonging to Hungary had violated Ukraine's airspace along the border, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. Budapest rejected the allegations.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces recorded drone incursions over border areas and that preliminary assessments suggest the unmanned aircraft were "conducting reconnaissance on the industrial potential of Ukraine's border areas."
Going into 2026 and 2028 it’s time for — essential for — Democrats to make clear that the current Supreme Court will have to reformed (expanded in number…
For the past 15 years1, F-Droid has provided a safe and securehaven for Android users around the world to find and install free and opensource apps. When con...
Jolly Rogers has started a peaceful protest and asking all veterans that are tired of not being able to do anything yet to start uniting and showing solidarity.
Mods: if not allowed and have a recommendation please let me know.
Nicola Porro torna questa sera, lunedì 29 settembre 2025, con un nuovo appuntamento di Quarta Repubblica, il talk show di approfondimento politico ed economico in onda in prima serata su Rete 4.
Dopo i quotidiani 10 Minuti nel preserale, il giornalista guiderà il dibattito su alcuni dei temi più caldi dell’attualità italiana, tra politica, giustizia e cronaca.
PeakMetrics grabbed a sample of 52,000 posts made on X within the first 24 hours of Cracker Barrel’s announcement that it would be modernizing its logo to an admittedly very plain and generic design. In that timeframe, it found that 44.5% of all mentions of Cracker Barrel were flagged as likely or higher bot activity. Those numbers climb even higher when a boycott is mentioned. About 1,000 posts in that first 24-hour period called on people to stop eating at Cracker Barrel, and 49% of those posts got flagged as likely coming from bots. In its report, PeakMetrics states that the boycott was unlikely to be an organic grassroots response but a “bot-assisted amplification seeded by meme/activist accounts.”
The thing is people were persuaded to GAF. We hear “driven by bots” and we think “oh so it was fake.” But bots are merely the PR mechanism of choice in 2025. In prior decades it might have been AM radio and a bunch of press releases faxed around or influence networks pumping the talk shows for airtime or church networks getting people riled up from the pulpit. But the game has always been the same. It’s only the tools that have changed.
Yes, but that’s like saying cutting trees is the same game when it went from handsaws to today’s harvesters. Technically they do the same thing, but the scale and efficiency is a world apart.
Oh I completely agree. My point is that just because it was driven by bots doesn’t mean it was fake and therefore we can ignore it (I believe some people have that perception when they hear that some online uproar was driven by bots).
Yes. It's incredibly stupid. But I don't see why anyone cares.
That said, I could absolutely believe that the rebranding was to deliberately destroy the brand, as part of some rich people destroy Toys R Us / Gamestop type of crap.
My parents are the clowns that eat up bot manipulation posts. I have never seen them go anywhere to eat. But somehow they were CB masters. Their friend group is just as stupid to. They buy into rage bait like children and most of us kids are just done with them. It’s pathetic.
Workers preparing to leave the government have described how months of “fear and intimidation” left them feeling like they had no choice but to depart.
“Federal workers stay for the mission. When that mission is taken away, when they’re scapegoated, when their job security is uncertain, and when their tiny semblance of work-life balance is stripped away, they leave,” a longtime employee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) told the Guardian. “That’s why I left.”
Latest departures in Trump administration’s deferred resignation program come as Congress faces government shutdown deadline – key US politics stories from Sunday 28 September
Cambio di squadra per la nuova edizione di Pechino Express 2026, il celebre reality di Sky Original condotto da Costantino Della Gherardesca: a sorpresa, l’influencer e conduttrice Giulia Salemi torna nello show che l’aveva vista concorrente nel 2015, ma questa volta nel ruolo di inviata. Sarà affiancata dal comico Lillo e dal giornalista sportivo Guido Meda.
Maxwell argues she was unfairly charged in New York, citing Epstein’s notorious non-prosecution agreement in Florida that said, in part, that “the United States also agrees that it will not institute any criminal charges against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein.”
Her lawyers present the issue as one that requires the justices to resolve a split among the nation’s appellate courts regarding whether a promise on behalf of the “United States” or the “Government” that’s made by a U.S. attorney in one district binds federal prosecutors in other districts.
As a general matter, one of the reasons the justices will take an appeal is when there’s a so-called circuit split to resolve, which is why Maxwell’s lawyers have presented her appeal in this way.
The convicted Jeffrey Epstein associate’s appeal is one of many scheduled for consideration in the justices' so-called long conference Monday. Most get denied.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has taken one of its agents off the streets after he was caught on video throwing a distraught mother to the floor of a New York City courthouse in front of her two children on Thursday.
It wasn’t the first time videos have captured scenes of immigration agents using violent force to carry out the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. But the videos of this incident — one of which I filmed for ProPublica — seemed to stir something different. In a rare move, the government publicly reprimanded an officer for such conduct.
I arrived in the U.S. eight weeks ago to report on how the administration’s immigration crackdown was playing out from the front lines. What I saw Thursday was the culmination of ICE’s aggressive behavior.
Meta is trialing a Reels-first experience on Instagram for a limited audience in India. If it's successful, don't be surprised if it expands to a phone near you.
Israel is reportedly preparing to take control of ships belonging to the the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) which is expected to reach the coast of Gaza within four days, according to the official Israeli channel Kan.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Demonstrators in Madagascar's capital Antananaivon flouted a ban from authorities to protest against the nation's water and electricity outages on September 25. Our Observers who attended the protests described the security forces' response as violent and disproportionate: tear gas being deployed at close proximity and vehicles ploughing into the crowd, resulting in multiple injuries and generalised chaos. At least five people died in the unrest, a hospital source reported.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
I don't understand how someone concludes that working for them translates to being a fascist. I understand not wanting to support it but calling them a fascist seems dumb.
New #nixos board observer candidate (github.com/NixOS/foundation/pu…), working for a US autonomous weapon company and paid by Thiel dollars, casually complaining that a proposal empowers minorities too much.
Moving forward, I would also like to participate in these discussions.
NixOS has been (and still is) a big part of my life, and would like to see both the technology and community succeed.
About me...
Thank you very much for bringing this up. This kind of direct confirmation from Anduril loses them plausible and implausible deniability. They do want to exert control over community, and everyone suggesting otherwise is factually wrong.
We have a lack of words used in the English language that specifies graduations and grades of arseholes.
Just like some languages have one word for snow, and others have dozens
Edit: I noticed several people disagreed. But did not explain: is it because they think there are enough words, or they like the word fascist and think it’s appropriate in current usages?
Or option C: there's a discussion going on about an open source project, and you're starting a discussion about the semantics of the word fascist/asshole, without taking a clear stance on what you mean. I didn't downvote you, but I also have no idea what you were going for with that statement. It seems unrelated.
I didn't downvote you, but it's unclear what you meant by stating that.
Depending on how one interprets it, it can be seen as a justification for using "fascist" (since there isn't a more accurate word) or simply a way to emphasize that the term is inaccurate and shouldn't be used.
So I'm not surprised if you get up/down votes from both sides in either direction, specially in a polarizing discussion. Not because of what you said being wrong/right, but because of what they might read between lines.
For the past half hour I tried to read into what's happened, and who the supposed fascists are, and these are the facts I managed to uncover. I hope it will serve anyone who reads this well:
Communities are gonna drama.
Moderating is hard and (paraphrasing Douglas Adams) anyone who wants to do it, shouldn't be allowed to.
I really don't care enough to waste more time on this.
What that user pointed out is, that it has "ties to a fascist company". But in my opinion;
A government can have ties to a communist leader or organization, and still not be a communist government.
A project can have ties to an anarchist and that still won't make the project be anarchist.
But if a project has ties to a fascist company the project itself turns fascist?
Pd. I asked for more info because if ties to a company make you fascist, at least the user who commented that should have very good arguments to dictate if NixOS is fascist based on what they know.
That's like saying, "A community in lemmy has lots of users that come from X anarchist instance, so that Community must now be anarchist!"
Fascist don't invade spaces, more so, the thing I'm seeing commonly are angry people calling normal people "fascists", so then can kick them out of projects or groups because "screw them, they're fascists! so we fuck them over until they are no longer involved or present!, because we are good and they are bad"
Again, fuck TRUE fascists, but I'm still waiting for arguments on what makes NixOS a Fascist Project
From what I can tell the steering committee (project leadership) wanted to modify the mod team, the mod team wants to be independent of the leadership of the project, and one member of the certain committee works or did work for a genuinely shitty company in some capacity.
Sorry dont really have time to get into it, tldr its a us defense company (which makes it already fascist) but also pro-trump (so its openly fascist) read more in this thread as well: lemmy.ml/post/36786640
Also quite the gall to assert that "not everything that you dislike = fascism" when you don't even know the main reason why people are calling it fascist
Anduril’s autonomous surveillance towers have been used on the U.S.–Mexico border to detect and track migrants, as part of DHS programs. This has drawn criticism from immigrant rights groups and academics who argue such systems dehumanize migrants and enable policies that align with authoritarian nationalism.
Anduril is privately funded (by VC firms like Founders Fund) but markets and sells directly to governments and military agencies, without the typical government R&D cycle. It builds weapons and surveillance systems first, then offers them to the state. This “build first, ask later” model can lead to unchecked corporate influence over the military-industrial complex, which some critics argue is a step toward a techno-authoritarian fascist regime.
Anduril founder Palmer Luckey was ousted from Oculus after it was revealed he funded a pro-Trump meme organization (Nimble America) known for spreading far-right content during the 2016 election. While this doesn’t make the company fascist, it raises concerns for critics about the political leanings of its leadership and how those ideologies could influence product deployment.
Anduril is deeply involved in developing autonomous weapon systems, like the ALTIUS-600M loitering munition. Critics warn that the use of AI to identify and kill targets without human input could lead to violations of international law and facilitate mass violence or authoritarian control. Anduril’s heavy investment in such systems leads some to see it as advancing a dystopian militarized fascist future.
Linux Distribution "NixOS" drama: Moderation Team resigns in protest over Interference of Leadership; Elected Leader works for US Military Company, fearing alignment with US fascistic development
Short Summary of the Community Drama of the Linux Distribution "NixOS", so that you can get the big picture and form your own opinion with the provided sources.
Clarification of the "Steering Comittee" as Project Leadership
We resign, effective immediately, in protest of the Steering Committee’s ongoing pattern of attempting to interfere with moderation team operation, membership and specific moderation decisions.
No it's not. It is currently facing fascism. But the story is being written as we speak. Is it going to succumb to it? Or fight and prevail? We don't know... Stay tuned for the next episode, we're going to find out in about 2 months.
Edit: Leadership is now going to make the decision whether they like the arms industry or not. And that's going to be reflected in the vote in a few weeks.
Eh, I do not think it is fascist yet. It sure has a lot of issues though.
This may be the Weimar Republic stage of the project, and it's not too late to save it.
I say if you are an eligible voter, you should vote. Given the voter base is small, your vote really counts. Read the candidates' profiles carefully. Make sure that no people associated with or supportive of the US MIC are on your ballot.
So far I count djacu and tomberek as the list of people to not vote for. But make sure to check for yourself, there will be more candidates.
On the contrary, put the people who are explicitly against MIC meddling first in your ballot. Currently they are cafkafk and leona-ya. Put everyone else on your ballot too, to reduce the chance of an MIC-related person getting on. But again, make sure to check candidate's answers before voting.
It is the least you can do and if enough people do it, we might come out with a more antifascist SC. I doubt it will help with any technical issues we're facing, like the lack of Nix maintenance power, but it could save the project from becoming right-wing.
XLibre claiming to be apolitical is hilarious when their readme sounds like it's written by a MAGAt. Never touching that project that's for sure.
Also pretty sure that stuff about the founder is bs, unless you can back that up with a source. From my understanding he ended up stepping down because he was already putting more attention into determinate nix, which was causing friction.
Practically speaking all open source software is communist, insofar as the capital, which in the case of software would be the source code and the means to build and deploy it, is available to anyone with the wherewithal to use it.
I mean I would not contribute due to the mit license if anything. Many people feel the concerns are overblown but given things can be forked its not like you would loose the contributed code. Still if Im going to give my time I will go copyleft.
‘Con ago e filo. Un manuale per rammendare abiti, abitudini e cuori’ di Sonya e Nina Montenegro. Ed. quinto quarto.
Lo condivido per la praticità d’uso, per le ricche illustrazioni e per l’uso critico dei materiali. Consigliato come prima lettura.
‘Con ago e filo. Un manuale per rammendare abiti, abitudini e cuori’ di Sonya e Nina Montenegro. Ed. quinto quarto.
Lo condivido per la praticità d’uso, per le ricche illustrazioni e per l’uso critico dei materiali. Consigliato come prima lettura.
reparierenistliebe.com/ Questa ragazza (lingua madre: tedesco) l’ho seguita a lungo su IG, prima di toglierlo. Tutto il suo sapere è ben organizzato in un suo eBook, disponibile anche in inglese, sul suo sito.
A parte la bellezza dei suoi lavori, le sue capacità comunicative facilitano la comprensione di alcune tecniche di rammendo.
Lo consiglio specialmente a chi ripara lana, lana/seta e che desidera inoltre usare le tecniche di ricamo per rammendare.
Lerne Löcher in deiner Kleidung zu reparieren und sie mit Stickereien zu verschönern. Zubehör wie Hitzestifte, Stickfolien, Stickrahmen oder Webernadeln.
did you just drop the full index into the config, like the 'how to use' image shows in the repo's 'readme'? take that out, it's all 10,000+ 'channels'. go into the repo's 'streams' directory and find one or a few for your country and add those instead (load the 'raw' url for each in the browser, then copy the resulting address from your browser address bar into the config).
But I went through the same thing with iptv-org. It seems many of the listed channels are largely dead. I manually scrubbed the english list by checking the channels but it was pretty brutal. I think like 200-400 channels were working out of 2000+.
There are also online m3u checkers if you search like "m3u checker". I've used some web-based apps. They're somewhat slow but ok. There's also an m3u checker that you can install locally. I haven't tried it yet but I'm wondering if it might be faster.
I try not to bother with obviously pirated channels because they usually go down pretty quick. I'm much more interested in legit channels that will stay up.
Lastly I also have all the Pluto channels with EPG. I used this app for the channels and EPG.
I also wrote some scripts to download/merge channels and EPGs. TBH it's kind of a PITA but it's like a hobby.
(edit: One last thing... I noticed that some channels worked with VLC but not Kodi. I had to adjust some settings in Kodi to make them work. In particular I had to change my user agent to OKHTTP for Pluto channels.)
Tanoa Sasraku has been collecting – and creating her own – gaudy paperweights with a drop of crude oil encased within. All you need to know about global power games, the artist explains, is right there
A Motegi Bagnaia ritrova il feeling e domina il weekend, ma tra sospetti di soluzioni “datate”, test di Misano e consigli di Stoner, il ritorno al successo Ducati sembra avere retroscena tutti da chiarire.
Prima una intuizione, oltretutto nota fin dai tempi di Ippocrate, poi un impiego in medicina, alla fine, un presidio lasciato per lo più in un dimenticatoio. Stiamo parlando di ipertermia oncologica realizzata con l'impiego di sofisticatissime apparecchiature che potrebbero opporsi al tumore. Ma in quanti sono a conoscenza di questa tecnica? Chi la pratica, perchè deve utilizzarla limitatamente e al riparo dai rigidissimi standard previsti? L'idea è che il tumore renda tantissimo a pochissimi e non certo a chi si occupa di ipertermia oncologica
Russia using 'shadow fleet' tankers to launch drones towards European cities -- Russia using shadow fleet tankers to launch drones towards European cities -- Ukrainian HIMARS reportedly strike thermal power plant in Russia's Belgorod Oblast -- [vlog] Puti
Medical Supplies for Ukraine’s Hospitals. Partnering for global health equity.
Russia’s war against Ukraine
A general view shows destroyed residential buildings during a Russian air attack in Kyiv, on September 28, 2025. An overnight Russian barrage on Kyiv killed at least four people, including a 12-year-old girl. (Roman Pilipey / AFP via Getty Images)
Russia using ‘shadow fleet’ tankers tolaunch dronestowards European cities, Zelensky says. Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of oil tankers are being used to “launch and control” Russian drones over European cities, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sept. 28, citing intelligence reports.
Polish Embassyin Kyiv struck in Russia’s large-scale overnight attack. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pawel Wronski told Polish outlet RMF24 that “a missile element or a small-caliber rocket” fell on the roof of the embassy, piercing through the ceiling. The debris landed in the kitchen of the embassy with Wronski adding that the damage was “not large,” with no casualties reported.
Lavrov claims upcomingUS-Russia talksto be held in fall. Lavrov claimed that the upcoming meeting with Rubio is intended to eliminate what he claimed were “irritants” in Washington-Moscow relations.
UkrainianHIMARSreportedly strike thermal power plant in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast. Power outages were reported across Belgorod Oblast following the attack that struck one of the substations, Russian media reported.
Ukraine’s military intelligence claims killingRussian drone operatorsin occupied Melitopol. HUR claimed that an explosion rocked a guarded military base on the airfield in occupied Melitopol, destroying a Soviet-era UAZ-452 van and at least four operators who were allegedly inside the vehicle.
Bryansk Oblast factory thatsupplies Russia’s militaryreportedly burns following drone strike. The Karachev electrical components plant in Russia’s Bryansk Oblast is reportedly burning following a drone attack overnight on Sept. 29, local media reported.
Read our exclusives
Ukraine war latest: Mass Russian missile and drone strike kills at least 4, injures over 70 in Kyiv, its surrounding region, Zaporizhzhia
At least four people, including a 12-year-old girl, were killed and over 70 were injured in the latest overnight mass Russian missile and drone attack, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko reported on Sept. 28.
Millions read the Kyiv Independent, but only one in 1,000 supports us financially. One membership might not seem like much, but to us, it makes a real difference. If you value our reporting, consider becoming a member — your support makes us stronger.
‘Insidious tactics‘ — Mass Russian missile and drone strike kills at least 4, injures over 70 in Kyiv, its surrounding region, Zaporizhzhia. In Zaporizhzhia, a Russian missile struck a high-rise building. At least 38 people in the city have been injured, including three children. In Kyiv, four victims have been hospitalized.
General Staff: Russia has lost1,108,510 troopsin Ukraine since Feb. 24, 2022.
The number includes 1,110 casualties that Russian forces suffered over the past day.
International response
Trump to make ‘final determination‘ on supplying Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles as Russia ‘refuses’ peace talks, Vance says. U.S. Vice President JD Vance confirmed on Sept. 28 that the U.S. is “looking at” providing Kyiv with Tomahawk missiles, as Moscow continues to refuse bilateral and trilateral peace talks brokered by President Donald Trump.
Danish Armed Forces reportdetecting more dronesover military facilities. The new sightings come after several media outlets reported unidentified drones being detected in the airspace of Denmark, Lithuania, and Finland on Sept. 27.
Hungary, Slovakiapush backagainst EU plan to phase out Russian energy. Speaking at the 130th anniversary of the Maria Valeria Bridge, which links Sturovo, Slovakia, and Esztergom, Hungary, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said: “No one should tell us where to buy oil and gas from.”
Trump backs shooting Russian jets as provocations rise
Ukraine This Week
Moldovan elections
‘Moldova is in danger‘ — Moldova’s President urges citizens to vote on election day. All eyes in the EU, Ukraine, and Russia are on Chisinau today as Moldova began parliamentary elections that could leave the landlocked country U-turning from its path to join the bloc one day and build closer ties with Moscow.
Pro-EU party leadsMoldova election with 98% of votes counted. The EU has warned that Moldova is enduring “an unprecedented campaign of disinformation” from Russia ahead of the election.
Moldovacasts blame on Russiafor attempts to disrupt pivotal parliamentary elections. Bomb threats were also reported at polling stations for the Moldovan diaspora in Belgium, Italy, Romania, Spain, and the U.S., Moldova’s Foreign Ministry said on Sept. 28, in what officials described as “the Russian Federation’s assault on the electoral process in the Republic of Moldova.”
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Con tutte le rogne che mi porto appreso, mi era proprio sfuggito di mente un fatto eppure non insignificante, cioè che è arrivato l’autismo. (Anche detto autunno.) Le ore di Sole sono già molte di meno, si, ma questo si è avviato da qualche mese… l’autismo, che è arrivato di botto e si è fatto […]
autunniaco autismo portato all’eccesso congelante (l’autunno ha portato freddo dal niente)
Con tutte le rogne che mi porto appreso, mi era proprio sfuggito di mente un fatto eppure non insignificante, cioè che è arrivato l’autismo. (Anche detto autunno.) Le ore di Sole sono già molte di meno, si, ma questo si è avviato da qualche mese… l’autismo, che è arrivato di botto e si è fatto sentire bello prepotente, ha portato altro: un freddo di cui è impossibile capacitarsi (e non solo per me, ma per tutti coloro da cui ho sentito un parere a riguardo), e per giunta venuto dalla sera alla mattina dopo; senza esagerazioni! (Anche se non dal 20 al 21, o dal 21 al 22… è più dal 24 al 25, ma credo questo sia per colpa del normale offset delle stagioni.) E pensare che l’autunno, almeno a livello iperuranico, dovrebbe trasmettere solo sensazioni di calore e goduria... bah! 🥶
La cosa è anche un po’ un colmo perché, come solito in questa era post-moderna rovinata dagli orrori della rivoluzione industriale e delle varie rivoluzioni economiche, ho osservato il classico controsenso.Martedì, quando ho iniziato i corsi, complice il fatto che ci fosse allerta meteo e stesse infatti anche piovendo (perché ovviamente non può non piovere il primo giorno del semestre mio e di tanta altra gente, ci mancherebbe, poi si rischia di cadere nella trappola dell’ottimismo!), pensavo sarebbe stato freddino… ma invece si stava bene, a posto. E anche il giorno dopo, un po’ faceva brutto tempo, con qualche gocciolina, ma non si stava male. E quindi chiaramente, giovedì, che il tempo è tornato sereno, ha dovuto iniziare a fare un freddo dei pazzi che, alle 9 di mattina, mi ha presa completamente alla sprovvista. Un po’ sarà stata colpa dell’aula, che fa schifo, è fin troppo esposta all’aria, e le finestre si trovano sempre aperte, quindi si può immaginare che ricircolo polare artico-mortale ci fosse, con tutto che i condizionatori stanno ancora su freddo… e vabbé, oggi e venerdì dunque ho dovuto cacciare fuori la felpa, pazienza. 😐 C’è chi dice che l’autismo è come il sale: usarne un po’ migliora i sapori, ma quando è troppo esce tutto una schifezza… ecco, mi sa che è corretto. Quindi, se la promessa dell'”autunno stile ragazza autistica -core” sembra di per sé una benedizione — e oso dire che lo sarebbe, se non ci fosse questo problema qui — con questo troppo ha sinceramente stroppiato; cioè, ragà, il freddo già lo fa, ma le foglie nemmeno hanno avuto il tempo di marronizzarsi e cadere dagli alberi, e comunque non fa ancora abbastanza freddo per inglobarsi in copertine e avere scuse per non faticare…che schifo e che noia. Tuttavia, io ancora non ho acquisito il potere di controllare le stagioni, men che meno il meteo, e dei babbani figurarsi, quindi… pure di questa cosa, bisogna farsene una ragione; siamo nati per soffrire, e sono nata per ricondividere al mondo questa sofferenza. 🍂
For the past 15 years1, F-Droid has provided a safe and securehaven for Android users around the world to find and install free and opensource apps. When con...
For all I care, the year of the Linux desktop was years ago. People can keep moving the goalpost, I'll be enjoying my PC as the Flying Spaghetti Monster intended
Elisa Rovesta, Fashion outsider — Illustrazioni di Roberta Cassisa. Pagine 108, 15 euro — OLIGO, dal 10 ottobre in libreria La Moda come Rivoluzione: "Fashion Outsider""Fashion Outsider" non è un semplice libro, ma un viaggio affascinante nelle vite di ch
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Elisa Rovesta, Fashion outsider — Illustrazioni di Roberta Cassisa. Pagine 108, 15 euro — OLIGO, dal 10 ottobre in libreria
[strong]La Moda come Rivoluzione: “Fashion Outsider”[/strong] “Fashion Outsider” non è un semplice libro, ma un viaggio affascinante nelle vite di chi ha fatto della moda una vera e propria rivoluzione. Il volume esplora come icone culturali del calibro di Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalì, Coco Chanel e Madonna abbiano trasformato il loro stile personale in una dichiarazione di intenti, riscrivendo le regole del fashion system e lasciando un segno indelebile.
L’autrice, forte della sua esperienza nel mondo del branding e delle tendenze, ci guida attraverso storie di ribellione, innovazione e audacia estetica. Scopriamo come queste figure, con i loro abiti, accessori e persino il loro portamento, abbiano sfidato le convenzioni sociali e artistiche, diventando fonte di ispirazione globale. La moda non è più vista come una semplice scelta di stile, ma come un potente strumento di emancipazione personale e culturale.
Hai detto profumo? Come lo vuoi? Molecolare, senza alcool, con olii naturali e ciliegie ghiacciate dell ’Himalaya… dove si trovano queste ciliegie poi? Profumi di nicchia, commerciali, con mille materie prime. Ma un profumo non è solo ciò che percepiamo con l ’olfatto. A volte è ciò che si sente nel cuore, che ci racconta storie, ci evoca epoche, amicizie, luoghi lontani. Ad esempio, un profumo può raccontarci una delle storie più affascinanti del XX secolo: l’amicizia tra Misia Sert e Coco Chanel. Due donne di mondi diversi, unite nella Parigi dorata dell’inizio del secolo, dove arte emoda intrecciavano le vite di personaggi straordinari. La loro amicizia divenne il fondamento di un’intesa unica, e di un supporto reciproco forse raro, ma prezioso.
Elisa Rovesta è esperta di mode e costumi della società. Specialista in brand, stile e tendenze, ha pubblicato una trilogia dedicata alla contemporaneità e alle dinamiche umane, raccontando con ironia, stile e profondità i piccoli e grandi movimenti del nostro tempo (Fatti di umani, Umanistili e una ballerina sulla luna, Umane–stelle, NFC). Per Panorama.it cura la rubrica Stili Umani. Scrive per il corner Contemporanea attitude di Prometeoliberato.com in cui osserva con intelligenza e leggerezza le trasformazioni della società. www.elisarovesta.it
In this episode of the Fediverse Flows series, host Matthias Pfefferle sits down with pioneer technologist Dave Winer. The inventor of blogging, podcasting, RSS, and text casting. Together, they unpack the evolution of the open web, discussing why true interoperability and openness matter more than ever in an age of restrictive social media platforms.
In this episode of Fediverse Flows, Matthias Pfefferle chats with Dave Winer about the open web's evolution, emphasizing interoperability, linking, and decentralized publishing through WordPress, while discussing challenges faced by contemporary platforms.
The vast majority of places where you can find the kinds of sedimentary rocks that allow carbon dioxide to be stored underground sit in higher risk zones or in areas like the Arctic that are potentially off-limits for practical or political reasons, the study found.
That has big implications for the energy transition, since once carbon dioxide is put into storage, it’s supposed to stay there for as long as possible. Any storage sites we use today can’t be expected to be available for future generations — not just the children and grandchildren of people alive today but “more than ten generations into the future,” the study notes.
The study concludes that nearly 90 percent of that storage capacity is in less-than-desirable locations.
Google’s new developer registration requirements could make it impossible for independent Android app stores like F-Droid to survive, the group behind the open-source repository has warned in a new blog post
However, since Google's update to the battery, my phone is discharging very fast (talking about one percent per minute).
I have looked at changing the battery myself, however it seems to be a bit over my skill level. So, I am in the market for a new phone. (And quite pissed off at Google, especially since they announced the changes to signing, apks, the issues with graphene,...
This time, I would like : - maybe try Linux? - a headphone Jack
I have been looking at postmarket OS, however every supported device is quite old, and I'm not sure if/ how much they are usable today.
I looked at fairphone, but FP5&6 don't support postmarket OS and don't have a headphone Jack.
Currently, I am looking at the Jolla Phone (running SailfishOS), as it has a Jack, and runs Linux.
Do you know of other options, what would you recommend?
Do you know if that’s still a viable plan to avoid Google’s recent side-loading bullshit?
Google's new EEE tactics should not in theory impact custom ROMs such as Graphene, especially considering Graphene goes out of its way to avoid using any G stuff unless sandboxed.
From what OP said it sounds like Google is kinda closing that door but your comment leads me to suspect OP is mistaken?
So, unless i'm mistaken, google's updates shouldn't impact graphene phones...
My SO also has graphene on a pixel 6a and it's chugging along nicely, like it always has. She doesn't even charge it every night, so that's 24+ hours of use per charge. Please look into your battery, something might be wrong.
Fairphone 4. Ubuntu Touch is supported at a manufacturer level, it supports Postmarket OS, easy user serviceable, SD card slot (which apparently is rare now). No headphone jack but that's about the only downside. I'm running one with Calyx and while it is a little older of a phone - it's perfectly fine.
I have a Fairphone 5 with eOS, and I'm happy. Their service is painfully slow, but otherwise professional and reliable. You can run into headaches when flashing eOS if you are not super-cautious (dm mefor details if you like), but the instructions are good, and you can also buy various phones direct from Murena with eOS already installed.
Fairphone4 user here. Fairphone is the kind of environment you go into knowing there are tradeoffs (e.g. the camera sucks) but for me, what you gain in terms of privacy and the downright respect they have for you as a customer are worth those tradeoffs.
I also looked into Jolla SailfishOS. I tested it back then with the XA2, now I would go with the Xperia 10 V or VI (when it is supported). Because of better performance. docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Su…
FWIW, I took the plunge with a iFixit kit to replace my Pixel7 spicy pillow battery. I'm reasonably handy but had never done a glued phone before. I sprung for a clampy, watched the video and it all went extremely smooth, ~ 1 hour.
Tentatively wanting to press the buy button for a Fairphone 6. Currently using a Sony Xperia phone with headphone jack and 1Tb microSD card (it's one of my backups), BUT on factory OS and still on a privacy learning journey. Considered the move to Pixel with Graphene, but have always had my lifetime collection of FLAC music locally. Phone = music player. Can live without headphone jack since discovering USB adaptor DAC / amps.
And honestly? I mostly agree with them? Like this:
ABC ordered to pay Antoinette Lattouf another $150,000 for unlawful termination over Gaza Instagram post.
But a company faced with enormous threats wielded by fascist officials who demand that certain views be suppressed will treat such penalties as the normal cost of sucking up.
The [Israeli] army says that HAMAS is using apartment buildings for "surveillance", and has bombed some of those buildings to destroy them. Based on this logic, the army might bomb every tall building in Gaza City with the large bombs that the US is providing
He has some questionable beliefs as well, though for unusual reasons. He accepts non-binary people but refuses to use they/them pronouns because he doesn't like the ambiguity of singular/plural pronouns. So he has invented the neopronouns per/pers to refer to singular non-binary persons. I genuinely think no other person on this planet could hold this opinion.
What pisses me off it that they say they do this for security. It changes absolutely anything.
They really think that malware developers will say "oh no! I need to submit a picture of an id card to sign my malware! It's literally impossible to submit a jpg of a stolen id card, I'm ruined and out of a job!"
What does it change? Waste 20 minutes of some malware developer while they register under a stolen id? They already have a system that scans for known malware and automatically remove it.
Thing is, Play Store is already filled with malware or near-malware from seemingly verified developers. I ran into several scam clone apps just today. It's even snuck in through OEM apps.
Same on iOS, which supposedly verifies devs.
If 'verification' and curation is their idea of security, well... It appears their system is already overloaded, yet they want to expand it?
Both things can be true. It definitely is better for security. It’s pretty much indisputably better for security.
But you know what would be even better for security? Not allowing any third-party code at all (i.e., no apps).
Obviously that’s too shitty and everyone would move off of that platform. There’s a balance that must be struck between user freedom and the general security of a worldwide network of sensitive devices.
Users should be allowed to do insecure things with their devices as long as they are (1) informed of the risks, (2) prevented from doing those things by accident if they are not informed, and (3) as long as their actions do not threaten the rest of the network.
Side-loading is perfectly reasonable under those conditions.
It’s pretty much indisputably better for security.
I dispute this. While adding extra layers of security looks good on paper, flawed security can be worse than no security at all.
Android packages already have to be signed to be valid and those keys already are very effective in practice. In effect these new measures are reinventing the wheel as to what a layperson would think this new system does.
Adding this extra layer in fact has no actual security benefit beyond posturing/"deterrence". Catching a perpetrator is not the same thing as preventing a crime. Worse - catching a thief in meatspace has the potential to recover stolen goods, but not so in digital spaces - either the crime is damage or destruction of data for which no punishment undoes the damage or the crime is sharing private data which in practice would almost certainly have been immediately fenced to multiple data brokers.
And were only getting started with this security theater: - Nothing prevents an organization from hiring a developer for long enough to register before being flushed (or the same effect with a burner account on fiver) - Nothing in this program does anything to get code libraries vetted - many of these developers may accidentally be publishing code from poisoned wells that they have no practical knowledge of. - None of these measures make scams less profitable. - None of this addresses greyware - software that could technically qualify as legal (because the user agreed to terms of service for a service of dubious value) - All of this costs time and resources that will likely inevitably be shouldered on low paid engineers that could have put that effort to better uses. - Metrics and statistics may likely be P-hacked to reflect that the new system as a success (because there's internal pressure to make it look good) this turning-security-into-press-releases would have collateral of making accountability overall worse.
But you know what would be even better for security?
While we're at it we could add the tropes of removing network connectivity, or switch to using clay tablets kept in a wooden box guarded by a vengeful god. Both of those would be more secure, too.
Users should be allowed to do insecure things with their devices
100% agree with you here - it's fundamentally the principle of "Your liberty to swing your fist ends just where my nose begins". Users should be given the tools and freedom to do as they want with their property - up until it affects another person or their property in an unwanted way.
I think we mostly agree. And I do agree that “flawed security can be worse than no security at all.” I think, though, that this doesn’t make security worse, just that it doesn’t make it that much better.
But even simple filters can make a significant difference: maybe you remember the early-ish Lemmy debacle of turning off captchas for signups by default, ostensibly because captchas are now completely defeated… which led to thousands and thousands of bot accounts being created pretty much immediately across a bunch of instances, and the feature being turned back on by default.
And I also think that there's no way I trust Alphabet (holding company of Google) to be the sole arbiters of who gets to run code - neither in a philosophical sense nor as a gatekeeper to one top five compute platforms used by a substantial chunk of the world population.
It absolutely does not justify creating a policy that would wholesale obliterate F-Droid, arguably one of their larger competitors.
If it's like the play store verification, it's quite simple. The main problem is that once "verified", Google publicly doxxes individual devs by publishing their residential address + private phone number + private Gmail on their dev page, and this is unacceptable for anyone except who used stolen identities
It seems to me that part of the problem is overreliance on phones as computing devices. A lot of things, like banking, are best done on an actual computer. We have become too dependent on phones.
Google’s developer verification will only run on mainstream Android with play services. It’s not supposed won’t be running in standard AOSP so the easiest solution would be to switch to a custom ROM like GrapheneOS.
They are also working to similarly kill custom ROMs. Just recently the GrapheneOS team mentioned that Google is no longer making their hardware drivers Open Source, and so compatibility with new phones means reverse engineering their own drivers - which is a big reason that custom ROMs support such narrow hardware options already and very often come with limitations and/or features that just don't work. At best, they figure out how to make it work, but it takes time and updates can lag significantly behind.
We have a lot of options on the software side for avoiding google (or android), but very limited options on hardware. We need open source mobile hardware support ASAP.
Because Google have been wanting to be closed source for years, which is why nearly all their new features since they released the Pixel have been PixelOS exclusive and not in AOSP.
They don’t care about killing custom roms, that’s just a side effect of them going closed source for their Phone.
It means they can do way more features without giving away precious IP, and it also just reduces their workload. They don’t need to keep giving out their code for free. It makes their job harder.
AOSP projects are not and never have been a threat to Google. They aren’t trying to stifle them - that’s just a byproduct of not giving away their code anymore. Giving it away gives literally zero benefits to them. It might only save them 0.01%, but that’s a lot money.
As someone whose job runs several FOSS projects, I think you're making up the fact that it adds meaningful workload.
I think that, for all intents and purposes, protecting IP is equivalent to stifling competition.
I think giving away code benefits the entire Android ecosystem, which might be the largest data mining operating Google has. I fully believe that's of nonzero benefit.
Like other people have suggested, maybe get a second phone (one of those really cheap ones with play Services) and use that for that stuff, and keep your main personal phone google-free.
Let's hope that the rest of the world, specifically Europe smash this ridiculous proposal apart for what it is. Europe has already sorted out USB-C etc. Its not perfect and they don't get everything right, but certainly big enough to make stuff right.
Yep. The E.U. has allowed itself to be dominated for too long by the US megacorps. It has the talent, ideas, and manufacturing to tell US firms to bugger off ... and the sooner, the better for us all.
they are also going hard on surveillance, private info too, backed by RU of course.i think russell vought is behind the anti-porn verifications in the EU
I think the European leadership has changed and we need to watch our elected officials. However don't think Google was pushed into anything. They're now he company that does the opposite of their original manifesto. They're evil don't need that.
Status of Noble-based Ubuntu Touch (UTNext) Since the last time I made a forum post, the following features has become usable: GPS NFC Phone call & SMS Not...
We had a few good Linux phones back in the day but Nokia / Microsoft killed them trying to compete with iPhone OS and Android: Maemo / Meego were great but did not get a proper chance.
Jolla continued the legacy and Sailfish OS is still something worth checking out if you can find suitable hardware, or idk how complex it is to port it.
Lots of jobs require BYOD today (like, most F500 companies) and they limit to non-rooted OSs. I use Aegis for personal apps but I cannot escape microsoft as long as I want to keep paying my mortgage.
Android is so big because the community let them embrace it. Since the beginning the community should have worked in a true open solution. Now it’s really late to try to make a Linux phone
Linux would suck on a phone. Sorry it is barely usable on a laptop. We get worse battery life hardware less supported. Sure we put up with it but most people just want stuff to work.
This is because the community did not spent too much time optimizing for this goal. This is what I am saying, the open source community should invest more on Linux phone.
It doesn’t need to be Linux though - AOSP is still open source. Companies like graphebe using it just needed to not depend on Google to provide them the hardware and software to keep their OS viable. It’s entirely on them.
Anyone that builds their entire company and/or product around being reliant on a multi-billion/trillion dollar company providing them with their source code for free so you can use it to get around using their services is only setting themselves up for disaster.
If you rely on Google giving you their source code, you need to have a backup plan ready at all times for what to do when Google don’t give you their source code.
It’s because they regularly overstep their bounds and force overseas companies to do things they have no right to make them do, which actively hurt their business. Of course companies are going to do their very best to comply while making it have as little impact as possible!
I genuinely think no other person on this planet could hold this opinion.
Eh, I'm pretty close to this opinion.
A family member came out as non-binary, and I don't like to use they/them (for the same reason as Stallman), but I also think creating my own pronouns is more offensive, so I just use their first name, unless I can't easily avoid it (like this sentence). I'm not trying to be offensive, I just don't like they/them as angular pronouns. I also don't like "you" as both singular and plural, but I'm also not ready to use "y'all", so I refer to second person groups without the pronoun (if feasible).
On a related note, I also think gender is a social construct and not actually "real." Sex exists because it's a biological thing, but it shouldn't be directly tied to your role in society. To change my mind, I need empirical evidence that there's some unique difference between men and women (brain wave patterns?) that aligns groups of non-binary people or aligns trans people with people of the opposite sex. I personally don't think this exists, and gender fluidity is more a symptom of a culture that isn't well equipped to handle people who don't nicely fit into a bucket. I think gender is a useful metaphor for what's going on, and I absolutely support people fighting for using it to get the recognition they need, but I don't think it's an actual, scientifically proven thing.
The only real difference is that I use first names to refer to non-binary people's first names more frequently than to binary people. I hope that doesn't offend anyone, I just really don't like using the same pronoun for both singular and plural.
As a trans person, my gender dysphoria is not something caused entirely by social gender roles. Medical transition has greatly alleviated the majority of it. Anecdotally, within the first week of hormone therapy, my dysphoria improved dramatically while only being out of the closet to 2 people outside of my therapist and the medical professionals who prescribed my hormones. It has continued to improve, although I'm still waiting for the surgery that will resolve the remaining things that hormones can't fix.
Also, there are studies around brain structure differences between men and women, and transgender people tended to have brain structures in line with their gender, not their assigned sex at birth: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes…
Perhaps you should believe people when they tell you who they are, and get past your discomfort drawing arbitrary lines in grammar regarding pronouns, when singular they predates the fall of the Byzantine Empire by 75 years.
“They” as singular was really only made for when you didn’t know the sex of the person you were referring to, not as a pronoun for someone who you do. It had nothing to do with “gender identity” because that wasn’t a thing. Gender and sex were synonyms, 2 words for the same thing.
Eg “can my friend come to the party too?” “Yeah sure, what do they like on their pizza so I can make sure there is one they like?”
Not
“Can John come to the party?” “Yeah sure, what do they like on their pizza?”
In this instance you’d always have used “he” because you know with pretty much absolute certainty that John is male on account of being a male name.
It has only very recently been used as a choice that people tell people they want to be referred to by, because some people now believe in a “gender identity” being a separate thing to sex.
It existing as a singular pronoun doesn’t mean that it was used in the same context as it is now.
I criticized singular they/them for increasing language ambiguity and suggested replacing it with something new like xe/xer multiple times. The reply is usually a shitstorm and downvote tornado. I've given up on that front.
It hasn’t been used for “gender” ambiguity, but sex ambiguity, because the separation of sex and gender is only a recent thing and it’s not even unanimously accepted.
I always found this argument funny because how would you use pronouns for someone whose gender you do not know? They. It's they. E.g. you are given the sentence: Jordan went to the store to buy apples. And you want to ask a followup question regarding how many, you reply: How many apples did they buy? It's not that complicated. They has been used for gender ambiguity in everyone's lives since grammar school. People just have an inherent bias towards trans folks and it's incredibly depressing and sad.
Doesn't feel like you want to have an honest argument when you ask how far we should go back on a proposal about going forward and don't address the single motivator ambiguity.
You don’t get to decide how other people refer to you. I’m sorry but you don’t have that authority. You can dislike people using the “wrong” pronouns, but you cannot compel the usage of the ones you want to be called because of your beliefs. If I say my pronouns are “your majesty” it’s not unacceptable if you don’t use them.
Correct, because there is no argument to be had. Intentionally refusing to use someone's pronouns is unacceptable, every time, with 0 exceptions. If there's a dire need to be explicitly clear you're talking about a single person, you could just use their name in that instance.
I will literally go without a smartphone if Google does this, this is insane I would have bought an iphone if I wanted a junk device I don't actually own.
Owning a phone doesn’t give you control over what the operating system can do. You can so what the OS they give you allows you to do, or you can find a way to put a different os on it - but they don’t need to provide a way for you to do that easily.
Not really sure why this is a hard concept for some people to grasp?
The crazy part is this may make iOS the better alternative when considering the emergence of third-party app stores and Apple's loosening grip on their ecosystem.
LineageOS is still a good option too, for anyone who would prefer to keep the phone they have
iOS would be the better alternative, if it wasn't for the hardware they run on. After all, Apple is infamous for their blatant planned obsolescence on their iPhones since the iPhone 6. Unfortunately, Google seems to be following Apple in this way as well since they launched an update that made the Pixel 6a's battery so much worse than before. Therefore, we must all have a dumb phone + Linux phone set up...or something
Apple, with the longest software support on the market, and planned obsolescence don’t go in the same sentence together. Sorry but they are literally the best in the industry in this regard.
Also I assume you’re talking about the “batterygate” thing with the iPhone 6 where they slowed the device down? That was a giant overreaction - the alternative was the phone crashes and reboots constantly.
It's still Android kernel and drivers :/ but it is private. For Linux you'd need postmarket or one of their derivatives and they are fighting to get cameras and power under control.
prob the best we have at the moment.
edit: to be clear, I'm saying Halium is the best we have at the moment, real linux is trucking along but it's still a long way out.
By “Google’s fuckery” you mean “Google doing all the updates and giving it to them” though, right?
Until these alternative AOSP-derived OS developers stop relying on Google and start doing their own stuff, Google will have the ability to break their OS’s. This isn’t a Google issue, it’s a OS developer issue.
Oh my gosh, you're being pedantic. It has been used for "gender" ambiguity for quite some time. If you choose to be ignorant, then that's your dill, pickle. At the end of the day, you get to choose whether you make someone happy, or sad. Why is that difficult? Why can't you comprehend the concept of providing joy to someone? Why can't you just be nice? That's what this whole thing is about, right? You can either choose to be nice, or not. And I'm so tired of arguing with people to be nicer. Why can't people get it through their thick skulls, that people just want to live and be considerate of each other. That's what we all want, right?
Providers of online platforms allowing consumers to conclude distance contracts with traders shall ensure that traders can only use those online platforms to promote messages on or to offer products or services to consumers located in the Union if, prior to the use of their services for those purposes, they have obtained the following information, where applicable to the trader:
(a) the name, address, telephone number and email address of the trader;
(b) a copy of the identification document of the trader or any other electronic identification as defined by Article 3 of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council (40);
Bear in mind that an open source license is a contract and it usually involves some form of reciprocity, like crediting the dev by name. That's in principle not different from a sponsorship deal, where some sports stadium gets the name of a corporation.
The actual definition is even wider, though. I don't see who you get out of that.
::: spoiler Trader defined in the DSA
‘trader’ means any natural person, or any legal person irrespective of whether it is privately or publicly owned, who is acting, including through any person acting in his or her name or on his or her behalf, for purposes relating to his or her trade, business, craft or profession;
If F-droid ever has more than 50 employees, annual turnover over EUR 10 million, or over EUR 10 million on the balance sheet, then they will have to collect the same information.
Is calling an extremely underweight anorexic person healthy, a good weight, and encouraging them to keep losing weight the right thing to do? Is that good because it’s providing joy to someone?
Are you arguing that using the pronoun, they, is equivalent to someone harming themselves? Friend, you need to argue better. You are arguing like a college dropout. You've re-contextualized the argument in it's entirety. Try again, or don't. But stop coming at me with your weak ass, bullshit talking points. In the illustrious words of our dear leader, SAD!
Well, I guess we're done debating. It's a shame, I hate ending debates in a draw. That's on me, though. I got too emotional, because this is a topic that is deeply personal to me. Oh well, win some, lose some, and draw some. I enjoyed our debate, no matter what it may have seemed like. I really am shameful that I came out the gates smoking. There were much better ways to argue my point and I failed in that regard. Hope you have a great day and rest of your morning!
My job doesn't allow me to use a jailbroken/rooted device
So if/when this goes through I'll be switching to iOS.
Given the choice between two closed platforms, I'll pick the one that ostensibly says they're privacy focused instead of the one actively enshittifying their product.
You should just get a cheap phone to use for work. No reason to have their software on your own device. That will undoubtedly be used for creepy purposes.
That's not really company imposed spyware though. If I thought in any way that my boss was trying to make me install spyware I wouldn't the very least install it in shelter, something that has been disappeared during the Google play store purges. You can still find the apk online atleast until Google kills android soon with their ban on user installable software outside of the play store.
So when this happens, can't fdroid just make a PC side installer that syncs apps to the phone through adb? Sure it sucks that you can't just tap to install now but at least people could still use their 600 dollar phones for as long as they were supposed to by plugging in every now and then when your PC fdroid client tells you there's updates. Heck on the meta quest I used adb only with the quest headset once I got it configured, it was some self hosted adb server and let me do all the sit I needed a computer for in the first place without one, maybe fdroid could change the client to use a "remote adb" solution like that?
Chissà perchè da bambini al mare periodicamente non tutti entravano a fare il bagno, se in questo "tutti" c'era la nostra mamma, la nostra zia, la cugina o la sorella più grande. Quante ingenuità sono sopravvisuti agli anni, mascherati da un inesistente mal di testa. E tu, lo ricordi ancora?
Earlier this month we noted how Disney and ESPN had sued Sling TV for the cardinal sin of actually trying to innovate. Sling TV’s offense: releasing new, more convenient day, weekend, or week-long shorter term streaming subscriptions that provided an affordable way to watch live television.
These mini-subscriptions, starting at around $5, have already proven to be pretty popular. But, of course, it challenges the traditional cable TV model of getting folks locked into recurring (and expensive) monthly subscriptions. Subscriptions that often mandate that you include sports programming many people simply don’t want to pay for.
So of course Time Warner has now filed a second lawsuit (sealed, 1:25-mc-00381) accusing Dish Network of breach of contract. In the complaint, Warner Bros lawyer David Yohai argues that this kind of convenience simply cannot be allowed:
“The passes fundamentally disrupt this industry-standard model by allowing customers to purchase access to the most sought-after programming, such as major sports events, essentially a la carte for a fraction of the cost that the consumer would have had to pay to watch the event on a pay-per-view basis. For example, a sports fan could simply purchase a day pass and watch select programming, such as a highly popular sports game, without purchasing a month-long subscription or paying a higher pay-per-view fee.”
Earlier this month we noted how Disney and ESPN had sued Sling TV for the cardinal sin of actually trying to innovate. Sling TV’s offense: releasing new, more convenient day, weekend, or week…
Normally I'd say Sling didn't have a prayer under this administration, but Disney has pissed everybody off - including the Grand Cheeto - so I'm just gonna go stock up on some popcorn...
I pray to no false gods. But I do cherish Jellyfins daddy Emby. I would probably use Jellyfin but I have a lifelong emby paid from donating when they first took over MB.
Edison's lightbulb invention story makes for a really good rugged individual story. Dude keeps trying after 400 failures finally finds the one that worked and becomes rich and famous for it
"For example, a sports fan could simply purchase a day pass and watch select programming, such as a highly popular sports game, without purchasing a month-long subscription or paying a higher pay-per-view fee."
WOW. The greed is insane! What total pieces of sh*t! They're not even hiding it
"For example, someone could purchase a single sandwich, instead of a loaf of bread, several pounds of meat and cheese, various produce items, and a few jars of condiments."
They're suing over the creation of competition in the market? Certainly an interesting strategy. I hope WB, Disney, and every other scum-sucker that thinks suing is acceptable gets raked across the coals.
They said it without directly saying it. They want to be able to price fix to keep their investors happy and someone is now stepping on the toes of the investors and they want to force sling to raise their price or pay them (mafia tactics) to continue operating.
Any company involved in this lawsuit should be forced to provide their subscription to all current users for free for the next 2-5 years or shutter their streaming service indefinitely.
I know what it's about. Best part is that at an entry fee of $5, Sling aren't even undercutting the market enough to allow an anti-competition lawsuit against them. So long as Sling can afford the lawyer fees, a dismissal and reversal should be a cake walk.
it pretty much depends on what their distribution agreements have in them--there could be something in there that requires monthly or longer terms for subscribers. if there isn't, there sure af will be from now on for streaming services carrying 'cable' channels
Business idea: Get subscriptions to Disney and ESPN streaming services, then let other people buy access to those accounts for one day at a time. You'd log in for them and give them the session cookie, or something like that. Shouldn't be too hard to find a country in which that isn't breaking any laws, although I'm guessing it's probably not the USA.
I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect that you may be overestimating the extent to which every piece of bullshit inserted into a TOS document that nobody reads is universally enforceable.
It's not a legal issue. They'd just shut down any accounts doing this. They already detect and shut down account sharing and this is just a variant of that. No law or government intervention necessary.
One could make it technically somewhat difficult to shut down, but better yet would be to get some timely government intervention, on the side of defending our rights to do such things on the same kind of principle as the well-established doctrine of first sale.
There's maybe a bit of an argument here if Sling is subsidizing their low prices with losses or debt or revenue from other projects. And let's be real here... that's absolutely what they're doing, cause that's what they ALL do. Offer services at unsustainable prices, in the hope of cornering a chunk of the market, and exploiting it for profit, later.
“The passes fundamentally disrupt this industry-standard model by allowing customers to purchase access to the most sought-after programming, such as major sports events, essentially a la carte for a fraction of the cost that the consumer would have had to pay to watch the event on a pay-per-view basis. For example, a sports fan could simply purchase a day pass and watch select programming, such as a highly popular sports game, without purchasing a month-long subscription or paying a higher pay-per-view fee.”
KEK, this sounds like the best add ever for Sling TV.
Schwerpunktthemen: Aktuelle Moderationsfälle, Umgang mit der neuen Funktion zitierte Posts (siehe: blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/09/… )
Es wäre schön, wenn ihr wieder aus eurem Moderationsalltag konkrete Fallbeispiele mitbringen würdet, die auch für andere interessant sind.
Meldet euch gerne über termine.social an, damit wir die Resonanz sehen. Willkommen sind wie immer Moderierende von Instanzen, Admins sowie Interessierte an der Moderation.
Wait, the solution that relies on basically violating thermodynamics rather than fixing literally anything and mostly existed as an excuse to not fix anything doesn't work?
No no no no no. You just need to believe in the process. We need to be open minded and trust the fact that only new technology™ can save us. Maybe if we would simply give more money to startups.
Don't worry though, after the U.S.'s inevitable complete decline into fascism there will probably be some wars to spread and defend "FREEDOOM". If neoliberalism dies in those wars we maybe have a shot at saving whats left of earth and nature.
In 2019, the Swiss start-up, which has raised more than $1bn from investors, predicted it would cut its capture costs from $600 per tonne to roughly $100 per tonne in “another four years”.
In reality the costs are still 2 to 3 times that, closer to $2000 per tonne. And that's not even taking into account the entire running costs of this ridiculous company, only operating their wildly inefficient plants. If you actually go and divide their 1bn fundraising so far by their a bit over 1000 tonnes removed so far you end up with almost a million dollars spent for every ton of co2 removed, which I know is oversimplified but still shows how ridiculous this entire venture is.
My world view has been shattered - presidents need visas?
I mean it makes sense but for whatever reason my brain had been sure that if you are a head of state you wouldn't be exposed to that paperwork. I guess there is probably more of it to deal with, now that I think about it.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Hi y'all, I use the default web UI (desktop and in Android on my phone) when accessing piefed.social and when I create posts, 99% are the Link type. I would love to find a way to make that my default type of post if there's any way.
I don't see any such settings but thanks for any ideas / pointers.
OK, thank you. Knowing piefed is OSS, I just cloned the repo, and I can read it, but understanding all the places where I might have to make updates is going to take a while. I might file an Issue in codeberg just as a starting point to see what you all say there.
That's a good idea. Not sure if it should be a per-profile setting or just a global default.
Also if you go to piefed.social/community/piefed… and then add the bookmarklet at the bottom then you can quickly share any web page you're looking at on piefed, without going through the process of choosing a post type.
I think its probably 50/50 whether or not people usually preference Discussion or Link posts as a default goto. So it should be per-profile if you do add this. I currently have bookmarked adding new posts to my communities for QoL though.
I think few people would ever want Image, Video, Poll or Event though.
I've been thinking this setting would make the most sense if it was on a community rather than a user. Most communities are for posting links but some communities are primarily images, some primarily discussions....
So link would be the default but mods could override the default for their community.
cone_zombie
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