For example, I can change my username here on this instance. So long as my email id remains the same, my account is operable.
But GitHub doesn’t allow me to change my username. On top of that, GitHub forces an identifier on you when you create your username.
“Open source” means that the code they used to build software is freely and publicly available. (And more broadly, if any given IP is released to the public.)
It says nothing about how user accounts are managed on a given platform, even if that platform is open source.
For example, I can change my username here on this instance.
Wrong, you can change your display name, but your username must remain the same. If your username is changed by an admin it brakes federation for your account and your posts and comments will only be visible on your local instance.
So what you see is my username or my display name ?
The app I use shows your user name, but if I go to your profile I see both.
Okay, so they’re the same or different ?
Yours are the same, but they can be different.
Okay. Thanks.
“open source” refers to whether you can read the software’s source code, not to whether it has some specific feature.
Open source does not require the inclusion or absence of any specific feature.
Open source is simply licence terms which allows code to be legally modified and redistributed.
It would be entirely possible for the worst piece-of-shit, user-hostile spyware-filled data-snooping DRM-stuffed garbage software to be released as open source - except given the license terms, people would be free to quickly create a variant of it that stripped those anti-features out.
So although open source does not require any given feature, it often correlates with positive ones due to its open nature.
Didn’t get that big paragraph in between :)))
I think they’re just saying that open source doesn’t prevent crappy behavior by the creator. However, because it is open source, capable users can take the code, fix what they don’t like, and release their fixed version under the same license.
I don’t think not being able to change your user name is at the same level of “crappy” as the examples mentioned in that paragraph. However, the point applies: you, or anyone, could take the source code and add the ability to change usernames.
In previous discussions on the subject, I’ve read that the way Lemmy works makes it a very difficult feature to add.
My comment was mostly hoping only to make a generalised point; although open source software often has certain (good) features, simply being open source doesn’t mandate or guarantee any feature at all.
On the username subject in particular then absolutely; an inability to change your username is not the same level of ‘bad’ as things like lock-in or spying. As other commentors have mentioned I’m sure it’s not intentional at all, and simply a consequence of the implementation difficulty with federating that sort of change.
Like the same way you can’t ‘change’ your email address. The email address is your identity - if you want a different one, you need to make a new one.
Being open source has nothing to do with it, it’a more about how they implement the username system. I don’t think Lemmy allows you to change the identifier, only how it’s displayed. Just checked GitHub and they allow you to change your ID as well as your display name.
I applied this feature. But they’re modifying the username that l propose.
Where are you getting the idea that github is open source? GitHub CAN host open source software… and git is open source. GitHub is a website that allows people to upload content… and the source code is not open, and controlled by microsoft.
Now as far as whether usernames are changable on actual opensource websites… that’s also not a given. That’s a matter of if the software chooses to allow it. If the website doesn’t, you are welcome to take the source code, edit the source code to make it possible, and host your own copy of it. But nothing in open source inherently means you have any more control of an open source website that’s hosted outside of your machine/servers than a closed source one.
GitHub = Micro$lop
just in case you did not know
Yup, Codeberg >>
Or Radicle, which is P2P
That’s a nice one. Thanks.
