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Some questions
Some questions
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Free is subjective? It's really not. The truth isn't a sliding scale.
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wow, sounds like an echo chamber there! have i wrote something so wrong?
you don't need to agree with my choice for what freedom means. "free" is very subjective, there's no one definition that "makes it free" from people choosing different ones!
or my definition of forum that i used there.
the op was expecting something else, perhaps i helped him (and other people with the same intent) to answer a bit more of their question.
for sure i bothered you guys, surprisingly. sorry. really didn't mean to.
if it wasn't clear, yes, i meant free for using online as a free service, like those similar tools and a few more, without any expertise or financial investment needed.
there are many amazing free services online, like the ones i've mentioned (why nobody commented on scuttlebutt?), and many different models on how to make it free, like wikipedia and the late github (you know, before microsoft put their dirty hands on it)...
i find it really hard to do any analogies with any kind of offline product. they break too fast.
anyway... i probably should be going to sleep now.
cheers!
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@cregox said in Some questions
:wow, sounds like an echo chamber there! have i wrote something so wrong?
Yes, claiming something free is not, is just plainly dishonest.
Looking at your old posts, you also make claims to disparage NodeBB like claiming it to be a fork of Discourse, which is not true. You consistently only post here to promote other products, and it seems that false claims seem to be the pattern.
NodeBB is free, it's that simple. Nothing about it isn't free. Trying to defame it by claiming that "free isn't free" is going to create some ire.
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@cregox said in Some questions
:if it wasn't clear, yes, i meant free for using online as a free service, like those similar tools and a few more, without any expertise or financial investment needed.
So you stated that NodeBB wasn't free, but are now claiming that hosting NodeBB isn't free. You were talking about hosting, not about NodeBB? That feels disingenuous. Obviously, that's not what you said, or implied. And it doesn't feel now like it was what you meant. Looking at your old posts, there is a pattern of making claims and hoping not to get fact checked.
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@cregox said in Some questions
:"free" is very subjective.
This is where we differ. The truth is not subjective. And this conflicts with your later claim that you didn't mean NodeBB at all.
So which is it, is "free" subjective and something you just throw around hoping people don't notice that it means something different to you than it does in the English language? Or did you mean hosting, not the product, and so you did mean free, but didn't mean NodeBB?
Your excuse as to what you said isn't consistent.
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@cregox said in Some questions
:
....anyway... i probably should be going to sleep now.
cheers!
Probably. Cheers!
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@cregox You're doing exactly what I said earlier, you're confusing everything. NodeBB is an server app, not a service.
Moreover, the comparison with Wikipedia is dishonest because of course consulting wikipedia is free (just like consulting community.nodebb.org) while the hosting costs of wikipedia are huge. (several millions of dollars per month in servers).Knowing if the NodeBB app is free or not is not subjective, I objectively didn't take a single dollar out of my pocket to install and use this app.
On the other hand yes indeed I had to come up with money to host the app but in this case you have to consider that absolutely nothing in this world is free and you have to remove this word from the dictionary because just thinking is not free since to have an idea, you have to get your brain working which needs purchased food to work, and it's the same to move your hands and your eyes...
Do we really have to go that far to accept the fact that nodeBB is free and it's not subjective?
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damn, i feel completely and unreasonably bashed down by 2 community representatives and 1 admin! (plus a few members?)
it's as if @scottalanmiller is really voicing the other 2, that nothing i say makes any sense to you and you all jump into the worst interpretation possible, without even trying to look at it with the benefit of the doubt. so many notifications of answers jumping at me, all attacking... plus negative votes... (and nobody even bothered to give a positive vote to the always undervalued question, even though they're answering it. i personally don't bother to answer things that i think have no value, at least to myself).
anyway, thanks for all the reflections.
@julian said in Some questions
:Indeed! I'd also like to know what @cregox wants from NodeBB that currently isn't free.
is it now clear for you at least?
If he's looking for one-on-one expertise or custom dev, I'm afraid I have some bad news for him, because you'll never get that for free
because i have little clue what you meant here, but i do know one thing: never say never. and paradoxes are all really language bugs.
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@cregox said in Some questions
:it's as if @scottalanmiller is really voicing the other 2, that nothing i say makes any sense to you and you all jump into the worst interpretation possible, without even trying to look at it with the benefit of the doubt.
You have made disparaging, defamatory claims that are trivially disproven and your defense is only that you get to define free however you want so that you can claim one thing and "mean" something you didn't say.
I'm not clear what benefit of the doubt you are expecting. You could have explained some way that NodeBB wasn't free, but since it IS free, and since you've only claimed that you define things differently than the language, statement, and intent mean... it's unclear what doubt there is to give the benefit of.
Instead of explaining why you'd say something like this or what you've said in the past, you simply act like we should be ashamed for calling you out on being a bully and dishonest. You've not defended your behaviour or clarified why you would have acted this way.
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@cregox said in Some questions
:is it now clear for you at least?
It's clear that after being called out that you claimed to have meant something wholly different than what you said. You want free hosting and/or support and not that NodeBB wasn't free.
Which is what we expected to be the backpeddle, but doesn't change the fact that your claim was completely false. And I don't know that we can prove that hosting NodeBB isn't free, it's just not free from NodeBB. But it can be free, if someone wants to provide it.
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@cregox said in Some questions
:nodebb ain't really free, imho. no forum tool is.
If he's looking for one-on-one expertise or custom dev, I'm afraid I have some bad news for him, because you'll never get that for free
because i have little clue what you meant here, but i do know one thing: never say never. and paradoxes are all really language bugs.
I think you fell into your own trap here. First it's the "never" rule that makes NodeBB not free. Then the thing that is essentially never free, you reverse it and point out that you can't really use never.
It's worth noting in your original statement you clarified immediately that you were talking about the tool NodeBB, not the hosting. So that later you say you meant a hosting service isn't free, is doubtful, since it's neither what you said, nor what you clarified.
If you mean NodeBB or tools, those are nouns. If you mean that hosting services are rarely free, since we know that never would be incorrect, then referencing two things that are unrelated to what you were discussing doesn't make any sense. Also, if you are here to talk about the cost of hosting, why do so in a thread where someone was asking about NodeBB, not about hosting? That's a tertiary verification that you did, indeed, mean to disparage NodeBB and your claims to having meant hosting simply don't hold water.
So, about that benefit of the doubt... lol
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@Atrexian said in Some questions
:Is this software free?
Just to be clear in case anything in this thread was confusing...
NodeBB is free in every sense of the word. It is free "as in freedom", meaning it is open and you are free to use it however you like - libre. And it is free "as in beer", meaning that you pay nothing for it and there is no cost anywhere, ever.
There is no use or definition of free that doesn't apply here
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If you come in any linux community and you say something like GNU/Linux is not free, because I have to buy a computer to run it, of course you're going to get bashed. It's exatly the same for NodeBB.
It's even insulting to the developers who provide the software and who worked hard for you for FREE. -
you really want to play with me, dontcha?
because using words and trying to define them is all this is.
you all must have got my point by now, but perhaps your rational minds can't allow my words to be right, because they don't fit in your (rather poor) definitions. or perhaps you're even consciously seeking some weird form of online satisfaction in literally trolling me.
no matter what i write here, you'll always be able to twist and keep picking on me.
but i'll bite. my masochistic self, that is. below is my last play on this topic for the foreseeable future.
here's a good source for defining words: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free
Freedom, generally, is having an ability to change without constraint.
and here's what "nodebb" really is: a brand.
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.
i don't know (and i barely care) exactly how nodebb is capitalizing the brand (i barely care how any other brand does it, for that matter). but it is doing it in some way. it's selling the brand. for money.
sell it away.
i'm really glad at least you're not censoring this thread... even if you feel threatened by it for some reason.
if i can't use the nodebb service as a brand because i don't know how to host it, or because i don't have the money to pay for a host, then it is not free for me. i have no ability to use nodebb to make a change-without-constraint in my ability to use nodebb.
and that's what happens for at least 90% of people who might want to use nodebb for free. they just can't.
there are similar brands out there, doing similar efforts, and none are free in this way.
until one is.
and then it might become the only one (way back machine). or just the leading one (google). or the pioneer (orkut?).
my one paragraph in my first message which caused so much commotion in this thread was simply stating all this. and the other paragraph was me cheering for nodebb to be a pioneer in this aspect. even though my hopes for that actually happening were actually very low even before all this.
peace!
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@cregox said in Some questions
:no matter what i write here, you'll always be able to twist and keep picking on me.
No one has twisted anything. Not one bit.
You were crystal clear, no room for doubt. There's no question from the context what you were trying to say, and you verified it. You've been trying to twist your own words since, but no one has put words in your mouth. You were absolutely clear in your intention from the first thing you said.
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@cregox said in Some questions
:if i can't use the nodebb service as a brand because i don't know how to host it, or because i don't have the money to pay for a host, then it is not free for me. i have no ability to use nodebb to make a change-without-constraint in my ability to use nodebb.
This is, and we'll say this again, lying. Your inability to use something you've received for free does not change that it is/was free. Claiming that something that you were given as a gift wasn't a gift or free because you don't understand it or don't know how to use it or it isn't something else is just lying.
Saying that anything, NodeBB, WordPress, whatever, isn't free because something else, like web hosting, isn't necessarily free is false. You might as well say that NodeBB isn't free because they don't drive your car on your way to lunch - it's unrelated and to attempt to confuse someone by using such a deception is what lying means. You are saying something completely false, there's no excuse for this.
You need to just accept that NodeBB is free, as is all software under the GPL. There is no cost. If you want to pay someone to operate a website for you, that's fine and cannot change the fact that the software is free.
You are literally making the claim that if someone is given a hammer, for free, that they should complain when they don't also get someone to pound in the nails on their behalf, or to throw it through a window, or to do whatever it is you decide to do with it. The tool is free, the use of the tool whether free or not is not the tool itself. And it's a bit ridiculous to think that people here would be so easily confused.
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@Per0x said in Some questions
:@cregox Can you name an server app that is free according to your criteria?
He's backpeddle claim is that "nothing is free" and that the entire concept doesn't exist. Which is fine in a philosophical argument about the meaning of freedom or something. But here, he's intentionally attempting to confuse the OP by outright deception.
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@cregox said in Some questions
:until one is.
No, there is always a cost by your logic. Always. So when you say things like this, it exposes the lie.
The logic you attempt to use to excuse your lie in the first place is that the "use" of the product isn't necessarily free, so therefore the object isn't free. Okay, so let's use that logic to show how you can't have meant it.
Because now you claim it could be, but no one is. So this is an attack on "all products" that exist today, but theoretically you believe this could change. Well, but no.
You see because there is no end to what it takes to "use" a product. If NodeBB gave you free hosting, you'd claim that okay, but they aren't paying for your Internet access at home, so it's still not free. If they paid for that, you'd claim that the electricity for your computer, or the computer itself, at your home isn't free. If they paid for that, you'd argue that the chair, desk, or even the house wasn't paid for, so not free. If they continue to pay for that, you'd argue that they need to feed you and cloth you, but still, logically there's no reason to stop there, it's all the same as the hosting - not the product in question. In the end, the only way to make you happy that something is free is to not have you in the equation. Only when you are gone, and the person reading the site, commenting, etc. isn't you, is it free, to you.
But you see, we do all that already. So you see, it IS free. Even today. Because here we are, all using it, without you, and it costs you nothing. Did you notice? The software, the hosting, the stuff you were claiming wasn't free is... because this conversation is being hosted, managed, everything for free. It costs you nothing. The only thing that costs you anything, is your voluntarily participation and that only costs you the silly things like effort, food, electricity to use.
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@cregox said in Some questions
:it's selling the brand. for money.
But it's not. You can't paid them for the brand. Not only is it free (with an option to pay), it's only free. The brand isn't available for your use, but the product is. And the product is always free, there is no option to pay.
This is where we know you are attempting not only deception, but a defamation of NodeBB - because you will say anything, twist any word, meaning or whatever, to try to make people reading this feel that NodeBB is charging money, that it is somehow required. This is patently false. NodeBB is free. No twisting of words that you do is going to come up with some way to make it not be free. Calling a product a brand, claiming that is a charge when there isn't, etc. that's what "twisting words" is.
NodeBB is a product that you get for free. You only get it for free. They could, if they wanted, charge, but they don't. The fact that you get a thing with no cost whatsoever is the very definition of free. That you can use it however you want is the definition of libre. So it is free in both senses of the word.
In every case where you try to describe something not free, you both try to use NodeBB to refer to something that isn't NodeBB, and you try to claim that there is a fee where none exists. The degree to which your claims are false is absurd, it's not even like one could see how you are confused. It's so implausible that there is no means to provide a benefit of the doubt that you don't understand. You can't possibly be that confused about the concepts of what a product is, and what it means to be charged for something.
