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Comment by matthberg | Hacker News Reader

Each proposed "free alternative" looks like it comes from the site owner, FramaSoft (example: Google Forms -> FramaForms, Google Maps -> Framacarte).

While I appreciate the efforts to de-centralize the internet, this is more an ad for the company than anything.

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Framasoft is not a Company, it's an Association.

And this website is not an ad, it's a portal to one of their objectives, presenting in a complete way what they propose and support using the tools they've created/adapted.

Association = non-profit organization

The free alternative (without quote, they really are free) are mostly other free software with a FramaSoft branding, in order to make it look like a coherent offering rivaling Google suite.

If you go in the documentation of each software, you will see what project it comes from.

For example, Framabag is Wallabag, Framanotes is Turtl, Framapad is Etherpad, etc...

It's not a rebranding; they're online services based on those projects and hosted by FramaSoft. It's more like WPEngine or Kinsta, which host WordPress for you (except these are free and managed by a non-profit association).

I can't wait for them to release the latest update for FramaWeb (which is just firefox but you call it FramaWeb) to the FramaOS (which is just linux but you call it FramaOS) for my FraMachine (which is just a computer but it's specifically built by this one dude and you call it the FraMachine).

It sounds stupid, but it's actually very useful to unify everything on a single brand instead of having a hard to navigate archipelago of software. You might say it's hypocritical to turn themselves into a vendor, but if that vendor aligns with my values and can be trusted, then I'd be happy to buy a FraMachine with everything you listed because I know there's only quality FOSS software/hardware without spending ages researching and building everything myself.

It sounds stupid, but I'm actually defending the unification of everything on a single brand instead of having a hard to navigate archipelago of software.

More infos at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framasoft

In all fairness, not each alternative: there's often other non-Frama alternatives as well and there are entries without any FramaSoft altermnative at all.

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