Taking Free Software development beyond developers - story of Prav and DEPHCOM

Free Software always focused on users right to adapt the software to their needs. But in practice majority of users never gets a say in the development direction or priorities. At best they benefit indirectly when their needs are in alignment with developers.

Many times developers look at the technical aspects, like developing a software in their favorite programming language or framework or rewriting an existing software in a new programming language or framework or a technology that helps in their resumes.

When users request features many times they don’t get a priority. There is also a tension when users demand specific features from volunteers. The other model is when businesses sponsor development, in those case the focus is on feature that can make more money for the company. Sometimes there is a crowd funding campaign for specific features which users can contribute to.

To bridge this gap in expectation between users and developers, we are trying out a different strategy in two projects - Prav and DEPHCOM.

In Prav, we want users to prioritize features of their messaging app while not compromising on privacy. We are also organizing the messaging infrastructure as a cooperative fully owned by users and operated democratically. Cooperative leadership is elected by members for a fixed term. This way the focus is always on privacy of the users and not in making profit from personal data collection. This also provides users a feeling of ownership and confidence in the platform. Messaging platforms that are not dependent on a single entity is crucial for our privacy and self reliance. More details at https://prav.app

DEPHCOM - There are many people Free Software users who want to be able to daily drive Debian on their mobile phones as well. There are some options already which covers basics but misses many basic things people come to expect or are used to in their android or iphones. Many times developers are using it because of strong Free Software philosophy and they are ok to use terminal at times, do manual toggle of settings, carry a power bank to extend battery life, ok with no working camera or bluetooth etc. This project includes Debian derivatives focused on Mobile like Mobian, PureOS (currently needs custom patches not yet merged in mainline kernel), FuriOS or Droidian (needs an android kernel and only user space is taken from Debian). Breaking away from duopoly of Google and Apple in smart phone operating systems is crucial for our privacy and self reliance. More details at https://codema.in/dephcom

In both projects, users get to propose bugs or missing features that are important to daily drive a phone or a messaging app. Then we create a poll from the proposed bugs or missing features to find top priority/most popular requests. Once most popular requests are identified, we then setup a bounty on Open Collective and look for Free Software developers or freelancers to develop the feature.

A successful example of users funding a priority feature https://opencollective.com/bifrost-mam

Ongoing projects that users prioritized and funded https://opencollective.com/prav-ios and https://opencollective.com/dephcom/projects/pipewire-echo

1. Users should have an important role in deciding the direction of a Free Software project

2. Prav and DEPHCOM are two experiments in giving users the primary role in deciding the direction of a Free Software project.

3. Messaging Platforms and Smart Phone Operating Systems play a crucial role in our privacy and self reliance. We need to involve ourselves in these projects to save ourselves from getting locked to specific projects driven by collecting personal data for profits.