[AMA] We're Framasoft, we develop PeerTube, ask us anything!
-
Hi!
We're actually considering hiring a new full-stack developer in the future (to work on all of our services, not on PeerTube) and that would be possible for us to hire someone leaving in another country if:
- the person accepts a French salary-level
- the person speaks French (a big part of our team does not speak English)
Keep watching our posts on our social media, so you won't miss the announce!---
Exciting! I am however not speaking french so I am automatically excluded as a candidate this time around
I hope you find a really good candidate!
-
Yeah, we think we worked hard but we still had a bit of luck
We really think communication is important too. However, to be precise, even our colleague which joined us to start working on it was not an expert of the field. He was just a volunteer interested to work on our communication and started to do so. Some years later, we're able to hire him so he could be truly dedicated to this mission!
We thinks it's better to hire someone being able to work with others and passionate about digital issues than an expert in a specific field. Technical skills can be acquired but human skills are harder to get!
Concerning how we pay our staff: we pay a lot more than most non-profit organizations in France, but it's less than what our employees could expect regarding their skills on the competitive market.
Though, we think money is not the only reason why our talents stay with us: we also provide really good work conditions (We try to respect each one rythm and needs, either it's material or something like following a training). Finally, all of our employees find a meaning in our mission (raising awareness about digital issues, providing alternative and respectful services to organizations and people, etc).Ye I know that there's a lot of self-fulfillment coming from FOSS work. It's why I do it even though I'm not getting paid. However being in Luxembourg, even market competitive rates are barely affordable, and good vibes doesn't pay my rent, so alas if our org had enough money to pay someone, I would personally still have to continue with the wage work.
It's unfortunate that people give so much to for-profits, but people doing things that are objectively better for the world, have to tighten their belts to get by.
Anyway, thank you for your time. You explained pretty much what has been my observations in the FOSS space. I agree with all your takes. Perhaps in the future Framasoft and Haidra might be able to collaborate.
-
Y'all hiring?
(Kinda joking 'cause I know you just said you're small, but I am genuinely interested in figuring out how to get a software dev job with a French company as an American looking to emigrate.)
-
Do larger one-time or smaller monthly donations help your organization more?
We prefer monthly donations because they help us maintain financial stability throughout the year, whereas one-time donations tend to come in mainly when we run fundraising campaigns like this one (which means that some months our cash flow is low).
Thank you for your support!
-
will you try to modernize the office suit (framacalc etc) like you did peertube?
Hello!
Yes, we're actually working on modernizing our de-google-ify suit!
However, it'll take time since we need to review each service and identify what are our needs and how we can fit them! Do we need to develop new features for an existing software? Are we able to do so? Is there a new software fully fitting our needs? Or maybe there are other promising softwares but not ready yet?There are a lot of things to consider, especially when we're talking of services being used by 2M people each month!
-
Bonjour,
c/[email protected]!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/Framasoftaccount, 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!
Hi! Nothing to ask but I just wanted to let you know I appreciate your work!
-
One thing that might get more content creators on PeerTube could be “advertising” as not just a video platform, but also a backup service.
I’m guessing most content creators have their original video and video project files backed up somewhere. Why not have the ability to use PeerTube for that?
You can already have PeerTube store the original video file, when you upload it, something YouTube can’t do.
Id be against advertising on peertube, advertising is to mighten overproducers to overgrip peertube inhold. Inhold should rather be made on the grounds of the meaningful, and design should eyen how to forward the meaningful.
-
I love your guys work and fully support it. I think libre software is the only way foward if we don't want worse and worse platforms.
Question:
Do you think Peertube will likely ever have a the diversity of content that YouTube has or with different motives for making content it may never reach that scale?We don't think PeerTube will directly replace YouTube at some point, but we do think that some organizations, media outlets, and content creators may not have the same level of interest in posting on YouTube as they do today. For all of them, we hope they will find PeerTube to be a good fit.
-
What strategies did you find most successful in earning your NLNet and other grants?
-
Bonjour,
c/[email protected]!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/Framasoftaccount, 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!
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!
-
Will your games eventually support mobile-first concepts? I've tried the first handful of your framagames offerings and none of them work on a mobile phone. If that is indicative of your overall work, I fear the only users you'll attract will be staunch keyboard and desktop users. While that was the norm 20 years ago when you started, the landscape has changed. Today, most users' primary and only compute device is their mobile phone. Please consider expanding your reach and accommodating the needs of today's audience.
Hi,
The Framagames website was set up a long time ago and it only features FLOSS games made by external devs, we do very very little development apart from PeerTube.
As almost all of our services are built on third-party free software, our lack of adaptability to mobile devices is simply a reflection of a general lack of expertise in this area within the free software community.
However, we are well aware that we missed the boat on this topic many years ago.That is why we are exploring the publication of mobile applications, first with PeerTube, as in this case, but also with Lokas, an audio transcription application.
Finally, several of our services are also aging and need to be replaced by other solutions that are more compatible with mobile use.
-
Hi!
We're actually considering hiring a new full-stack developer in the future (to work on all of our services, not on PeerTube) and that would be possible for us to hire someone leaving in another country if:
- the person accepts a French salary-level
- the person speaks French (a big part of our team does not speak English)
Keep watching our posts on our social media, so you won't miss the announce!---
Interessant !
-
Bonjour,
c/[email protected]!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/Framasoftaccount, 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!
I may still have a pdf listing free software (or just games?) somewhere that you were writing from nearly two decades ago, and still today you provide so many great resources. Thank you!!
-
Id be against advertising on peertube, advertising is to mighten overproducers to overgrip peertube inhold. Inhold should rather be made on the grounds of the meaningful, and design should eyen how to forward the meaningful.
I’m not talking about ads.
-
What could you recommend to a privacy enthusiast that want to turn they privacy literacy into work-related competence?
The digital mediation sector is not exactly thriving, but there are still opportunities to organize events that address the issue of privacy with the general public.
On a more technical side, there are also companies that are specifically positioning themselves on these issues. -
Bonjour,
c/[email protected]!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/Framasoftaccount, 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!
Just came to say Thank You!
I've been using FramaGit ever since Github went Microsoft.
-
Bonjour,
c/[email protected]!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/Framasoftaccount, 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!
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?
-
Do you believe in the fediverse's ability to compete or to replace the current the social media environnement either from a technical perspective or from the dynamic of the environment?
If so, would it be a close remplacement or will it change deeply the way people use social media?Same question specifically for PeerTube.
Most likely not replace the existing digital environment, but we know that the current digital landscape and its uses could evolve very quickly (whether due to the invention of something new/negative or geopolitical issues). When such events occur, it is important that the available alternatives avoid well-known flaws, and the fediverse has a lot to offer in this regard. But we must continue to work on improving the minor annoyances that federation brings.
-
Bonjour,
c/[email protected]!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/Framasoftaccount, 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!
What is the authoritative source of information for learning how to run an instance of peertube and how difficult is it for a moderately skilled sysadmin to do so?
-
Do you think that the ability to browse content without an account is a differentiating factor to the fediverse?
Would a content creator be able to attract lurking non-fedi user using that capacity?
