we're gonna have to rebuild and replace pretty much every layer of the web to take it back from centralization and corporatism 😰

the good news is that most of what we need already exists. alternative routing protocols, alternative DNS implementations, p2p protocols and userland software built on it. we are awash in alternative networking infrastructure and there are massive implementations in use today like freifunk that not only provide working software but which also organize the labor to maintain these alternatives. we can do this! we are doing it already.

i don't know crap about open hardware but i know it's a mess. libre efforts have been blocked by access to fabrication services. my understanding is that, to unblock it, we'll need to develop production lines that are more conducive to decentralization and community ownership. we'll need to build our own fabs.

browsers, too. i have no idea what to do about wresting control of web app standards and environments from vendors.

@garbados my worry is as the replacement system grows how do we prevent it from being taken over by corporate interests like the current system is?

@packetcharmer @garbados I think we gotta make sure that our can't possibly be taken over. We must not trust anyone to control it. They nicht be on now, but the next could be worse.

Free software licences like the GPL were written to try to prevent things happening, and it seems to have worked, corps don't tend to use GPL much. This could be a lesson.

@ebel @packetcharmer GPL is a complicated topic so here is a Hot Take:

the power of licenses comes down to enforcement. if cisco uses GPL net code in their firmware, it’ll never bite them in the ass unless the EFF or whoever has the resources chooses to make a stink about it. the GPL acts like a threat-of-costs, where they either have to validate license conformity in their stack, or set aside a war chest for legal fees.

@packetcharmer @ebel but if cisco or whoever judges that they’re stealing from someone without the resources to resist, then they have no reason to allocate fees for a legal defense. law is for the rich.

im inclined to believe that some systems cannot be effectively monetized, and if they can’t be monetized, then what footing have the corpers got to co-opt it? we can build systems so decentralized that there is nothing to steal.

@garbados @ebel one of my worries is if some entity that’s building out parts of the network abuses their position on it either directly or by having their equipment taken over by a malicious person/company to monetize the data going through it. Basically anyone that has any sort of controlling interest in the network can abuse that position and there’d be nothing we could do but try to replicate all of their connections so we could then kick them.