Bonjour, c/opensource@lemmy.ml!

Framasoft (that’s us!) is a small French non-profit (10 employees + 25 volunteers), that has been promoting Free-Libre software and its culture to a French-speaking audience for 20+ years.

What does Framasoft do?

We strongly believe that Free-Libre software is one of the essential tools for achieving a Free-Libre society. That is why we maintain and contribute to lots of projects that aim to empower people to get more freedom in their digital lives.

Among those tools are:

  • 20 FOSS based web-services that we host (mainly for our French-speaking audience) on our Degooglify Internet website, including Framadate and Framaforms… ;
  • many talks, workshops, and participations to conventions ;
  • A blog, where we share our views and where a group of volunteers translate into French news from the English-speaking FLOSS world ;
  • Many, many ressources to help people and organizations in their transition to ethical digital tools (guides, documentation, even card games!) ;

Framasoft is funded by donations (94% of our 2024 budget), mainly grassroots donations (75% of the 2024 budget). As we mainly communicate in French, the overwhelming majority of our donations comes from the French-speaking audience. You can help us through joinpeertube.org/contribute.

We develop PeerTube

In the English-speaking community, we are mostly known for developing PeerTube, a self-hosted video and live-streaming free/libre platform, which has become the main alternative to Big Tech’s video platforms.

From a student project to a software with international reach, our video platform solution is now, seven years later, used and acknowledged by many institutions!

The last major version of PeerTube, v7, has been released at the end of 2024, along with the first version of the official mobile app, available on both Android (Play Store, F-Droid) and iOS.

Now that the PeerTube platform has matured significantly over successive versions, we believe that the way to enable even more people to use PeerTube is to improve the mobile app so that it can be carried around in people’s pockets.

Ask Us Anything!

Last month, we have published the roadmap for the project. This week, we also launched our new crowdfunding campaign which focuses on our mobile app. We want to give you the opportunity through this AMA to give us feedback on the product and the project and discuss the crowdfunding campaign and our next steps!

If you have any questions, please ask them below (and upvote those you want us to answer first).

We will answer them to the best of our abilities with the /u/Framasoft account, from May. 28th 2025 5pm CET (11 am EST) until we are too tired ;).

EDIT (8:16 pm CET): This wraps it for the day, thanks for all of your questions and feedback!

  • Angel Mountain@feddit.nl
    42·
    16 days ago

    I love the idea that stuff should be free, but at the moment we do live a capitalist society and hosting videos especially is a costly enterprise.

    I am wondering therefore whether there are any plans to provide options for content creators (and server hosters) to make money with videos on peertube (other than including advertisements in the videos)?

    I think Peertube can never grow when content creators do have the costs of creating, hosting and serving their videos, while at the same time not having a good way to earn money back for their work.

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      26·
      16 days ago

      Monetization is a complicated and potentially sensitive topic that we have not yet addressed. However, this is not the only reason why YouTube is in its dominant position; even with monetization, the network effect of this platform will always remain.

      PeerTube today meets the demand for video hosting (e.g., the market where Vimeo is positioned), but is not really a distribution channel with social features like YouTube.

      While our goal is not to provide a definitive answer to this shortcoming, we are considering possibilities for integration with third-party payment or subscription platforms (such as Patreon) to make it easy to restrict videos to subscribers, for example. That’s something we’re thinking of, but is very far from being done.

      Finally, there is already the Bunseed project (website exclusively in French, sorry) which is looking into this issue and has a prototype based on Ghost (publishing, subscription, email) + PeerTube + payment platform (such as Stripe).

      • julianwgs@discuss.tchncs.de
        4·
        15 days ago

        My opinion: Figuring monetization out while keeping most of your audience happy will be the most important step to be a viable alternative to YouTube. Big YouTubers like LinusTechTips, Corridor Digital or something like Nebula already have their own service, because it is worth it to have fewer people pay more. Sadly everyone of them develops their own solution which are not interoperable. Are you in the talks with anyone to migrate to PeerTube backend? I think this would be such a gamechanger.

      • wiki_me@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        15 days ago

        Maybe a survey can disprove my opinion. but i would argue the option of having ads plus paying for the ability to remove ads is something most users would accept (even if there is a vocal minority). especially if you explain that researching and developing some forms of content (documentaries, video courses, investigative journalism) can take dozen of hours and is not feasible to do without getting paid when aiming for the highest quality.

        That could be better then just restricting videos (mitra could also be a open source alternative to patreon).

    • NebLem@lemmy.world
      16·
      16 days ago

      Not Framasoft, but here’s a few ideas on monetizing:

      The software allows you to post a “Support” button under the video with links for donations, etc. It also allows you to upload platform member only (internal) and password protected videos that you could charge access via another means to unlock.

      Plugins can be added by admins to add monetization more directly as well. For example https://github.com/kontrollanten/peertube-plugin-premium-users is an attempt adds the ability to have premium videos with Stripe as the payment processor/verifier.

      Admins can also soft fork and add in whatever customizations to enable monetization too as long as they adhere to the AGPL terms.

  • Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee
    411·
    16 days ago

    What is the buffer (in months) that framasoft has when it comes to donations? (Aka, how long can you operate if all sources of funding suddenly dry up)

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      28·
      16 days ago

      As the major part of our income comes from our fundraising campaign at the end of every year, it depends on when you ask this question. So, along the year, we’re operating with something between 3 and 9 months buffer. Of course, we’re lucky to also have monthly donators who help ensure that cash flow does not decline too much.

  • Meldrik@lemmy.wtf
    37·
    16 days ago

    Have you considered implementing Librapay into PeerTube? Would be a nice tool for viewers to fast and easily support content creators.

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      26·
      16 days ago

      We have a support button that can be shown on videos to provide instructions on how to support a channel (for instance with Liberapay). I don’t know what you had in mind that would the integration would be like, but please share it on https://ideas.joinpeertube.org/. Most probably it could be solved through a simple plugin.

  • sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al
    30·
    16 days ago

    First of all, thanks for doing this.

    Secondly, the friction of using PeerTube is more than any other application within the Fediverse. Even subscribing doesn’t follow a sane UX with the button randomly appearing at the bottom of the screen. Do you not think that mirroring something closer to the YouTube UX would minimise friction?

    Thirdly, can you please create a tool that will scrape my YouTube subscriptions and look for their PeerTube channels, so I actually have a reason to open the app. Finding content is still really really really hard.

  • Meldrik@lemmy.wtf
    251·
    16 days ago

    One thing that might get more content creators on PeerTube could be “advertising” as not just a video platform, but also a backup service.

    I’m guessing most content creators have their original video and video project files backed up somewhere. Why not have the ability to use PeerTube for that?

    You can already have PeerTube store the original video file, when you upload it, something YouTube can’t do.

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      10·
      16 days ago

      That’s an idea (and some content creators kind of already do that if YouTube unpublishes their video for some reason), but it’s not very selling as an idea. Being independent from fake companies claiming the rights to some content is a selling point, though.

    • Vegafjord eo@lemmy.ml
      31·
      16 days ago

      Id be against advertising on peertube, advertising is to mighten overproducers to overgrip peertube inhold. Inhold should rather be made on the grounds of the meaningful, and design should eyen how to forward the meaningful.

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      17·
      16 days ago

      Sadly no, right now we don’t really have the time to approach these types of organizations and try to make partnerships. However, there is the possibility for a hosting provider offering PeerTube as a solution to contact them and make them a complete offer.

  • ddh@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    23·
    16 days ago

    Thank you for developing PeerTube and the new iOS app, I enjoy it very much. You rock!

  • spacemanspiffy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23·
    16 days ago

    I write closed source, proprietary code for a living.

    That makes me sad.

    Have your developers any advice on how to get paid to write Free Software?

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      27·
      16 days ago

      Our developers were writing Free Software on their free time before they got hired, because Framasoft knew them through their free-time productions, but obviously not everybody can do that, and we’ve very lucky to have an economic model which allows us to pay developers properly.

      • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
        11·
        16 days ago

        I have a friend that does this.

        They’re right. First build an amazing profile contributing to Foss. Then apply for grants. If you don’t like writing grants, get a part time job doing evil closed code and another part time doing Foss.

  • AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space
    22·
    16 days ago

    As I’m German (from near the French border, even, but unfortunately, not speaking even just basic French), and Germany is also relatively big on the Fediverse and the open source/hacker communities, I’ve often wondered, if there are (official) cooperations between German and French activists. Does Framasoft (or individual members of it) participate in anything like that?

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      12·
      16 days ago

      I don’t think we have been. Thing is, we do not know of many organizations that are identical to us in other countries: we’re not really a Linux or FLOSS group, and we don’t lobby governments or other institutions. In some ways, we’re similar to Disroot which also offers services as we do, but since we do quite a lot of other stuff (developing PeerTube, producing commons, sharing knowledge, and we even have a publishing house!)

      Even if we have been working with a lot of partners, most of them are French and on very specific topics.

      If people want to join forces on the FLOSS-software-hosting services topic, maybe look into something similar to the (very french) CHATONS (and possibly https://libreho.st/, but it’s no longer active to our knowledge).

      On the topic of contributing to develop things together, we’re not doing much apart from PeerTube (we only have two developers, and both are working nearly fully on PeerTube).

      • andypiper@lemmy.world
        131·
        16 days ago

        hi from the Mastodon team, we’d love to work more closely with you in the future on Fediverse and freedom related topics 🙂 also, I am personally a big fan of PeerTube, and think the work you do is fantastic! 🐙

        • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
          10·
          16 days ago

          Hi!

          Thank you so much for your kind words!

          Feel free to send us a message through our contact form whenever you want to talk about a specific topic! We’re always interested to talk with other Fediverse project so we can try to provide softwares!

          https://contact.framasoft.org/en/

          We hope to hear from you soon!

      • AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space
        4·
        16 days ago

        Thank you for the answer, that makes a lot of sense. I think the very unique structure and goals you have developed have served you well, since PeerTube might be one of the best fleshed-out projects in the Fediverse space, at least in my opinion.

      • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
        7·
        16 days ago

        I believe they have their own player already, so unsure what would be their direct interest, but the PeerTube ecosystem could be useful to them anyway. For instance there’s a big French institution that uses PeerTube runner for their video transcription tasks (and paid for specific features), but doesn’t use the PeerTube server or player at all.

        • enemenemu@lemm.ee
          1·
          15 days ago

          That is a good question to which I have to direct answer I guess.

          arte is a media producer and server at the same time. Peertube provides the fundament for serving videos. To me it sounds like there should be a big overlap.

          arte already has build their system but let’s think big and long term, not only one year ahead. Arte could use a peertube backend (with extra steps) and focus on what they do best, producing content. By adjust peertube to their needs, other broadcasters could use it as well and many would profit. The broadcasters could easily share selected media with others, making the services interconnected. The user wouldn’t need many accounts for France Télévisions, ARD and others. The user wouldn’t need 5 apps for the same type of media.

      • sapetoku@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        16 days ago

        Copyright law would be in the way, Arte content is only available in France, Germany and parts of Switzerland. I have to use a VPN to even get their youtube videos, which are otherwise geofenced.

  • Killercat103@slrpnk.netEnglish
    22·
    16 days ago

    Have you guys considered making a way for content creators to monetize their content? I am not one myself but I realize it’s often a source of income they depend on and would be willing to use money to see such content myself.

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      14·
      16 days ago

      We’re fine on giving people the choice to use the algorithm they want. Today our « Hot » sorting type is using a derivative of Reddit’s old algorithm, but we could add new ones. However, it takes time to focus on this topic, so it’s not a priority.

      • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
        21·
        16 days ago

        Getting people to stay on the site and watch videos.

        Not as a commercial goal or to sell more ads or whatever, but to try to recommend people the videos they want to see.

        Many open source platforms seem to despise recommendation algorithms because they are often used nefariously (get people emotionally invested aka angry) but they certainly have their uses if used with proper intentions.

        • aim_at_me@lemmy.nzEnglish
          5·
          15 days ago

          Yup. Just to add to your point for passers by. Existing algorithms in big tech organisations generally have 1 goal. Site retention and consequences be damned. Properly utilised, they can be used for good.

  • Ludrol@szmer.info
    16·
    16 days ago

    Thanks for your work. I have two questions:

    1. Will the set-up wizzard include federation settings? (Federate by default or defederate by default)?

    2. What are current plans for FramaDate? That was the only usable project for scheduling TTRPG sessions that I have found, but it has a bunch of issues on mobile.

    • Framasoft@lemmy.worldOP
      5·
      16 days ago

      Hi!

      1. The wizard is still not designed, but yes we think it will include federation settings so it’s easier for institutions or private instances to setup a “safe” PeerTube instance.

      2. We’re actually evaluating alternative softwares for Framadate, with mobile support as a required feature. We’ll tell more about it once we’re ready!