 So I'm working on the last part of my long-term review of Katie neon and that should be posted in the next couple of days But during any long-term review that I do one of the sections that I focus on is community and support and While I was working on that particular section of this next long-term review I started to think about how hard or impossible it is to get support on Linux anonymously now some people would ask me well, why is this important? Well one of the Cornerstones of using open-source software is that your privacy matters, right? One of the reasons why people use Linux is because they care about their privacy now I am not the biggest privacy advocate on the internet. That's absolutely true my opinion on privacy is always that my privacy is pretty much That horses left the barn simply because I have to use Google for my work and because of that's true Google knows everything about me. So my privacy really doesn't matter all that much But just because I think that's true about my personal privacy Doesn't necessarily mean that everyone does a lot of people are much more privacy conscious than I am so as I was working on the support section of this next review I thought it weird that it's pretty much impossible to do Anything when it comes to asking for support anonymously So if you are going into a form of any kind for any piece of software You have to have an account in order to actually post a question or ask a question If you are going to get support on reddit or discord or telegram or any of that stuff You have to have an account of some kind now just because you have to have an account doesn't mean you have to use Actual information that you know matters to you so you could use a burner email account or whatever That's true but the fact that you have to have an account in the first place means that the Forums and whatever are going to have some piece of information on you whether that's true information or not so My thoughts on this are is just that it's a little weird because for a community that Claims itself to be very privacy focused to have absolutely No way as far as I can think of getting support anonymously is kind of an Oversight that just kind of surprised me and it's weird that I hadn't actually thought of this before now There are probably anonymous ways out there that I'm not aware of or that I don't use so One specific way is probably IRC IRC is going to probably be the best example of an Anonymous way to get support but the problem is that not a lot of people use IRC anymore and Even those that do Aren't necessarily going to cover every project that's out there. You know what I mean most places that offer support for their Software or whatever are going to do so through more modern avenues things like discord or telegram or discourse or something like that and all of those more modern Forum like things Require an account of some kind and obviously the more proprietary you get the more information You're going to have to you know, basically sell in order to join up and ask your questions So if you're just talking about a discourse forum chances are all you'll need is a username email Password and maybe your birth date sometimes they require a birth date But obviously very easy to lie on that stuff But if you only have the available support on something like discord You're going to need a lot more information So you're gonna have to have a verifiable email and all this stuff in order to actually get your support on discord So outside of IRC and outside of just trolling forums without signing in There doesn't seem to be a very good way to get help Anonymously when it comes to open-source software, obviously this goes beyond just open-source software any software in general But I'm just focusing on FOS today. So I just kind of wanted to put this out there It's a little bit of a rambly video because it just it surprised me now the question, of course is What is the solution like what would be my solution if I were to offer an anonymous way to get support for Mythological pieces software that I've developed not a developer. That's why it's myth mythological, but so my Answer would basically be just for people to be allowed to post anonymous content without signing into anything So obviously this opens you up to spam and all that stuff. That's true But it seems to be fairly easy to filter that kind of stuff out with capture or whatever I mean at least one way of filtering that kind of stuff out is capture Another way I would think up to do this would be email like an actual like email support system Now I know what you're saying will met then you have to an email account in order to do that That's no longer anonymous and that's true, but you could use a burner account I suppose Outside of that outside of just letting people post anonymous content and forums or whatever I don't really have a good solution for this and maybe there just isn't a good solution for it And maybe there doesn't even need to be one. Maybe I'm just you know Making mountains out of mohills, but it did seem to be a weird oversight on the part of everyone It just seems like this is something that Maybe should be discussed a little bit more now. Like I said, maybe nobody cares about this and like I said I don't really care. It doesn't affect me or that much But I know that a lot of people are very privacy focused and they may not be comfortable Actually signing up for an account to hop into a forum to ask a question, you know They may not be comfortable getting into IRC if that's the only Anonymous option to get help. Maybe they aren't interested in getting into IRC or it's too difficult for them because IRC is not the easiest thing To get into especially if you're a new user So, you know, there are hurdles there that are making things more complicated than they need to be So it's a very sticky situation You know trying to get support and not have to give out at least some information now There is the whole thing where you can at least for the most part trust that the open source developer that you're Dealing with if you do have to sign up for account isn't going to sell your information That's a silver lining at least you don't have to worry about that that being said, of course People aren't always necessarily the most trustworthy even in the open source community So, you know and data leaks happen no matter whether the stuff's open source or not So, you know this idea that there's just no real good way of Dealing anonymously and getting support at the same time. It's just something that I started thinking about So if you have thoughts on this you can leave those in the comment section below I'd love to hear from you. Maybe there's something that I've just overlooked, you know I've been in the links community now for five years or so and I don't know everything I'll be The most honest person ever I don't know everything I never have claimed to know everything and it's possible that I'm just completely blanking on something that is that would solve this problem But I just didn't think about it. So comments in the comment section below I'd love to hear from you. You can follow me on Twitter at the Linux caster as we're calling it now Elon Twitter I suppose I'm still there. I haven't left completely You can follow me on mass and our Odyssey. Those are more obviously open platforms Those links will be in the video description You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash the Linux cast just like all these fine people Thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon and YouTube you guys are all Absolutely amazing people without you the channel just would not be anywhere near where it is right now. So thank you y'all so Very very much. Thank you all for watching. I'll see you next time