mumber_typhoon 2 hours ago

Imagine a scenario where you want to start gardening. Go to gardening clubs and you'll find a lot of free information there and people to guide you. Public libraries exist if you want to join a book club and start reading. Again free. Agriculture, irrigation, building homes, woodworking, stitching clothes, etc. everything essential has been free to learn and do.

Apply this to the internet and essentials are FOSS. Linux, DNS and maybe RISCV someday will mean you can build computers and internet on essentials that are free to learn and use.

  • staplers 8 minutes ago

    Raspberry Pi's obviously trying to make this a reality.

    Learning to self-host and get off cloud services might be one of the most personally freeing feelings I've had in a long time.

    Rent-seeking is obviously growing out of control and one of the most powerful ways to combat it is personal ownership (if possible).

seydor 22 minutes ago

We should tax cloudflare, aws etc. for using public infrastructure

charcircuit 5 hours ago

>In the cloud, hyperscale computing platforms such as Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services all operate significant resolver infrastructure to support their services. At least four of the biggest hyperscalers rely on FOSS for DNS resolving, while others have built proprietary solutions based on FOSS DNS libraries.

This is surprising. I would have expected them to have custom needs with so many customers that using an off the shelf service would be sufficient.

  • lofties 3 hours ago

    It's all cURL.

jongjong 7 hours ago

But the infrastructure is highly centralized and only certain chosen entities can operate gTLDs and certificate authorities. It's extremely misleading to call it 'free software'. Why can't there be multiple competing systems. There should be a push for Blockchain-based alternatives. I still don't understand why projects like Unstoppable Domains aren't getting more traction. The idea of a domain name that you actually own is appealing.

  • denkmoon 6 hours ago

    There can be and are multiple competing systems. There are alternative dns roots, opennic.org for example, and entirely separate protocols like ipfs and i2p with their own methods of mapping names to numbers.

    You can go make your entire own alternative DNS system, with your own governance and policy. Free as you like. You just have to convince people to resolve against you.

  • zzo38computer 6 hours ago

    I think that permanent identifiers might be helpful, which could include a timestamp and other stuff. This can be combined with web of trust, that it can then be verified in this way.

  • lelandbatey 7 hours ago

    I think you may be applying a very weird definition of "free software", even compared to the usual gratis vs libre axis.

    Also, I really don't think controlling a domain name NFT in a system that's mostly computers you neither own nor control constitutes "more ownership" than the IRL law and contract bound rental world we currently live in. Especially if all the requirements and outcomes (payments for control resulting in land grabs of valuable names) are the same as our current system.

  • renewiltord 3 hours ago

    They just run one root. You can run a different root. E.g. Some people run an ENS bridge.