Bonjour, c/opensource@lemmy.ml!

Framasoft (that’s us!) is a small French non-profit (10 employees + 25 volunteers), that has been promoting Free-Libre software and its culture to a French-speaking audience for 20+ years.

What does Framasoft do?

We strongly believe that Free-Libre software is one of the essential tools for achieving a Free-Libre society. That is why we maintain and contribute to lots of projects that aim to empower people to get more freedom in their digital lives.

Among those tools are:

  • 20 FOSS based web-services that we host (mainly for our French-speaking audience) on our Degooglify Internet website, including Framadate and Framaforms… ;
  • many talks, workshops, and participations to conventions ;
  • A blog, where we share our views and where a group of volunteers translate into French news from the English-speaking FLOSS world ;
  • Many, many ressources to help people and organizations in their transition to ethical digital tools (guides, documentation, even card games!) ;

Framasoft is funded by donations (94% of our 2024 budget), mainly grassroots donations (75% of the 2024 budget). As we mainly communicate in French, the overwhelming majority of our donations comes from the French-speaking audience. You can help us through joinpeertube.org/contribute.

We develop PeerTube

In the English-speaking community, we are mostly known for developing PeerTube, a self-hosted video and live-streaming free/libre platform, which has become the main alternative to Big Tech’s video platforms.

From a student project to a software with international reach, our video platform solution is now, seven years later, used and acknowledged by many institutions!

The last major version of PeerTube, v7, has been released at the end of 2024, along with the first version of the official mobile app, available on both Android (Play Store, F-Droid) and iOS.

Now that the PeerTube platform has matured significantly over successive versions, we believe that the way to enable even more people to use PeerTube is to improve the mobile app so that it can be carried around in people’s pockets.

Ask Us Anything!

Last month, we have published the roadmap for the project. This week, we also launched our new crowdfunding campaign which focuses on our mobile app. We want to give you the opportunity through this AMA to give us feedback on the product and the project and discuss the crowdfunding campaign and our next steps!

If you have any questions, please ask them below (and upvote those you want us to answer first).

We will answer them to the best of our abilities with the /u/Framasoft account, from May. 28th 2025 5pm CET (11 am EST) until we are too tired ;).

EDIT (8:16 pm CET): This wraps it for the day, thanks for all of your questions and feedback!

  • Killercat103@slrpnk.netEnglish
    22·
    7 days ago

    Have you guys considered making a way for content creators to monetize their content? I am not one myself but I realize it’s often a source of income they depend on and would be willing to use money to see such content myself.

  • spacemanspiffy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    19·
    7 days ago

    I write closed source, proprietary code for a living.

    That makes me sad.

    Have your developers any advice on how to get paid to write Free Software?

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      24·
      7 days ago

      Our developers were writing Free Software on their free time before they got hired, because Framasoft knew them through their free-time productions, but obviously not everybody can do that, and we’ve very lucky to have an economic model which allows us to pay developers properly.

      • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
        8·
        7 days ago

        I have a friend that does this.

        They’re right. First build an amazing profile contributing to Foss. Then apply for grants. If you don’t like writing grants, get a part time job doing evil closed code and another part time doing Foss.

  • iddqd404@lemmy.mlEnglish
    9·
    6 days ago

    (Not a question) I have used services hosted by Framasoft many times, but I wasn’t aware that you were also the developers of PeerTube! I have almost stopped using Y*utube and I’ve been trying to use PeerTube more and more. The main hurdle is finding content, which I’m sure will get easier and easier as the platform gets adopted and known in the fediverse and beyond. Congratulations for you efforts promoting Free and Libre software, keep up the good work!

  • pedroapero@lemmy.ml
    14·
    7 days ago

    You have my unconditional respect I donated a couple of times already. I wish you the best, keep on going!

  • Mazesecle@lemm.eeEnglish
    15·
    7 days ago

    We strongly believe that Free-Libre software is one of the essential tools for achieving a Free-Libre society.

    French-speaking audience

    Why is your user target group mainly a French-speaking audience? It seems like hosting services in English would be more in-line with having a “Free-Libre society”; instead it is “Free-Libre society but only in French-speaking regions”

    (I’m not from USA), but online I still prefer to use a language that almost everyone speaks, instead of creating content only few peopke can enjoy

    (Μπορώ να γράψω την ερώτηση και στα ελληνικά άμα θέλετε να την καταλάβετε καλύτερα)

    Nevertheless, I really am grateful for your work in Peertube and your other projects!

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      40·
      7 days ago

      Because we’re a very small team, and we’re okay with it staying this way. Not all of us are speaking English correctly. Having a worldwide audience would mean communicating in English all the time, providing assistance in English.

      Also, we want to grow at a pace that suits us. We would much prefer if there were other organizations doing exactly the same thing as us in other countries that we could refer people to.

      • Mazesecle@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        Ευχαριστώ για την απάντηση! Ναι φυσικά, δεν αναφέρθηκα στον ρυθμό ανάπτυξής σας, απλώς αν ο στόχος είναι η διάδοση του ελεύθερου λογισμικού, θα έχει μεγαλύτερη επιτυχία η παραγωγή περιεχομένου σε μια γλώσσα που μιλάνε περισσότεροι άνθρωποι.

        Αλλιώς καταλήγουμε με περιεχόμενο που ήδη από τη στιγμή της συγγραφής του, έχει εξ’ ορισμού ένα παραπάνω εμπόδιο στο να έχουν πρόσβαση άνθρωποι, και μάλιστα εσκεμμένα από τον συγγραφέα. Συνήθως το ελεύθερο λογισμικό προσπαθεί να έχει και διάφορα πλεονεκτήματα, όπως η εκπαίδευση του κόσμου, η βελτίωση της ιδιωτικότητας του ατόμου, κλπ κλπ.

        Γράφοντας ο καθένας στη γλώσσα του, είναι σαν να λέμε ότι μόνο οι λίγοι που μιλάνε την γλώσσα αξίζει να χρησιμοποιήσουν πχ ένα λογισμικό που έχει μεγαλύτερη ιδιωτικότητα. Αυτό προφανώς δεν συμβαίνει άμα κάνουμε τις ίδιες ενέργειες αλλά χρησιμοποιώντας μια γλώσσα που μιλάει ο μισός πλανήτης

        Οι άνθρωποι που μιλάνε αγγλικά, είναι πάρα πολύ περισσότεροι από εκείνους που μιλάνε γαλλικά, κι αν πρέπει κάθε κείμενο να το ξαναγράφουμε 200 φορές σε 200 γλώσσες, αφιερώνουμε ενέργεια που θα μπορούσε να βοηθήσει και με άλλους τρόπους το έργο

    • a Kendrick fan@lemmy.ml
      7·
      7 days ago

      online I still prefer to use a language that almost everyone speaks

      i wonder how many languages this mindset would kill off

      ehm no, fuck english

      • AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space
        5·
        6 days ago

        I get it, and I have been ambivalent throughout my life about it - but I think every time I sit down and think about it, I am still more appreciative of the benefits of a global “Lingua Franca”, compared to the problems. I do appreciate that I can enter the majority of communities online, and immediately, there’s one language everyone can participate in the discussions with, without the need of machine translations and other hoops.

        But I do agree that it would be wrong to extrapolate from English being such a language that everyone speaks “well enough” (often with local quirks, like my German bleeding through when I provide run on sentences en masse), to saying content should be made exclusively/primarily in English only.

        I think Framasoft are good enough at providing their technology offerings with English documentation, which is I think the important part. They also accept English feedback, and can communicate with people in English like here. And their more local, French focus has, I think, helped them with a stable foundation at home and a supportive community.

        • Mazesecle@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          6 days ago

          I don’t always like it much either, but we do need a common language for exchanging information etc; there is already too much fake news, misinformation, and echo chambers without having a language barrier.

      • Mazesecle@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        Δεν πειράζει, μπορείς να μην μιλάς αγγλικά εσύ και να έχεις πρόσβαση σε λιγότερο περιεχόμενο στο Internet 🤷

  • defolos_tech@lemmy.world
    8·
    6 days ago

    Merci pour votre travail, c’est génial ! 👏💪

    Have you ever thought about offering compute capabilities (with OpenLambda for ex) or hosting web services ? I’d personnally pay for that, and there’s a need for European cloud alternatives !

  • atlien51@lemm.ee
    7·
    6 days ago

    Hii is peertube any good? I thought odysee was the YouTube competitor but the content on that platform is a fucking nightmare

    • AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space
      5·
      6 days ago

      Don’t know about what’s on Odyssey - but content on PeerTube is pretty neat, in my opinion - if you like Linux, FLOSS, tinkering and in general, people making videos out of being passionate about something. Also occasional weirdness, and also an increasing amount of “normal” content, at least I had that feeling in the past weeks.

      Check !peertube@lemmy.world and !peertube@lemmy.wtf for a rough overview of what to expect and recommendations.

      But it is of course also a miniscule amount of content when compared to the giants. And if you go on the wrong instances, there definitely are spammers and grifters to be found. But usually, they get excluded from trustworthy instances.

      • atlien51@lemm.ee
        3·
        6 days ago

        With websites like this I find that there needs to be strong moderation. Cause stupid people try to upload all kinds of gross shit thinking oh I’ll get away with it bc it’s a small website & I’ll overwhelm them

        • AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space
          3·
          6 days ago

          100℅ with you there, I had to struggle with some people trying the weirdest shit on my PeerTube instance, including repeated attempts at ban evasion. Things got better ever since I made registration manually approved only again, though. Even just fencing it off behind “willing and able to write a few coherent words” helps a lot.

  • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
    12·
    7 days ago

    I have access to ~20Gb/s worth of extra bandwidth. Is there any way I can “donate” it to different Peertube instances? Right now I just use it to seed things and run XMR/I2P nodes

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
    5·
    6 days ago

    Hey, guys, I know I’m late to the party, but my city just announced that they spent half a million dollars of Microsoft office licenses last year. I think that’s nuts. I want to try to persuade them to switch non-power-users to LibreOffice suite and reduce their office licenses by over 90%. Do you have any advice, examples, or selling points that can help me persuade them to cut Microsoft office licenses instead of literal firefighters? And, seeing as this is late, I’d welcome anybody answering. Thanks!

  • Ademir@lemmy.eco.brEnglish
    8·
    7 days ago

    The most exciting feature of having the same protocol, IMHO, is to be able to access the same channels with different kind of interfaces. Accessing Peertube channel as an Lemmy Community, or a Mastodon profile. The user is able to chose how they prefer to consume content. Are there plans to promote better integration between different platforms?

  • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
    9·
    6 days ago

    I want to run a PT instance that just mirrors 100% of the CC-licensed videos on YouTube, so folks using Tor and VPNs can access it.

    I’m not looking to make money, but I do need to cover the monthly costs of the server. What methods are available to monetize the site? Is there some plugin that can simply inject (privacy friendly) pre-watch ads?

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      10·
      7 days ago

      For now, it’s mostly only the possibility writing in the “About” page of the server ways to support it, possibly with a banner above videos to encourage people to give money. Creators can also add a “Support” button below videos to tell viewers how to support them.

      But I think some people are working on requiring people to login and have a subscription to view videos.

      I don’t know of an existing plugin that injects pre-roll ads, but it could probably already be developed with the current available APIs.

  • Penny7@lemm.ee
    6·
    6 days ago

    Hi! One day I want to move from YouTube to PeerTube (in the process of getting some things done before I do) and when I was trying to explore it, one thing that frustrated me was trying to search for anything on the platform.

    I tried to do a searches for random topics and the top search results instances/servers that had nothing to do with what I was looking for.

    This frustration was also echoed by somebody with experience on the platform that I ended up talking with. They were able to direct me to the specific instances I’d want because they’re a part of them too, but it shouldn’t be so difficult to find what you want, so my question is are you trying to fix the search engine on your platform to make it more user friendly so that most of your platform isn’t seemingly word of mouth (so to speak)?

    • AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space
      7·
      6 days ago

      Not Framasoft or affiliated with them. Depending on how long ago your attempt was, their Sepia Search tool may be what you are looking for. That search index has also become the main search option for many instances and it’s definitely a lot better than the options a few years ago.

      That being said, discoverability is still a problem. Search algorithms are actually deceptively hard to create and optimise - and with no personalised algorithm, creating a good experience needs more invested time and work at the moment (finding and adding subscriptions).

      Speaking of algorithms, there’s a promising project with a lot of potential: PeerTube Picks, which currently is in the form of a Firefox add-on that implements a very basic personalised algorithm, which, anecdotally, has helped me discover a few channels/videos I would have otherwise missed. There’s also !peertube@lemmy.world and !peertube@lemmy.wtf to find and share videos, channels and playlists, although that is of course kind of word of mouth, still.

      • Penny7@lemm.ee
        2·
        6 days ago

        I was looking at it around the beginning of this year, so it would have been with Sepia. And if you search something simple like ‘sewing’ or ‘movies’ you shouldn’t get topics such as modern politics as your top results. That’s not just out of left field, that is a whole different ballpark. If I did a search for ‘sewing’ and got embroidery results…ok. Same game, just different position. Makes a bit more sense. You’re still stitchin’.

        Also, using something like ‘literature’ shouldn’t get you the same top results as ‘sewing’ does.

        SUPER FRUSTRATING!!!