The reason road trains exist is to make trucks more efficient than normal trucks by transporting in bulk - instead of carrying the weight of multiple trucks + cargo, it’s only one big truck. More efficient, and therefore cheaper.

Rail is even more efficient than road trains at transporting in bulk from region to region, as they don’t waste energy on friction, and are even better at carrying in bulk. Road trains don’t exist in most countries because they usually have rail to take its place, trucks have their niche in the first and last legs within small regions. After all, moving a truck across regions is less efficient (and therefore more expensive to do).

The only form of transport more efficient than freight trains are cargo ships, which can’t go inland. There’s a reason mining companies often build their own freight railways to transport between mine and port.

Australia is finishing a build of Inland Rail, a rail freight corridor right now. I’d hardly call it dead when we are expanding the rail network. Admittedly the initial build is over budget, but the initial build is always the most expensive part.

I just appreciate that they prevent flies.

Well, you certainly made me feel much more optimistic, thank you.

I suppose you’re right that copyleft is not the primary motivator for contributions.

I’m aware that forks happen often when a takeover is attempted. There are many big success stories in FOSS. However, my point was that most FOSS software isn’t that successful. There are plenty of projects out there with very few contributors, and it is those I’m saying are easy for taking over. Perhaps they get taken over because most of the community doesn’t care, but it still happens from time to time. I originally commented because you seemed to make out that proprietisation was impossible.

I get your point that it’s incredibly unlikely for anything that matters however.

Edit: I think I misremembered an example I gave of a successful fork after an attempted takeover, but it was something Oracle.

I suppose it’s true that neither would have been called feature complete by its authors, proprietisation is much more likely when there is still a lot missing. But I would still caution against thinking that having all the features you need means you’re immune to it.

Sorry, I didn’t explain what I was talking about.

The problem is that in the modern software environment there’s a constant need for updating and patching, and if a proprietary fork provides those updates and a free original can’t keep up for whatever reason, the proprietary fork (that could have contributed otherwise) gains inertia until the free original dies. This is admittedly harder to pull off in a mature and well maintained free software ecosystem, but I think you’d be surprised how many important free software projects lack needed manpower. It doesn’t help that MIT practically encourages people not to publish code, compared to GPL.

People make out forking like it’s a big protection against proprietisation, and it is, but it’s not foolproof. Good forks are usually founded by community members that already understand and contribute to the code, most forks actually die quickly. The fewer contributors relative to the project’s size and complexity, the more realistic it is to either be overtaken by a more competitive proprietary fork, or for the maintainers to sell out and relicense without anybody to fork it.

Realistically, I don’t know how likely this would happen to anything decently important, but it has happened at least a few times. I remember using Paint .NET while it was still MIT licensed years back, but nobody forked it. Since we’re on Lemmy, Reddit used to use a Free software license.

Code complete is arguably a myth when talking about security. You need to update when vulnerabilities are found at minimum. Sometimes, the changing software environment changes and so the software has to start adding features again or get replaced. Rarely old features are the vulnerability, and have to be removed.

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I do agree with that, I suppose we probably disagree with the speed reforms can take then.

What would you say are limiting factors on our ability to build then, if you think reducing immigration won’t significantly reduce housing construction?

Why do you say immigration a lever to pull but not the factors limiting construction?

You seem to be under the impression that we will just magically build and build if people are gone, but that’s not realistic. My point was that reducing immigration would significantly cut the number of houses built under the current housing market. We may be building too few homes now, but I doubt much at all will be built after cutting immigration either.

The problem is not that we have a housing market that’s too big, it’s that we have a broken market. Housing entering the market in this country may be insufficient when demand is high, but it’s straight up not entering the market where demand is low, and housing prices are higher than ever everywhere. We need to figure out why the market is broken and fix that if we even want so see housing prices stabilise for an extended period, let alone fall. Reducing immigration is a distraction at best.

Some people I know who supported the march do so because they’re upset at the upcoming spare/unused bedroom tax, which aims to bring more homes on the market to lower prices. They don’t care about housing people, they care about profit.

I’m also not convinced cutting immigration would help at all when it would only discourage construction, which is already below what’s needed to support birthrate + people moving in from rural areas. Immigration isn’t the cause of the crisis, so cutting it isn’t the solution.

Fortunately cash is still a common option in Australia (and I’m here), and likely will remain so for a long time. However, I’m increasingly hearing that other countries are increasingly refusing to accept cash.

It’s probably best to get something working on Linux phones before it’s too late, but as you said Google is worse than a thief, so whatever is made should not use it. Best to maximise the freedom for people in a horrible future, lest Android or iOS ever become the only viable options. Problem being I don’t know how that would work, especially since banks would probably hate freedom respecting systems.

I agree basic functionality is higher priority, but I fear tap to pay will reach basic functionality status in some other countries when their banks phase out any alternative. (I don’t think cryptocurrencies will ever become common). It may not directly impact me that other countries phase them out, but it will gradually kill the Linux phone ecosystem.

That’s fair, I’m quite happy on Graphene OS.

I feel like you’re conflating some things here. Tap to pay is more private and secure than a bank card, and is more private than most cryptocurrencies. Cash is obviously better, but it is increasingly looking like it might be phased out of some places eventually (I really hope not, but is a legitimate concern). However, you are right that it’s not open source and relies on trusting big companies that don’t like user freedom.

So I would say that some of the people using tap to pay don’t necessarily not care about privacy more than convenience. Some of them just want to be able to use money in places where cash is dying out.

I don’t use tap to pay personally.

Depending on what bank they have, tap to pay won’t work with Graphene OS either.

I don’t think that’s the issue with tap to pay. Linux already works with NFC, the issue is banks and payment apps.

I imagine some parasites would benefit from being delicious.