Re: First Meeting: 15 December 20:00 UTC

On 9 Dec 2021, at 10:35 pm, hellekin <how@zoethical.com> wrote:
> 
> On 12/9/21 10:45 AM, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>> Hi,
>> You're free to dial into the teleconference without using Zoom -- see the attached numbers.
> 
> You must be kidding me. How did you do before Zoom existed? What changed?

No, I'm not kidding. Before Zoom, it was WebEx, and before that my employer usually provided another effectively proprietary, telephone-based platform for conferencing. I also went to meeting rooms and sat across tables from people, but for some reason haven't done that in quite a while...

Other possibilities:
- Signal: Also proprietary
- Telegram: Also proprietary
- Slack: Also proprietary
- Facebook Messenger: Even I have limits.
- WebRTC: still riddled with interoperability and usability issues, especially with many people and high latency. Also requires a site to host it, which is either proprietary or a maintenance burden.

We could take a poll and try to come to consensus on what tools are least offensive to everyone. I really hope to avoid that, because I have a sense of urgency about our work, and getting bogged down in administrative disputes is not a great way to start.

This group has a *chance* to be effective if it focuses on its output; it has zero chance of making a difference by refusing to use tools based upon a purity test (I guarantee you, Zoom will not notice if we don't use it), and spending our time arguing about this wastes the slim opportunity we have to push towards a world without proprietary technology having a chokehold over communication.

There's also a certain elegance in using the tools now to work against their masters' longer term interests.

So - 

1) hellekin, can you dial into one of the numbers provided? I believe I can generate an invite with local numbers in most any country if necessary.
2) does anyone else have an issue with using Zoom? 

Cheers,


--
Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/

Received on Thursday, 9 December 2021 12:23:54 UTC