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@cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family

Post #2551658

2024-03-15 19:48 UTC

I just saw that Mozilla is retiring the Mozilla Location Service which provides an open, crowdsourced alternative to proprietary location services from Google and other vendors. 😰 https://github.com/mozilla/ichnaea/issues/2065 This is used by GNOME and thus Fedora, Ubuntu, Endless OS, etc. to help provide OS-level location services without requiring every app to implement its own. And apparently a patent troll is part of the reason Mozilla stopped investing in it. 🙃 #OpenSource #Linux #GNOME #Mozilla

Replies (17)

  • @sesivany@floss.social 2024-03-15 20:08

    @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family This is sad news indeed. I wonder if it'd make sense to run the service under a different umbrella, perhaps as a joint effort of multiple open source projects. I think there would be demand.

    Open ##3148819

  • @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family j'ai juste installé mon nouveau téléphone sous #lineageos samedi dernier et - seul #mozillalocationservice ne voulait pas s'activer.... Signe du destin ou bien #mls était déjà éteint ? Mauvaise nouvelle de plus pour les alternatives libres: 1 pas en avant, et tellement de pas en arrière. Seuls nos contributions financières volontaires sauveront notre liberté.

    Open ##3148821

  • @schm43cky@metalhead.club 2024-03-15 20:24

    @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family Oh, this is on very short notice. "To minimize disruptions and allow people time to make alternative arrangements, we have created a schedule that implements the retirement in stages." Three months to go? I don't know, not that much time...

    Open ##3148824

  • @gnomelibre@mamot.fr 2024-03-15 20:24

    @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family However complete a map may be, it loses its value if we can't pinpoint our own position. That's why this project should be taken over by #OpenStreetMap. For me, it's the equivalent of the famous "You are here" on a map 😁 @openstreetmap@en.osm.town @osm_fr@fr.osm.social

    Open ##3148830

  • @zeenix@toot.cat 2024-03-15 20:30

    @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family this is part of the reason I lost interest in maintaining geoclue. This was announced a while ago though so it's no news to me but even before the retirement was announced, MLS had been more or less unmaintained for several years. Geoclue will be unreliable and inaccurate as hell w/o this service on most computers out there. Very very sad. :(

    Open ##3148840

  • @csolisr@hub.azkware.net 2024-03-15 20:32

    @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family And the only alternatives we still have are... sigh... Apple and Google. Between this and the patent troll, something tells me that this might be at least partially pre-planned to hinder open-source applications

    Open ##3148842

  • @heschy@mastodon.social 2024-03-15 21:06

    @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family Not only GNOME relies on it: /e/OS also uses it, and other non-Google Android Version probably too 😐

    Open ##3148843

  • @mikedev@fediversity.site 2024-03-15 21:19

    They always place me at Telstra headquarters in downtown Sydney no matter where I am in Australia, so I for one would be happy to have anything that was actually useful. I'm sympathetic about the patent trolls though and sad  that we don't seem to have any open alternatives.

    Open ##3148845

  • @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family Wow, that caught me by surprise.. 😞

    Open ##3148846

  • @oktavimark@moe.onl 2024-03-15 22:34

    @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family mozilla is so fucked After firing many people in favor to implement AI bullshit into firefox Now this.

    Open ##3148847

  • @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family CC @e_mydata@mastodon.social

    Open ##3148850

  • @linuxjj@mastodon.social 2024-03-16 01:12

    @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family OK, we're utterly fucked now.

    Open ##3148851

  • @gidepi@rebased.social 2024-03-16 01:29

    @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family Next Mozilla browser. I can barely remember the good old times when Mozilla was the number one.

    Open ##3148869

  • @decathorpe@mastodon.social 2024-03-16 12:00

    @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family I had noticed the quality of the service decline in recent years ... GNOME / firefox always put my location hundreds of miles away from where I actually am (though at least still in the correct country) ... still, sad to see it go

    Open ##3148870

  • @techokami@woof.tech 2024-03-17 00:18

    @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family patent trolls need to get bent

    Open ##3148874

  • @kevinrns@mstdn.social 2024-03-17 20:35

    @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family Geoclue is working and being developed. My distro uses it. https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/geoclue/geoclue/-/wikis/home

    Open ##3148875

  • @whynothugo@fosstodon.org 2024-04-02 08:52

    @cassidy@mastodon.blaede.family This is quite disappointing. I really hope we can run a substitute server in another jurisdiction with more sensible legislation. BTW: Apparently this patent troll is a Qualcomm subsidiary.

    Open ##3148878