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!

  • Ludrol@szmer.info
    15·
    2 months ago

    Thanks for your work. I have two questions:

    1. Will the set-up wizzard include federation settings? (Federate by default or defederate by default)?

    2. What are current plans for FramaDate? That was the only usable project for scheduling TTRPG sessions that I have found, but it has a bunch of issues on mobile.

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      4·
      2 months ago

      Hi!

      1. The wizard is still not designed, but yes we think it will include federation settings so it’s easier for institutions or private instances to setup a “safe” PeerTube instance.

      2. We’re actually evaluating alternative softwares for Framadate, with mobile support as a required feature. We’ll tell more about it once we’re ready!

  • iddqd404@lemmy.mlEnglish
    8·
    2 months 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!

  • NebLem@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 months ago

    What strategies did you find most successful in earning your NLNet and other grants?

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      5·
      2 months ago

      Perhaps it’s because we explain our vision clearly and have demonstrated that we have kept our promises over the years. But above all, we are very lucky to have them.

  • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
    12·
    2 months 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

    • spv.sh@lemmy.spv.shEnglish
      8·
      2 months ago

      GIGABIT per SECOND?!?!!! i will blow you to mirror my videos once i set up an instance

      eye contact too

    • AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space
      4·
      2 months ago

      Not Framasoft or affiliated with them, but I am running an instance myself. If you have a FQDN and can set up a PeerTube server with federation enabled utilising the bandwith behind it, there are settings to automatically mirror and seed videos from other instances. For example, my server currently has ~300GB which it utilises to automatically pull trending, new and most-watched videos from trusted instances to mirror and seed as a redundancy.

      Setting this up is relatively easy, basically just uncommenting and specifying stuff in a config text file. Besides that you could disable user registrations and anything else, maybe the web interface altogether, and just let it do the mirroring. At least AFAIK, there doesn’t seem to be a way to do this, without setting up PeerTube with Fedaration enabled first, though. But maybe they will provide additional info I haven’t learned yet!

  • JoYo@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    2 months ago

    what are the problems that need solutions for mobile uploads to be supported?

    i do music video production entirely on ipad and have yet to find an aapp that supports mobile uploads. the web UI never seems to complete the upload.

  • pedroapero@lemmy.ml
    13·
    2 months ago

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

      • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
        17·
        2 months ago

        Getting people to stay on the site and watch videos.

        Not as a commercial goal or to sell more ads or whatever, but to try to recommend people the videos they want to see.

        Many open source platforms seem to despise recommendation algorithms because they are often used nefariously (get people emotionally invested aka angry) but they certainly have their uses if used with proper intentions.

        • aim_at_me@lemmy.nzEnglish
          3·
          2 months ago

          Yup. Just to add to your point for passers by. Existing algorithms in big tech organisations generally have 1 goal. Site retention and consequences be damned. Properly utilised, they can be used for good.

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      9·
      2 months ago

      We’re fine on giving people the choice to use the algorithm they want. Today our « Hot » sorting type is using a derivative of Reddit’s old algorithm, but we could add new ones. However, it takes time to focus on this topic, so it’s not a priority.

  • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.eeEnglish
    3·
    2 months ago

    I have been wanting to degoogle for a while and it has been a slow process. But youtube has been a big one for me. In large part because, ironically, I cannot get freetube to work with a VPN. Peertube, sounds better.

  • ddh@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    22·
    2 months ago

    Thank you for developing PeerTube and the new iOS app, I enjoy it very much. You rock!

  • Ademir@lemmy.eco.brEnglish
    9·
    2 months 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?

  • Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee
    441·
    2 months ago

    What is the buffer (in months) that framasoft has when it comes to donations? (Aka, how long can you operate if all sources of funding suddenly dry up)

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      23·
      2 months ago

      As the major part of our income comes from our fundraising campaign at the end of every year, it depends on when you ask this question. So, along the year, we’re operating with something between 3 and 9 months buffer. Of course, we’re lucky to also have monthly donators who help ensure that cash flow does not decline too much.

  • Mazesecle@lemm.eeEnglish
    161·
    2 months 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!

    • a Kendrick fan@lemmy.ml
      68·
      2 months 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
        3·
        2 months 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·
        2 months ago

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

        • Mazesecle@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          2 months 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.

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      38·
      2 months 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·
        2 months 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