Lemmy is software anyone can develop and everyone controls, libre software, which makes it very hard for Lemmy to abuse us. To keep it this way, share the ideas of software freedom.
- Always check its software license: always check it is libre software (video guide here).
- Also avoid service as a software substitute.
- Libre software plus decentralisation [federation or peer-to-peer] is ideal.
- Remember, ‘open source’ misses the point.
If we focus on warning against individual apps, we must repeat our time and effort everytime new malware appears. So, target a common property: its software license.
With proprietary software, we are not the user, we are the used.
You are right. More interesting yet is what happens when we see software changes/forks that introduce partial or full incompatibility, either to the software, or more likely, to the protocol. We’ve seen this happen with hard forks in the crypto currency space, in particular Bitcoin Cash. Those events are quite dramatic, and although painfull in the moment, probably quite healthy for the ecosystem, as it creates community-driven voting in a truly free market.