irotsoma

Yeah, video streaming is not a good thing to put on a limited bandwidth server either directly or as a VPN or proxy passing data.

Best bet would be if you can set up a reverse proxy on your router and have that accept all inbound requests and direct to the correct internal server and port.

Real problem is that the rules change every year so the software has to be constantly updated and that sometimes requires insider information about what changes are coming. Often the IRS publications aren’t available until the last minute or later, definitely not in enough time for proper quality processes. So, while simple returns can sometimes be done with software like this, a lot of people rely on the software or agencies to know all the new rules.

That being said, I would like it a lot if there was a way to file very single form, but fill it out manually in the software, without calculations being done by the software. At least then you could file electronically regardless of what complex forms you need to file with complex worksheets and sub-forms, if the software didn’t need to know about those things, just the forms you actually file. As it is, the only way to file these is with expensive software or on paper which can take many months for the IRS to process and you could be on the hook for interest if you file something wrong and the IRS doesn’t reject in time for you to correct it and resubmit before interest charges accrue.

Also, a lot of IRS processes require the software to be certified (or at least did the last time I looked at it) because their software isn’t sophisticated enough to validate the complex forms, so getting that certification might be difficult for FOSS software. I’ll be interested to see how that plays out.

Mobilizon works well for me. I only wish more organizers used it so I could get events from local communities without having to enter it myself.

There are three points I could make:

1. Most software that is not free these days is also stealing all your private data. The value in these applications is generally greatly reduced, and in many cases, truly free alternatives exist, so the need to pirate should be much reduced from the past.

2. Where the first point doesn’t apply, there is usually a reason. Either the company has used their monopoly powers to force people to use their software in order to do their job or to interact with government agencies (Adobe is one that often comes to mind). In this case, the ethics of the situation IMHO mean that pirating is OK. If the company is doing unethical things to force you to buy something, then doing something unethical to not pay for it is an exception in my opinion. The person would not be buying the software if they weren’t forced to and purchases should not be forced.

3. Access for the poor is another issue where I don’t see this as an issue. The poor will never be able to afford the software, so no one is losing money on the sale and it only benefits the company to have people using it if it’s a locally running application. There may be some concerns if there are essential services involved that require servers or other systems that have to be maintained by the vendor, but otherwise, Windows having been pirated for decades made it ubiquitous. Without that, poor people likely would never have touched Windows and would have learned Linux or Mac or something else instead and Windows wouldn’t have as many people locked in as it does now. So, for the poor, assuming it’s software that runs locally, I see no issues from an ethical standpoint in general.

These are just my opinions, but I’m not alone. And this is not to be used as justification for specific actions, just very general points about the ethics of software piracy. For reference, I’ve done a lot of research on software ethics from both the user and vendor side and used to run a nonprofit on this subject.

There’s a plugin for compose, but podman itself does have some differences here and there. I’m starting to migrate my own stuff as Docker is getting more money hungry. Womder if they’ll try to IPO in a few years. Seems like that’s what these kinds of companies do after they start to decline from alienating users. Just wish that portainer and docker hadn’t killed all the GUIs for docker and swarm was better supported.

The company i work for has also required us to migrate from Docker as the hub and desktop app are no longer totally free. I expect more and more limitations will show up on the free versions as usually is the case with companies like this.