Findings and thingies

The Evolving Landscape of Software: A Critical Look at On-Prem vs. SaaS

In an era where technology continually reshapes how we interact with software, the debate between On-Premises (On-Prem) and Software as a Service (SaaS) models remains more relevant than ever. Avdi Grimm's article on software ownership (On “owning” software - avdi.codes) that I read some days ago provides a compelling perspective on this topic. However, it's crucial to explore the other side of the coin. In this post, we'll dive into the core arguments presented by Grimm and offer a different viewpoint, shaped by firsthand experiences in the software industry.

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We can reverse the enshittification of the internet. We can halt the creeping enshittification of every digital device. We can build a better, enshittification-resistant digital nervous system, one that is fit to co-ordinate the mass movements we will need to fight fascism, end genocide, save our planet and our species.

I guess many people read or heard about the term enshittification in the last few months. In this article Cory Doctorow explains how companies get to the point of enshittification. The upside is that he also sees a trend which might reverse enshittification.

It's a long article (more like an essay) but it's definitely worth spending your time reading it.

Resilience is a management strategy and apology for the status quo, for global capitalism with all its constitutive social and socioecological relations.

Feeling trapped in the relentless daily grind? Do you catch yourself longing for greater resilience amidst life's challenges? Maybe just stop right there and invest around 30 minutes for reading this essay.
It's an excerpt from the book The Exhausted of the Earth which I haven't read yet but will definitely do.

I used to believe that every book has an objective value. And I used to believe that this value is fixed and universal.

Now, I believe it’s much more useful to say something in this form: this book has this value to this person in this context.

I absolutely agree. Everybody should be comfortable abandoning a book. A book should bring something for you to the table. Not for other people. Everybody has a different context for a book. Contexts might overlap but most of the time they don't.

As anyone will tell you (and as I painstakingly learned decades ago while fooling around with getting T.120 application sharing atop and ISDN video calls), the most important thing about online meetings and video calling is actually audio.

THIS!

Open source licensing is an incredibly complex topic. Going back to last month’s article, no, developers should not have to care about the ins and outs of licenses and license enforcement…but being aware of the general parameters is a great complement to the expertise of a lawyer with experience in open source.

Today I learned about the term "being glue" by reading the linked post.

I really like the way how all the work sometimes happening in the hidden is coined as "being clue" and explaining it with good examples from the daily life of a software engineer.

Thanks for Paul Cantrell boosting and Ken Barton originally sharing this on Mastodon which made me aware of it.

And of course thanks to Tanya Reilly for writing it in the first place. 🙏

„Für neue, überflüssige Straßen werden im Auftrag des CSU-Verkehrsministerium reihenweise Bauern, Mittelständler und Privatleute enteignet“, kritisiert der Grünen-Politiker. „Seit Jahren stellt die CSU den Enteignungsminister der Bundesregierung. Wenn die Straßenbaulobby ruft, ist der CSU der Schutz des Privateigentums schnurzegal.“

Der Artikel im Tagesspiegel ist zwar von 2020, aber ist einfach interessant zu lesen, wie wenig Probleme CSU-Politiker mit Enteignungen haben, wenn es um Autos/Autobahnen geht. Geht es allerdings um Wohnraum, dann sieht die Sache leider sehr anders aus: Enteignungen sind ein Irrweg | CDU/CSU-Fraktion (WayBack). Diese Form der Doppelmoral ist wirklich nur schwer zu übertreffen.

It’s not just Disney. Just shopping at a store is now pricier without an app, a loyalty card, coupons, or a digital wallet that traces your consumption patterns and habits.

I found this article via this Toot. Especially the quoted part (above) resonated with me as I see this as an emerging pattern in Germany throughout the last years. Almost every grovery store now has their own loyalty card which is the only way to get access to certain discounts. In the end it's all about luring customers in to give their data away with the promise of more convenience (or savings) for them.

Not everything has to be convenient nowadays. Or as Oliver Burkeman has phrased it in Four Thousand Weeks:

Resisting all this as individual, or as a family, takes fortitude, because the smoother life gets, the more perverse you'll seem if you insist on maintaining the rough edges by choosing the inconvenient way of doing things. Get rid of your smartphone, quit using Google, or choose snail mail over WhatsApp, and people are increasingly likely to question your sanity. Still, it can be done.

We have to replace the hyperactive hive-mind work flow with explicit alternatives for the assignment and organization of work, and individuals can’t do that on their own. But one of the questions here is how did productivity become personal in the first place? It’s an unusual notion in the history of large-scale economic organization — this idea that we leave it up to the individual to figure out how to organize their work.

Excellent interview with Cal Newport on productivity issues in modern work environments.