This topic is meant to kickstart discussion around for FOSS adoption at the FOSS United Foundation and within the broader FOSS United Community.
Context
Multiple conversations have happened within the FOSS United Community over the past few months regarding FOSS usage, especially during and after the IndiaFOSS 4.0 conference. For example, community members have pointed out the usage of Google Maps (in screenshots and on the event pages for directions), a few instances of Google Docs being shared, and design assets shared via Figma. The Foundation has also been cognizant of the fact that we’re not as active on Mastadon as we should be. There has been a healthy discussion for a while within the Community regarding moving away from Matrix, which was reignited because of the recent controversy around Telegram. We have also been self-hosting a number of FOSS tools, and there is interest in increasing that list to include more projects while also improving the usability of existing self-hosted tools.
Motivation
The Foundation is in a privileged position in the context of the broader FOSS communities. We have the resources (money) to evaluate, use, and promote FOSS tools. These tools aren’t specific to the FOSS United Community or the Foundation. Most organizations (for-profits and not-for-profits alike) and Communities can benefit from the FOSS usage experiments we conduct and the information we disseminate.
FOSS communities are (understandably) particular about the implicit recognition/support that is provided by many organizations through their use of closed-source tools. A closed-source tool might inadvertently (or in some cases intentionally) be the default option for a number of usecases at the Foundation so we should proactively investigate FOSS alternatives, and attempt to use them for all activities.
The cost savings associated with self-hosting are widely discussed online but context-specific numbers are hard to come by. Organizations need to be able to compare and contrast the costs associated with their existing proprietary tool with potential FOSS alternatives in their particular context. Documenting and disseminating information about how much it costs us (server cost + manpower cost) to self-host critical infrastructure will prove useful for the ecosystem as a whole and disseminating existing information will be a priority going forwards.
Short-term (End of 2024)
All public-facing tools used by the FOSS United Foundation are FOSS-only and the Foundation should not implicitly or explicitly recommend any proprietary tool for any public-facing activity.
- We do our best to interact with the Community only via Matrix accounts instead of Telegram accounts
- New interactions with the Community will be started using Matrix instead of Telegram and if necessary, Matrix <> Telegram bridges will be setup to facilitate Community members to continue living in Telegram e.g. new City chapter discussion groups or new Student club discussions are started as Matrix rooms
- All virtual meetings happen on FOSS software e.g. jitsi. This is mostly true at the moment, except for the few cal.com calls that use the cal video calling solution. We are discussing the possibility of self-hosting Jitsi to provide a good UX for people taking part in the virtual meetings
- Public-facing presentations have to be done via a Linux/Unix operating system instead of Windows or MacOS
- Documents shared with the public will be via FOSS software e.g. NextCloud instead of Google Cloud
- The Foundation will highlight Matrix rooms before the Telegram group e.g. on the Website, via Social Media, during intro presentation at meetups, etc
- The Foundation primarily shares content via Mastadon and all other social media networks are secondary, potentially bridged to Mastadon e.g. LinkedIn/X
- FOSS United Video library becomes available on a FOSS-alternative to YouTube e.g. PeerTube
- New Design assets shared by the Foundation with the Community are via FOSS tools e.g. Penpot instead of Figma. Please note that we have no existing expertise with Penpot at the moment so this is a best case scenario. We will be investigating and attempting to use Penpot until the end of the year
- Setup mirrors of the active fossunited GitHub repositories on FOSS Git-hosting platforms e.g. https://codeberg.org/
- Where available, the website will be updated to link to the respective public Matrix rooms for city communities and student clubs
- Where available, the website will be updated to link to the respective Mastadon accounts for city communities and student clubs
- ~Consider self-hosting mastadon (although this might be resource intensive e.g. mozilla decided to shutdown their instance Mozilla will shut down its Mastodon server on December 17th. - The Verge)~ Consider moving mastadon account from mas.to to fosstodon. See Mastodon server migration
- The event organizers should be able to provide venue location via multiple providers, preferably at least one FOSS provider e.g. OsmAnd Map. Please see issue [FEATURE] Provide multiple location links for events · Issue #631 · fossunited/fossunited · GitHub to track progress on this feature.
Note: Using Matrix and Telegram together brings up an interesting problem - a few people at the Foundation are already inundated by messages so using both basically doubles the information being received, even though the same information is coming in twice. In our recommendation, you could consider continuing to use Telegram to read incoming messages and, where possible, respond to the messages via Matrix. And there’s not much we can do regarding DMs that we receive from the community/public apart from nudging them to move to Matrix.
Long-term (End of 2025)
The broader Community starts adhering to the same standards as the Foundation i.e.
- The City Chapters and Student Clubs are strongly recommended to ensure that all public-facing usage is FOSS-only e.g. opening and closing notes in city chapter meetups, meetups in student clubs, online events, etc have to all happens from a Linux/Unix OS
- The City chapter and Student clubs also only share documents via Nextcloud and meeting links via jitsi or other FOSS alternative to the Google defaults
- Existing City Chapters migrate away from Telegram groups to Matrix rooms
- Existing Student Clubs migrate away from Telegram to Matrix rooms
- IndiaFOSS and FOSSHack organizing happens on Matrix instead of Telegram
- Review committees, city leads, and student club leads telegram groups are migrated to Matrix Rooms
- The City Chapters and Student Clubs also primarily use Mastadon to share content
In addition,
- FOSS Git-hosting platforms are the default and the GitHub repositories are the mirrors
Note: Please note that we (the Foundation) will be unlikely to immediately and completely move away from all closed-source tool usage. We plan to take the pragmatic approach of first replacing all public-facing closed-source tool usage, ensuring that we are not implicitly or explicitly supporting a closed-source tool. While we are on this journey, we will also work towards replacing any internal closed-source tool, to ensure that we are not only using and disseminating information existing FOSS tools but also actively discovering alternatives to closed-source tools.
What did we miss? What more do you think we should be doing? Please consider responding with your feedback.
Update #1 - we will also look into self-hosting cal.com instead of using the hosted version
Update #2 - explicitly mention https://codeberg.org/, mentioned by @Arya_Kiran on Matrix
Update #3 - added mastadon to the list of potential software that we self-host
Update #4 - don’t self-host mastadon, consider moving from mas.to to fosstodon instead
Update #5 - added info about FOSS alternatives to Google Maps as event venue links
time more than resources so we will definitely be bugging you regarding this
Golden point. I think other NGO’s who somewhere fiddle around with tech need to have an understanding of this as well.